The handle finished its turn and the booth door backed an inch on its own breath. Sound blankets sighed. Rita did not move. Boone did not move. The red tally above the lens kept its cat-eye on.
Evan Hale filled the doorway like a decision. Not a grand entrance - a man-shaped pause that rooms learn to understand. Jacket open, chain at his throat, eyes that read the space before they read the people.
Vivian stood half a step behind his shoulder with two assistants like small, patient weather systems. One held a tablet. The other held a smile that wanted to be instructions.
"Off the record, for the record," Vivian said, almost cheerful. "We are all professionals. Ten seconds of friendly proximity and I can buy us a week of good weather."
Boone's voice didn't get bigger. "Credential." He didn't look at Evan. He looked at Vivian's assistants the way a door looks at knockers.
"Relax," Vivian said. She showed the color bar on her lanyard without showing humility. "We have a brand deliverable and a Single-Heartthrob clause that loves us when we cooperate."
Rita's phone glowed once against her chest like a life jacket. "Caption window still live for forty seconds," she said to the air. "We have the rule sheet in frame. We have a line on tape."
Evan's eyes flicked to the X on the floor where the cushion shadow told on past water. Then to the red tally. Then to me.
I didn't step on the X. He didn't step into the frame.
"Evening," he said, for me only.
"Work," I said.
"Work," he agreed.
Vivian's assistant tilted the tablet a degree like a priest raising an icon. PROMPT: soft-launch shone in a font that thinks itself kind. A ghosted mockup below it showed two outlines in a booth doorway, faces near, caption: no labels, just chemistry.
"Ten seconds," Vivian repeated. "No labels. Just chemistry."
"No unannounced intimacy," I said.
"No humiliation," Evan added. He said it gently, like a man telling a dog to leave the sock.
Vivian's smile acquired a stainless-steel interior. "You both know your morals clause reads nicer when you play."
"Caption window," Rita said, eyes never leaving the timer. "Thirty-one."
"I'll take paper over weather," Evan said. "Send me the copy. I'll give you a solo statement about 'respecting colleagues' and 'gratitude to the team.' No photos."
The nearer assistant made a little note with her stylus the way accountants praise a digit. The farther assistant's tablet brightened again. PROMPT: handhold at threshold.
Boone's weight shifted. The prompt lost interest in existing.
Vivian breathed through her nose like a person who trusts their Pilates to get them to the other side of disappointment. "Evan," she said, warm, "you understand the Single-Heartthrob architecture. It lives or dies on plausible availability. Your morals clause includes cooperation with brand activations. We can do this the easy way or the expensive one."
Evan did not look at her when he answered. He looked at the little square of X on the floor that asks people to tell on themselves. "The expensive way ends jobs," he said. "We don't end jobs."
"We end a photo," I said. "We keep a sentence."
Rita's phone hummed. "Aisha: paper ready," she said, translating the vibration to nouns. "Sending no humiliation, caption window. Five clauses. Two exhibits. Consent spelled correctly."
Victor, still in the notch by the rack, kept a cable between two fingers like a prayer bead. He did not speak. He had done perfect work; the red light had seen it. Now he did the part of good work where you keep your body from becoming a story.
"Ten seconds," Vivian tried again, because ritual matters. "No labels."
I lifted my hand to my cuff and let the fabric learn the shape of curled. "No," I said. "Names, not vibes."
Evan half-smiled, the kind that does not travel beyond cheekbone. "Names are expensive tonight," he said, soft. "Let's buy verbs."
Vivian let the friendly go. She reached for competent. It fits her better. "Deliverable then," she said. "You will both be in the same camera geometry within twenty-four hours. Wide frame permitted. No touching required."
Rita glanced at Boone and then at me. She did not nod. She does not nod when she means yes. "We can live with wide under conditions," she said. "One: no humiliation. Two: caption window six minutes. Three: consent on record. Four: no unannounced intimacy."
"Five," I said. "Advise, not interfere. No prompt asking us to eat another woman."
Vivian inhaled. Let it go. Took it back. "Done," she said, though her mouth spelled later. "But if you decline soft-launch now, you owe me later deliverable on schedule."
