Scene 20¶
- “Terms” (Celeste POV)
Scene 20¶
✨ Terms ✨¶
Scene 20 Terms [Celeste POV]
Mara didn’t romanticise the museum run: she laid it out the way she laid out everything. The facts would either be carried properly, or would break someone.
“Thirty-six units,” she said, and tapped the order sheet once. “That means we stop behaving like a clever pocket of talent and start behaving like a shop.”
Lauren had brought a roll of butcher’s paper and a marker. She unrolled it on the cutting table with a quiet competence that felt, oddly, like a spell. Columns appeared. Headings. Boxes. A place for reality to sit.
CUT SEW HARDWARE FINISH QC PACK PICKUP / DELIVERY
Charlie watched the grid form as if it were comfort in disguise. He stood close enough to see, far enough not to intrude, chalk dust on his fingers. The mild, contained intensity of a boy who had discovered that order could make him fearless without requiring him to be loud.
Sarah leaned on the shelving, arms folded, expression set to fine, impress me.
Mara’s finger moved down the list.
“Hardware packs get made first,” she said. “Grommets counted. Tape cut. Boning sorted by stiffness.” She nodded at Lauren. “Label it.”
Lauren’s marker squeaked as she wrote: warm voice, sharp mind.
“Hardware packs. Like meal prep,” she said, as if explaining to a child who’d asked why adults didn’t starve. “You do it once, cleanly, and then you stop bleeding time every time you need a grommet.”
Mara didn’t smile, but her shoulders loosened the tiniest fraction. Approval.
“QC checklist,” Mara continued. “Nothing leaves the building without it.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “We’re doing paperwork now.”
Mara looked at her. “We have been doing paperwork. We’re just calling it by its name now.”
Lauren’s marker paused. She added another box at the side.
TIME LOST:
Mara’s eyes flicked to it. “What’s that.”
Lauren’s tone stayed conversational, but there was steel under it.
“That’s the bit no-one ever counts,” Lauren said. “And it's the bit that kills you.”
She looked around the table: not accusing, not sentimental. Adult.
“This is not about anyone volunteering extra hours,” she said, “I want to know how many hours we’re already losing to friction.”
Charlie blinked. “Friction.”
Lauren nodded. “Commute. Waiting on deliveries. Re-doing things because the right tape wasn’t where it should be. Starting late because someone’s brain is fried.”
Sarah shook her head, her eyes narrow in a scornful frown. “Get real.”
Lauren turned towards her.
“You can scoff,” she said firmly. “Or you can tell me how many minutes it takes you to find grommets when they’ve migrated.”
Sarah opened her mouth, then wordlessly shut it. Too many.
Lauren looked at Charlie.
“How long does it take you to get here?”
Charlie hesitated.
“Forty-five minutes,” he said finally. “Sometimes more.”
“Each way.”
Charlie nodded.
Lauren did the numbers silently with her eyes.
“An hour and a half a day,” she said. “Seven and a half hours a week. That’s a whole workday of your week spent... travelling to the work.”
Charlie’s face wobbled, surprised.
“That’s not his fault,” Mara said. “That’s geography.”
Lauren nodded. “Sure. And we can’t argue with geography. We can only choose what we do about it.”
Her gaze moved to me.
“Celeste,” she said, as if this were the obvious next line in the spreadsheet, “how are you going to do an MBA while we scale a shop and keep the place clean?”
I felt my irritation rise again: not at her, but at the world. At the way ambition always seemed to come with a price tag and a time tax.
“I won’t be doing it well on noise and buses and guesswork,” I said. “And I can’t be doing it tired.”
Mara’s eyes stayed on mine. I didn’t have to justify the tone. She spoke fluent irritation. She used it too.
“We remove friction,” Mara said, flat.
