The elevator gave us back to the light and the light had microphones. Lobby sound skimmed our shoes. The hedge waited, green and professional. One camera found neutral. The host stood where decent men stand when the red eye is about to open.
"Window on replay," Vivian said into Rita's ear. "Confirmed."
Rita held the card at sternum height where truth lives. It glowed like a small shield. Aisha's word still sat in my hearing like a posted notice: approved.
The floor manager drew a circle low with two fingers. "We toss live in five," they said. "Education slate after."
Boone walked the air, half a step to each seam, and the seams decided to be polite. The press pen found its pen-ness and did not spill yet.
The host looked at us, not past us. "You good," he asked, human volume.
"Good," I said.
"Good," Evan said.
"Hands visible," Boone reminded the minute.
We put our palms where rooms could see them. In the chrome of the elevator door we looked like two truths.
"Three," the floor said. "Two. One."
The tally went red and committed.
"Welcome back," the host said, smile steady. "There's been a 'values' post on brand socials. To keep it clean we're using our window and education slate. Maya?"
The replay board put the window plate up left. Our square sat right under it: incident number and the dry fact. The hedge watched and didn't blink.
"An index isn't a record," I said. "If you see a screenshot, check seal, date, docket. No seal, no story. And please don't harass clerks."
He nodded toward Evan, no eyebrows, no bait. "Evan."
"I haven't consented to romantic staging today," Evan said, voice even. "If you see it, it's editing, not my consent. We'll speak when there is consent on record."
A crawl tried to dress itself in 'mutual' for half a heartbeat. Standards' hand came down on it like a lid. The window plate swelled a hair. The crawl learned humility.
"Thank you," the host said. "And now six words: seal, date, docket - or no story."
He didn't force a smile. He let the words be a roof.
Nolan's voice lanced the stillness from the press pen. "If there's no record, what is there," he called, as if curiosity were a credential.
"Credential," Boone said without turning his head. Nolan's mouth discovered civic education.
The red eye stayed red. The lens widened to the wide we had paid for with rules. Three feet of air between our bodies read as room, not rumor.
Heat still threaded that air like a melody. The mirror in the elevator door remembered it. My fingers drifted toward Evan's hand, slow and obvious. He turned his palm up under the movement, offering, not asking. I looked at him.
"Okay," he murmured, so small only consent could hear it.
"Okay," I said, to the same god.
Our fingers found each other in the wide. Not lace, not claim. A plain interlace at hip height, visible, undecorated, label on screen reading Consent on Record. A kind of sentence people can read without being told how to feel.
Vivian's voice came as weather that has decided to be useful. "Hearts spike," she said, "but the plate holds. Keep breathing."
The host gave us a human beat, then landed it. "Back after the break," he said. "Be kind to clerks."
"Cut," the floor said. The tally cooled and the red eye forgave us.
Air exhaled so quietly the hedge seemed to tilt. The replay board kept the window in its corner as if it had learned pride.
"Nice hands," Rita said, deadpan, recording already pinned and mirrored.
Evan's fingers squeezed mine once, a pulse, not a broadcast. It ran up my wrist to my throat and settled under my tongue. He angled closer into the shadow of the hedge. Not hiding. Making the space ours for one breath.
"If I kiss you now," he said into the place where public is least, "we buy a whole new noun."
"We will," I said, and heard the way my voice answered. "After the door."
He glanced at my mouth like a man measuring the weight he plans to carry and liking the heft. "After the door," he agreed, and the promise lit his teeth.
Rita lifted the misleading lower-third card like a patient knife. "Board auto-posted without window," she said. "Our square is pinned; Standards will pin theirs if needed. We're clear for a second live in eight if control nibbles again."
"Brand wants 'friendlier'," the Brand Rep whispered near Vivian, as if adjectives could be currency. "A couch later—"
Vivian didn't let him finish. "Addendum," she said pleasantly. "no unannounced intimacy. Rider says wide and consent literal. Buy nouns, not vibes."