"Schedule requires paper," Evan said. "Send it."
The assistant pinged a document across an invisible bridge only assistants can see. Rita's screen blinked white and then quiet. "Received," she said. "Stamped."
"Lovely," Vivian said, which is a word people use when they wish they had claws.
A voice from the corridor tried to be oil. Nolan had never learned to whisper without making the air smell like him. "Off record," he told nobody. "America loves accidents."
Boone said, "Credential." Air became chair again.
Evan stepped half a foot inside the door - not into the light, not onto the X. He looked at me, not like a man looking for permission, but like a man checking the load on a beam.
"You good," he asked.
"Working," I said.
His mouth made a line that understood work is a way to be human. He kept his eyes on mine and spoke as if he were quoting a manual we both respected. "No humiliation," he said. "Caption window."
"No unannounced intimacy," I said. "Advise, not interfere."
Vivian's phone buzzed. Her face put on weather again. She tilted the screen just enough for her assistants to repent their budgets. "We have Serena in position," she said lightly. "She can walk past this doorway at a distance and smile. No touch. Later deliverable achieved."
"Put a wide on it," Rita said. "And log no consent for closers."
"She is happy to be kind," Vivian said, and made kind rhyme with useful.
Evan didn't move his head. Only his voice changed angle. "She shouldn't pay for our nouns," he said.
Vivian's smile was very good. "She is paid for everyone's nouns," she said.
I let my eyes flick to the red tally and back to Evan. We are animals who look to light when we need to know where stories live. The light still watched me; it did not yet own him.
"Twenty-four hours," Vivian repeated. "Wide. No touch. Caption window. Yes."
"Yes," Rita said, because you always say yes to the version you would have written anyway.
Evan turned his head a fraction toward the hallway where Serena's orbit would pass and then back to me. "I will not be anyone's alibi," he said. "But I will not be their weather either."
"Then be their clock," I said.
He smiled for exactly one tooth. "Always am."
Rita's phone tapped her palm with a calendar tone. Her eyes cut left, right, back. "Paper sent to Aisha," she said. "Later deliverable logged with conditions. Serena protected on wide."
Vivian's assistants both breathed like people who had put a lid on soup. Nolan tried to sidle into the steam. Boone closed the pot.
Victor raised his hand two centimeters toward me. "Mic still on," he said.
"Good," I said. "We should do clean exits on audio."
Vivian's voice smoothed. "Evan," she said. "We're due on Stage B for a brand check-in. Walk me."
Evan did not step back yet. He kept the door his width. He kept his eyes on me. Not romance. Mechanics. A beam and a beam keeping a roof from telling lies about gravity.
"Tell me where to be," he said, soft like a private noun placed on a public shelf.
"Where the wide is," I said. "And where the caption window reads."
He nodded once, like a man taking a half-step into a river he knew the temperature of. He turned his head to Vivian.
"Get me the address," he said.
Vivian's polite smile acquired a pen. "Sent," she said, which is a verb that thinks it is a crown.
Boone eased the door wider by one polite inch. The hallway made room. Serena's laugh touched the air once from down the line, real and professional. A handler said a name we didn't borrow.
Evan stepped backward into the corridor without turning his back on the red light. He did not offer a hand. He offered a rule by the shape of his shoulders.
"Later deliverable," Vivian repeated, all silk. "Thank you for your cooperation."
Evan's eyes came back to me one more time. They did not ask. They confirmed.
"Stand by," he said.
I held the curled hand and the rule sheet in my pocket and let the booth remember it was a room, not a mouth.
Rita's phone tapped twice with Aisha's judgment. Boone's presence poured the corridor into a calmer glass.
Evan touched the chain at his throat with a thumb like a man checking for a splinter he did not intend to keep. Then he leveled his voice at Vivian without making it a weapon.
"Paper first," he said. "Then people."
Vivian's smile said, Always, when I say so.
He stepped away.
The red tally watched me until the door settled against the stop and the handle returned to the neutral position of objects that have earned a rest.