The sentence landed in my chest with a peculiar relief. Not comfort. Permission to be strategic. Charlie’s eyes flicked between us, trying to follow the move. I could almost see him building a romantic narrative out of it, the way his mind tried to make meaning: Remove friction. Yes, I can do that! Make life easier. Provide.
He didn’t say it. He didn’t need to. I saw it anyway. Lauren saw it too. Her face grew thoughtful as she laid guardrails down like tape lines on a floor.
“Logistics,” she said, warm and firm. “Not a love story. Logistics.”
Mara nodded, once. “Exactly.”
I looked at Charlie.
“Do you have a lease?” I asked him.
He blinked. “Yes.”
“How long left?”
“Six months.” He swallowed. “Why?”
Because I can’t stand waste. Because I can’t stand chaos. Because I can feel the future trying to happen and I’d rather write it down than be dragged by it. I didn’t say any of that. I gave him the clean version.
“I have a spare room,” I said. “Nearer to here. Quieter. If you move, your commute drops to ten minutes. And we can share the rent.”
Charlie stared at me as if he’d misheard.
Sarah made a small, disbelieving sound. “What?”
Lauren’s marker squeaked as she wrote a new box on the butcher’s paper.
HOUSING / ROUTINE:
Mara didn’t look at Sarah. “Colleague,” she said, automatically.
Sarah shut her mouth.
Charlie’s throat moved. His eyes said: 'I cannot believe...'. “You mean... live with you.”
“I mean rent a room,” I said, and I kept my voice calm on purpose. Not cold. Exact.
Lauren, warm: “Separate rooms. Rent. Terms. House policy.”
Mara, flat: “Rent doesn’t buy access.”
Charlie flinched at that, as if he’d been accused of something he hadn’t done. Mara didn’t soften the line. She wasn’t accusing him. She was protecting everyone. Including him.
Charlie looked down at his hands. Chalk dust. Tape residue. The evidence of work.
“But, I wouldn’t—” he began.
“I know,” I said. And I meant it. “But we’re not building a system that relies on people being good. We’re building one that stays clean even when people get confused.”
His eyes flicked up. Confused, and a little hurt.
Lauren stepped in with warmth that didn’t compromise the standard.
“It’s not personal,” she said. “It’s grown-up. You’ll actually like it, because you won’t have to guess.”
Charlie swallowed.
“What are the terms?” he asked quietly.
That line — terms — was the rung I hadn’t realised we were climbing today.
Mara looked satisfied, in the way she looked satisfied when a stitch finally behaved.
Lauren pulled a fresh sheet from her stack, as if she’d been waiting for this exact moment.
“Okay,” she said, cheerful in the way competent people get when they finally see a solvable problem. “We write it.”
She drew headings without asking anyone’s permission.
RENT: BILLS: QUIET HOURS: STUDY HOURS (SACRED): CHORES: GUESTS: PRIVACY: CONFLICT RULE: EXIT CLAUSE:
Sarah let out a low whistle. “Bloody hell.”
Mara glanced at her. “That’s what adulthood looks like.”
Sarah’s mouth twitched. “It looks like paperwork.”
“It acts like freedom,” Lauren corrected, still warm. She stapled the page to a clipboard. “Same principle applies as here,” she said. “If it isn’t written, it isn’t real.”
Charlie stood very still, staring at the page. Not panicked. Thinking.
“Study hours... sacred,” he repeated, softly.
“Yes,” I said. “If I’m doing this, I’m doing it properly.”
His eyes moved down the list. “Privacy.”
“Yes,” Mara said, before I could. “Non-negotiable.”
Charlie nodded, serious. But something in his posture eased, the way it eased when the ledger gave him rails.
Lauren looked up at me.
“Celeste,” she said, warm, “you set the parameters. It’s your place. Your domain.”
I picked up the pen. I didn’t hesitate.
Rent amount. Bills split. Quiet hours. No hovering. No improvising “help.” Guests by agreement. Study hours written like a boundary you could build a life against. Charlie watched my handwriting as if it were a map. When I finished, I slid the page toward him.
