Gabriel
Midnight was my favorite time in the office. Everyone else had cleared out, and I could finally think. The city kept humming outside the windows, and no one needed anything from me.
I didn’t bother turning on the overhead lights. The city spilled in through the glass, and my laptop lit the desk in blue. Valor Capital’s logo was still on my screen, like it had been all night.
The moment I finished combing through the numbers, my phone vibrated. An alert that came through the secure channel only a handful of people used. Onscreen, a blinking message:
[Main board package update – urgent. E.R.]
I should have known she’d want a revised board deck. Eliza always did. Even when she acted like she wasn’t paying attention, she caught every missing decimal, every misaligned bullet point.
The update probably wasn’t urgent. Not really. She just liked to see how quickly I’d respond.
I was fixing the last bar graph when the door opened without a knock.
Heels clicked crossed the floor - steady, unhurried. I looked up as Eliza moved toward me, a stack of fresh printouts tucked under one arm, the air shifting with her presence more than the temperature.
“Valiant effort,” she said, setting the papers on the edge of my desk. “But you flipped the comparative axis. If you present it like that, the board’s going to tear it apart.”
She was dressed in black, tailored and sharp, the kind of suit that didn’t soften anything. Her hair was pulled back, though a few strands had escaped and brushed her jaw when she leaned in. She didn’t need to look at my screen for long. She already knew what she’d find.
I followed her gaze anyway, seeing the mistake the second she named it.
She straightened, waiting; not smug, not patient. Just certain.
“You’ve been at this for hours,” she added, softer. “Did you even eat?”
“I don’t eat when I’m working.”
She rolled her eyes. “We both know that’s a lie. You just forgot.” A pause, then: “You’re welcome.”
I ignored her bait, fixing my gaze on the printout. She was right about the axis, and I hated that she was right. I hated more that she never said it to impress me or the imaginary gallery, just because she couldn’t help herself. Truth was her compulsion. I’d wager a lot that the only time she ever lied was to herself.
She perched on the edge of the conference table, not waiting to be invited. Her crossed legs swung with the calculated boredom of a jury foreman. “You’re not going to ask why I’m here?”
“You’re always here,” I said. “You work here, remember?”
“You know what I mean, Gabriel.” She glanced at the door, voice dropping. “Your old roommate’s poking around the elevator bank. He does this thing where he presses every button because he thinks it resets the override. It doesn’t.”
Of course. Eliza’s brother - paranoid, preppy, bad at math - was on his way. Of course, calling him my old roommate was meant as a dig at me, to remind me that he was my friend. No doubt she had the sense that I was attracted to her, and she wanted to dial up the sense that I was playing a dangerous game.
I closed the laptop and motioned Eliza to a chair. She didn’t move.
“He’s worried,” she continued. “About all of it. And about me.”
She left the sentence unfinished, but her eyes finished it for her. The bags under them were less from fatigue than from fighting wars no one else noticed.
“Are you worried?” I asked.
She gave me a look, one I used to think was pure contempt but had learned to read as something else: challenge, laced with a dare to prove her wrong.
“Not about the drama,” she said. “About you, actually. You haven’t been yourself lately and for us to succeed in this new project, you need to bring your a-game.”
“Maybe this is myself.” I shrugged. “The numbers are clean. The board will go for it.”
“They’ll go for it,” she echoed, her tone both mocking and intimate. “And then what? Are you going to write another check to fix what you broke?”
I didn’t respond. Her presence was like static in a thunderstorm: every sense on edge, the tingling sense of danger, a deep feeling that something was about to happen. Memories flickered; her at the all-nighter in grad school, brow furrowed; her at the rooftop party, laughing at my shoes; her dating losers before swearing off men – a sore spot I could probably press to get to her. But I didn’t want to.