Chapter Six: Background Noise

The morning after the blackout, Marcus arrived at the studio an hour early, running on coffee and anxiety. He'd barely slept, replaying those moments in the dark with Maya. The way her hand had felt in his, familiar and foreign at once – soft skin and callused fingertips from years of turning manuscript pages. The honesty in her voice when she'd talked about burning things down. He could still feel the phantom warmth where their shoulders had touched, the electricity that had sparked between them in the darkness.

The studio felt different this morning – every shadow held a memory of her. The couch where they'd first kissed after landing their first major author. The mixing board where she used to perch, watching him work with those eyes that saw straight through his carefully constructed walls. Even the coffee maker in the corner reminded him of countless late nights planning their future, back when they thought they were invincible.

He was rechecking the restored power systems, trying not to think about how her perfume had lingered in the air last night, when his phone buzzed: a text from Maya.

Running late. Peter Walsh from Apex Literary scheduled an emergency meeting with Elena. Says he has concerns about the audio direction.

Marcus's jaw tightened. Peter Walsh—the same agent who'd tried to poach two of Marcus's authors during Groundbreaking's final days. Who'd sent Maya a job offer the week after the bankruptcy, probably hoping to capitalize on their imploding relationship. The same Walsh who'd once told Marcus at an industry party that Maya was "wasted on a small-time publisher."

Want me to join? he texted back, already reaching for his jacket.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. Like she was weighing all the implications, just as she used to weigh every word in their manuscripts. Please.

That single word carried echoes of other moments – late-night editing sessions when she'd curl up in his office chair, voice soft with exhaustion: "Please stay awake with me." The morning after their first fight: "Please don't give up on this." The day everything fell apart: "Please understand..."

Forty minutes later, Marcus walked into Prima Coffee, the overpriced café where Walsh always held his "casual" meetings. The same place where, years ago, he and Maya had celebrated signing their first major author. He could almost see their younger selves at their old favorite table by the window, heads bent close over contracts, fingers brushing as they passed documents back and forth.

He spotted them immediately: Walsh in his signature expensive casualness, Elena looking uncomfortable, and Maya—his breath caught—Maya in yesterday's suit, her hair in a messy bun that suggested she hadn't slept either. There was a familiar crease between her eyebrows, the one that always appeared when she was holding back words.

"Marcus." Walsh's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Didn't realize this was a group meeting."

"I like to be hands-on with my projects." Marcus slid into the seat beside Maya, close enough to smell her jasmine perfume mixed with coffee. The scent hit him with a wave of sense memory – Maya in his kitchen on Sunday mornings, stealing sips from his cup, leaving traces of her lipstick on the rim. "Elena's memoir deserves nothing less."

Walsh launched into his concerns: the raw emotion in the recordings, the unpolished nature of Elena's delivery, the "marketability challenges" of such an intimate approach. Marcus watched Maya's hands as she took notes – her elegant fingers still wore the silver ring he'd given her on their first anniversary at Groundbreaking. He wondered if she knew she was twisting it, the way she used to do when she was thinking deeply.

"Readers want polish," Walsh argued. "They want—"

"Listeners," Marcus interrupted. "They'll be listeners. And they want truth." His knee brushed Maya's under the table – an accident, but neither of them moved away.

"The kind of truth that bankrupted Groundbreaking Press?"

The low blow hung in the air. Marcus felt Maya tense beside him, saw her knuckles whiten around her pen. He fought the urge to reach for her hand, the way he had that day they'd called their authors to break the news.

"Actually," Elena spoke up, her voice firm, "the truth is exactly what I want. Last night's session? When Marcus pushed me to dig deeper into my grandmother's story? That's the first time I felt like I was really honoring her memory, not just writing about it."

Walsh opened his mouth, but Maya cut him off smoothly. "Peter, while we appreciate your... interest in the project, Elena chose Preston & Associates specifically for our multimedia expertise. And she chose Soundcraft Studios for their ability to capture authentic voices." Her voice carried the same quiet authority that had first drawn Marcus to her – the steel beneath the silk that made authors trust her with their stories.

"I just think—"

"That maybe you should have scheduled this meeting with Maya through proper channels?" Marcus suggested, letting some of his old protectiveness seep into his voice. "Instead of ambushing our client before her recording session?"