“Read it,” I said. “If you agree, you sign. If you don’t, you don’t.”
Charlie read it slowly. Carefully. When he got to the bottom, he paused at the exit clause.
“What’s that?”
Lauren’s tone stayed light.
“That’s the part where nobody gets trapped,” she said gently. “Thirty days’ notice. Clean separation. No drama.”
Charlie nodded. He put his name on the page with a steadiness that told me he understood my terms. He was not moving in as a boyfriend. This was moving in as: infrastructure.
Mara tapped the signed sheet. Approval.
“Good,” she said. “Now we can work without wasting human life on travel.”
Sarah stared at the paper, then at me. Her expression was complicated. There was clearly judgement, trying to find purchase and failing. So, she reformed into something more sincere: she truly wanted to understand.
“So,” she said finally, “you’re not doing this because you fancy him? You’d feel... safe?”
I met her gaze.
“I’m doing it because I’m not letting my ambition be eaten by chaos,” I said. “And because he’s useful.”
Charlie’s ears coloured, but he didn’t look offended. He looked... relieved. Lauren laughed softly, with an understanding glance in my direction.
Mara didn’t laugh. She turned back to the butcher’s paper and tapped the production grid.
“Right,” she said. “Now that we’ve removed a friction point, we accept the museum run.”
Charlie picked up his chalk again.
Not bravely or romantically.
Just... as if the world had finally started making sense.
He was useful.
This was work.
And these were the terms.
Scene 5¶
✨ Second Day ✨¶
[Publish]
Scene 5 ✨ Second Day ✨
[Celeste POV]
Scene 20 works. It’s the right sequel beat to “The Numbers”: you take the abstract (operations) and force it through a single, very human bottleneck (commute / time tax), then you do the Wardrobe thing—write terms, remove ambiguity, keep authority clean.
A few small notes before I give you a fine-tuned pass:
Notes worth considering (small, not structural)¶
-
You’ve earned the “butcher’s paper spell.” It’s a great image. I’d just keep the language consistent with your “no romance, just governance” mood—make it feel like ritualised competence, not mystical.
-
Watch tiny “mind-reading” moments about Charlie. They’re thematically correct, but when Celeste says “I could almost see him building...” you risk sliding from observation into certainty. You can keep the point while anchoring it in what she sees (a jaw set, a breath caught, eyes flicking).
-
A couple micro-typos / punctuation:
-
“What’s that.” → “What’s that?”
- “And it's” → “And it’s”
-
“no-one”/“no one” — pick one (you use both across scenes; either is fine, but consistency reads polished)
-
The offer (“spare room”) is a power move; it lands better if Celeste is clinically explicit. You already do this (rent a room, not boyfriend). I’d sharpen two lines so Charlie can’t misinterpret even for a second. The cleaner you make it, the more “rung” it feels.
-
Your ending is strong. I’d keep it, but trim one repetition so the last three lines hit like a stamp, not an echo.
Below is a light fine-tune—same scene, same beats, just smoother cadence, slightly cleaner character voices, and a couple clarifications to preserve the “terms not romance” spine.
Scene 20¶
✨ Terms ✨¶
[Publish]
Scene 20 ✨ Terms ✨ [Celeste POV]
Scene 20 — ✨ Terms ✨ (Celeste POV) — fine-tuned draft
Mara didn’t romanticise the museum run. She laid it out the way she laid out everything: the facts would either be carried properly, or they would break someone.
“Thirty-six units,” she said, and tapped the order sheet. “That means we stop behaving like a clever pocket of talent and start behaving like a shop.”
Lauren had brought a roll of butcher’s paper and a marker. She unrolled it on the cutting table with quiet competence, like she was flattening a problem until it couldn’t hide. Columns appeared. Headings. Boxes. A place for reality to sit.
