. . .
By six-thirteen,I had already ignored three messages, one story reply, and a woman on Threads who had decided my opinion about live albums meant we should probably get drinks.
That was the thing about being visible online. People mistook access for intimacy all the time.
I sat back in my desk chair at Three Rivers Trust, the bank’s name etched into the glass beyond my office in the kind of understated lettering rich people trusted, and made a few last edits to a credit memo I needed off my desk.
Most of the lights were still on, but the day had changed shape. Jackets were coming off chairs. Laptop bags were gettingzipped. Somebody laughed near reception with that tired little Monday edge people got when they were ready to be done pretending work was the main event of their lives.
And now here came this damn mixer.
On a Monday.
That alone should’ve made a nigga suspicious.
Monday nights were for getting out of work without adding another obligation to your back. Going home. Loosening your tie. Eating something decent. Letting the day get off you before the rest of the week started making fresh demands.
Not this.
Not putting another shirt on for a room full of smiling strangers, half-networking, half-fishing, all of them acting like the first workday of the week hadn’t already taken enough.
Which was probably why I was still sitting there arguing with myself about whether showing up counted as effort or self-sabotage.
Devon had already left early to see his girl, Leisha, before the mixer. Claimed he was only circling back later to make sure I actually went and not because he planned to do any mixing himself.
My phone buzzed again beside the keyboard.
Devon: You leaving or you planning to send your fine, antisocial regrets at 7:41?
I smirked and typed back.
Me: I’m working. Some of us have careers.
The bubbles came right back.
Devon: And some of us know you hide behind yours when you don’t feel like being bothered.
Then another one.
Devon: I’m with my woman, so don’t start. I’m only pulling up to make sure you don’t punk out.
I looked at the screen a second longer than I needed to, then set the phone facedown.
He wasn’t wrong.
Commercial banking had a way of rewarding men who liked structure. Numbers made sense. Deals either held up or they didn’t. A client either qualified or he was wasting everybody’s time. Even when things got messy, the mess still had logic underneath it. You could rework terms. Tighten a package. Ask for more collateral. Move on.
Real life didn’t move that cleanly.
My office overlooked a narrow slice of downtown, enough glass and late light to remind me I had built something decent here. Vice president looked better on paper than it felt most days, but the money was right, the work made sense more often than people did, and I liked being good at something that didn’t ask me to perform a version of myself to survive it.
Two client meetings. One lunch I didn’t want. A credit package that finally made sense after three revisions and one business owner acting like optimism should count as liquidity.
Long day. Not a bad one.
Still, by now my real life had started tapping the glass.
Tonight, technically, I had plans. The Link Up mixer downtown. Same Black professional social orbit I driftedthrough online and showed my face in just enough to stay connected, mostly for business opportunities, but sometimes to watch people, people, without giving it too much of me. On paper, it was what it always was: networking, music, cocktails, maybe somebody talking too loud about real estate, grant funding, or building legacy under warm lights.