He smiled with less face and backed away like someone learning a new alphabet.
A cameraman with an honest posture re-framed the wide to keep the window plate in corner. The room learned to send itself to school.
Boone recalculated air aloud so space could obey. "Press pen at two o'clock," he said. "Long lens outside at four. We exit left if we exit at all. hands visible."
I kept one hand visible and the other in Evan's. He let go first, not because he needed to, because the minute had changed and he knows how to read a clock.
"Back in ten," the floor told the host.
"Time for a breath," the host told us. He meant it. He stepped aside, gave us the shadow, and found his mark again.
In the shade of the hedge our heads came close the way magnets pretend they don't. His thumb brushed my jaw, not a claim, a question he already knew the answer to. My mouth softened without asking me. Yes later, my body said. Look how well yes looks on him.
"Serena at 09:40," Rita said, skimming her screen. "Route East holds. caption window on board ready to read 'consent stated on air' with tonight's time."
"Copy," Aisha said. "Board Counsel is now 'monitoring sentiment' aggressively. If they post a second 'values,' Standards will publicly call it commentary and set window on top."
"Good," Rita said.
The press pen tried to rehearse a pounce; Boone's presence made it a stretch instead. Victor checked cables like a man who finds peace in tightness. The hedge smelled faintly of water and duty.
"Ready to hit live in five," the floor said.
"Ready," the host said.
Ready is a physical thing when your pulse is a metronome. Mine was. So was his. We stood the three feet that read as air and were also a taut wire.
The tally went red again, because good machines know their jobs.
"Welcome back," the host said, steady. "A quick education line: seal, date, docket - or no story. Be kind to clerks. Now, to the story we can verify: tomorrow's door."
He turned a fraction toward us, not making us the centerpiece, making us part of the architecture. "Maya, what will people see at 09:47."
"Inside wide," I said. "Through the East vestibule frame. Consent on Record in the lower-third. caption window on the replay board reading 'consent stated on air' with time. No labels. No 'values.'"
"Evan," the host said.
"I'll be there at 09:47," Evan said. "Hands visible. Consent literal. If you see anything else, it's editing, not my consent."
The press pen gave in to its appetite. Nolan called out, not a question, a dare. "Then say married," he shouted. "Be brave."
Boone didn't offer the word back. He offered the posture. "Credential," he said, and somehow the microphones heard it.
The host didn't take the bait either. He smiled the exact amount and closed. "Back after the break," he said. "And be kind to clerks."
"Cut," the floor said. The red eye cooled.
Our fingers missed each other by a half inch as the minute let go. That half inch was a spark that had learned to put on a tie.
Rita squinted past us toward the far doors. Something changed in the light there, a brightness that looked like an intention.
"Left door," she said, low. "We've got motion."
Boone took one step toward air he could shape. The door swung, caught, swung wider. A handler first, phone in hand, eyes up. Behind him a woman with a spine like a metronome and a face the city knew too well to turn into an object.
Serena. Earlier than her minute. Jacket neat, hair set to work, mouth not performing.
Vivian's bubble appeared on Rita's screen at the same heartbeat. She's early. She refused coffee; she asked for the door.
The host lifted his hand for the floor, a question with fingers. The floor gave him the little circle. "We're back in ten," they said. "If you want it."
Rita looked at me and at Evan. Heat still lived in the half inch between our hands. Serena's shoe struck the lobby like a punctuation mark that refuses to be a comma.
"We can take her sentence now," Rita said. "window is ready. Consent on Record is warm."
Evan's eyes flicked to mine. Not for permission. For map. "Together," he said.
"Together," I said.
The host turned, found Serena's eyes, and gave her the exact bow men give women when both are about to do their jobs without cheating.
"Live toss in ten," the floor said.
The red light thought about waking.
The lobby held its breath like a room that knows drama is coming and is glad it remembered its better manners.