Walsh's face reddened. "I was simply expressing concerns about the project's direction—"

"The direction is exactly what I want," Elena interrupted. "Maya, I believe we have a studio booked?"

They left Walsh with his artisanal coffee growing cold. Outside, Elena squeezed Maya's arm. "I need to make a quick call. Meet you at the studio?"

Once Elena was out of earshot, Maya let out a shaky breath. "Thank you. For showing up."

"Always." The word slipped out before Marcus could stop it, heavy with the weight of their history.

She looked at him then, really looked at him, and suddenly he was remembering the first time he'd backed her play in a publishing meeting. She'd been a junior agent, he'd been a rookie publisher, and they'd both believed in a weird little novel that everyone else had passed on. She'd worn her "serious agent" blazer – the one with the slightly frayed cuff she thought no one noticed – and argued with such passion that the room couldn't help but listen.

"Always," he'd promised her then too, both of them giddy with success after the book sold. They'd celebrated with cheap champagne on his office floor, planning their literary empire between kisses. Her hair had smelled like jasmine then too, her laugh bright and fearless as she'd outlined their future on the back of a contract...

A cab horn jolted them back to the present. Maya tucked a stray hair behind her ear, a gesture so familiar it ached. How many times had he done that for her, in quiet moments between meetings? How many times had his fingers lingered, tracing the curve of her ear, until she'd smiled that soft smile that was only for him?

"Walsh is going to be a problem," she said, but her voice held a trace of their old conspiracy – us against the world.

"Let him try." Marcus started walking, and she fell into step beside him, their rhythms syncing automatically like they'd never lost the habit. "He can't touch what Elena's creating. What we're creating."

She was quiet for half a block, her heels clicking against the pavement in counterpoint to his steps. "Last night," she started, and he could hear the weight of unspoken words in her voice.

"Maya—"

"No, let me finish. Last night was... honest. And I don't want to pretend it didn't happen. But I also don't know how to..."

"How to what?"

"How to trust that we won't burn everything down again." Her voice caught on the word 'again,' and Marcus remembered the last time they'd walked this street together – the day they'd signed the bankruptcy papers, both of them too proud to cry until they were alone.

They stopped at a crosswalk. Morning commuters rushed around them, but Marcus barely noticed them. All he could see was Maya, illuminated by the morning sun, looking simultaneously exactly like and nothing like the young agent who'd stolen his heart with her passion for stories.

"Maybe," he said carefully, "we start with coffee. Real coffee, not Walsh's overpriced nonsense. Maybe we talk about Elena's memoir, about what we're both hearing in her story that Walsh isn't."

"Just coffee?"

"Just coffee. No pressure, no expectations. Just..." He gestured between them, at this fragile new thing growing from the ashes of their past. "This. Whatever this is becoming."

The walk signal changed. Maya took a step forward, then turned back, the morning light catching the silver of her ring. "The place on Bedford? The one with the terrible scones but amazing cold brew?"

"You remember?"

"I remember everything, Marcus." She smiled then, a real smile that reached her eyes and knocked the breath from his lungs. "Even how you take your coffee."

"Black with—"

"Two sugars when you're working. None when you're nervous." Her smile widened at his surprise, and for a moment she looked exactly like the Maya who used to bring him coffee during late-night editing sessions, who knew all his tells and habits. "Like I said. Everything."

They were both laughing then, right there on the street corner, at the absurdity of remembering coffee preferences after five years of careful distance. At Walsh's face when Elena shut him down. At themselves, maybe, for thinking they could ever really forget the details of each other – the way he always loosened his tie two hours into any meeting, the way she hummed under her breath when reading contracts, the thousand little intimacies that had survived even after everything else burned down.

"Come on," Marcus said, still grinning. "Elena's waiting. And after the session..."

"Coffee," Maya finished. "Just coffee."

But the way she said it, like a promise rather than a limitation, made Marcus think that maybe some fires were worth the risk of burning after all. Maybe some stories, like some loves, needed to be stripped down to their foundations before they could be rebuilt into something stronger.

Her shoulder brushed his as they walked, and neither of them moved away.