CUT SEW HARDWARE FINISH QC PACK PICKUP / DELIVERY
Charlie watched the grid form, standing close enough to see, far enough not to intrude, chalk dust on his fingers... the mild, contained intensity of someone who had discovered that order could make him fearless without requiring him to be loud.
Sarah leaned on the shelving, arms folded, expression set to fine, impress me.
Mara’s finger moved down the list.
“Hardware packs get made first,” she said. “Grommets counted. Tape cut. Boning sorted by stiffness.” She nodded at Lauren. “Label it.”
Lauren’s marker squeaked as she wrote.
“Hardware packs,” she said, warm voice, sharp mind. “Like meal prep. You do it properly, and you stop bleeding time every time you need a grommet.”
Mara didn’t smile, but her shoulders loosened the tiniest fraction. Approval, in her language.
“QC checklist,” Mara continued. “Nothing leaves the building without it.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “We’re doing paperwork now.”
Mara looked at her. “We have been doing paperwork. We’re just calling it by its name now.”
Lauren’s marker paused. She added a box to the side.
TIME LOST:
Mara’s eyes flicked to it. “What’s that?”
Lauren’s tone stayed conversational. Steel lived underneath it.
“That’s the bit nobody counts,” Lauren said. “And it’s the bit that kills you.”
She looked around the table. Not accusing, not sentimental: adult.
“This is not about anyone volunteering extra hours,” she added. “I want to know how many hours we’re already losing to friction.”
Charlie blinked. “Friction.”
Lauren nodded. “Commute time. Waiting on deliveries. Re-doing things because the right tape wasn’t where it should be. Starting late because someone’s brain is fried.”
Sarah shook her head, eyes narrowed. “Really?”
Lauren turned to her, unflinching.
“You can scoff,” she said. “Or you can tell me how many minutes it takes you to find grommets when they’ve migrated.”
Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it again. Too many.
Lauren looked at Charlie.
“How long does it take you to get here?”
He hesitated.
“Forty-five minutes,” he said finally. “Sometimes more.”
“Each way.”
Charlie nodded.
Lauren scribbled.
“An hour and a half a day,” she said to the ledger, then turned to him. “Seven and a half hours a week, Charlie. That’s a whole workday per week, spent travelling to work.”
“That’s not his fault,” Mara said. “That’s geography.”
Lauren nodded. “Sure. And we can’t argue with geography.” She tapped the grid. “We can choose what we do about it.”
Her gaze moved to me.
“Celeste,” she said, as if it were the obvious next line on the page, “how are you going to do an MBA while we scale a shop and keep the place clean?”
I felt irritation rise: not at her, but at the world, at the way ambition always seemed to come with a price tag and a time tax.
“I won’t do it well on noise and buses and guesswork,” I said, fretful. “And I can’t do it at all, tired.”
Mara’s eyes stayed on mine. I didn’t have to apologise for the edge. Mara spoke fluent irritation. She used it.
“So, we remove friction,” Mara said, flat.
Charlie’s eyes flicked between us, trying to follow the move. His jaw set, a reflex searching for a role. If friction is the enemy, he was there to fight it. If this is a problem, he could solve it. Lauren saw it too. Her face went thoughtful: she laid guardrails down like tape lines on a floor.
“Logistics,” she said, warm and firm. “Not a love story. Logistics.”
Mara nodded. “Exactly.”
I looked at Charlie.
“I have a spare room,” I said. “Nearer to here. Quieter. Move in, and your commute drops to ten minutes. We split costs.”
Charlie stared at me as if he’d misheard.
Sarah stifled a gasp. “What?”
Lauren’s marker squeaked as she added a new box.
HOUSING / ROUTINE:
Mara didn’t look at Sarah. “Colleague,” she said, automatic as breath.
Sarah shut her mouth.
Charlie’s throat moved. “You mean... live with you?”
“I mean... rent a room,” I said, calm on purpose. Not cold, precise. “Separate rooms. Separate lives. Shared logistics.”
Lauren nodded, warm. “Rent. Terms. And with a house policy.”
Mara, flat: “Proximity doesn’t buy access.”
Charlie flinched, as if he’d been accused of something he hadn’t done. Mara didn’t soften it. She wasn’t accusing him. She was protecting everyone, including him, from the presumption that mistakes vicinity for entitlement.
“Oh, I wouldn’t—” he began.
“I know,” I said, and I meant it. “But we’re not building a system that relies on people being good. We’re building one that stays clear even when things go pear-shaped.”
His eyes flicked between me and Mara: confused, and a little hurt. Lauren stepped in with warmth that didn’t compromise the standard.
“It’s not personal,” she said. “It’s grown-up. It's a positive approach: you won’t have to guess.”
Charlie swallowed.
“What are the terms?” he asked quietly.
That word—terms—was the rung I hadn’t realised we were climbing today. Mara looked satisfied, the way she looked satisfied when a stitch finally behaved.
Lauren pulled a fresh sheet from her stack, as if she’d been waiting for this exact moment.
“Okay,” she said, cheerful in the way competent people get when they finally see a solvable problem. “We write it.”
She drew headings quickly.
RENT: BILLS: QUIET HOURS: STUDY HOURS (SACRED): CHORES: GUESTS: PRIVACY: CONFLICT RULE: EXIT CLAUSE:
Sarah let out a low whistle. “Bloody hell.”
Mara glanced at her. “That’s what adulthood looks like.”
Sarah’s mouth twitched. “It looks... like something from a law office.”
“It acts like freedom.” Lauren spoke firmly, still warm. She stapled the page to a clipboard. “We apply the same principle as we have here: if it isn’t written, it isn’t real.”
Charlie stood very still, reading down the list.
“Study hours... sacred,” he repeated, softly.
“Yes,” I said. “If I’m doing this, I’m doing it properly.”
His eyes moved down. “Privacy.”
“Yes,” Mara said before I could. “Non-negotiable.”
Charlie nodded. Something in his posture eased, the way it had eased when the ledger gave him rails.
Lauren looked up at me.
“Celeste,” she said, warm, “you set the parameters. It’s your place. Your domain.”
I picked up the pen and didn’t hesitate.
Rent amount. Bills split. Quiet hours. No hovering. No improvising “help”. Guests by agreement. Study hours written like a boundary you could build a life against.
Charlie watched my handwriting as if it were a map. When I finished, I slid the page toward him.
“Read it,” I said. “If you agree, you sign. If you don’t, we're done, here.”
He read slowly. Carefully. When he reached the bottom, he paused at the exit clause.
“What’s that?”
Lauren kept her tone light.
“That’s the part where nobody gets trapped,” she said gently. “Thirty days’ notice. No dramas.”
Charlie nodded. He signed with steadiness: steady enough to tell me he understood what he was signing. Infrastructure.
Mara tapped the page once. Approval.
“Good,” she said. “Now we can work without wasting human life on travel.”
Sarah stared at the paper, then at me. Her expression rearranged itself in real time, judgement trying to find purchase and failing, until it became something more sincere.
“So,” she said finally, “you’re not doing this because you fancy him. You feel... safe?”
I met her gaze.
“I’m doing it because I’m not letting my ambition be eaten by chaos,” I said. “And because he’s useful.” Charlie’s ears coloured, but he didn’t look offended but oddly relieved. Lauren laughed softly, understanding in her eyes. Mara didn’t laugh. She turned back to the butcher’s paper and tapped the production grid.
“Right,” she said. “Now that we’ve removed one friction point, we accept the museum run.”
Charlie picked up his chalk again.
He was useful.
This was work.
And these were the terms.
If you want an even harder Mara (more “standards over sentiment”), I can give you an alternate version of her “rent doesn’t buy access / privacy non-negotiable” beat that feels like a policy clause spoken aloud—very Wardrobe, very final.