Beneath a Transparent Dream novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Channel Four
Eli saw her look.
She stood on the stage in a blue dress with a microphone in her hand and Zach's arm across her shoulders, and she turned her whole head and found him at the back of three hundred people.
She had not forgiven him.
She had looked anyway.
"That's the cue," he said, and his own voice came out strange.
The sound technician beside him was a boy of twenty-two with a headset and a sandwich.
"Which cue?" the boy said. "Mrs. Caldecott's got no cues. It's a speech."
"Channel four. Press the green one when I say."
"I can't play your music in the middle of her speech."
"It's not music."
Eli plugged the grey drive into the desk, and he found the file he wanted, and he stood with his thumb over the key.
Up on the stage Judith's pen stayed where it was, the nib resting on the line.
She had not signed.
Matilda looked straight at him down the long room, and her face said she had known he would come.
"Now," Eli said.
The boy pressed green.
The speakers in the four corners of the ballroom hummed once, and then filled with the sound of a kitchen.
A tap running. A cork. Cora's laugh, bright and easy.
Then Zach's voice, close and amused, and three hundred people turned their heads toward the ceiling.
"She signs whatever you slide across, Mother. You should have seen her face over the oven."
And Judith's, dry and level, from the head of a table.
"She'll sign whatever she's given, Zachary. She always has. The oven was a clever touch."
Keep reading free with an account. Start Beneath a Transparent Dream from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 19 · All chapters · Chapter 21 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend