The courtyard in front of Quad 2 gleamed under the humid afternoon heat. Nicole followed Mara and Lauren to the benches that lined the walkway. Peter was already there, his lunch in the same unopened container he carried everywhere.
He glanced up, but his eyes landed somewhere over Nicole’s shoulder. Her stomach flipped. She took a seat next to Mara and tried not to look at him.
They ate quietly at first. Conversations from nearby tables drifted over, each voice more clipped and careful than the last. Something about EAPs. Another about resilience training. People seemed to keep their voices low without noticing they were doing it.
Peter spoke into the quiet. “Security swept the fields before most people clocked in. They moved fast.”
Lauren nodded. “Leadership wanted everything settled early.”
No one said Lila’s name. Nicole felt that absence like pressure behind her ribs.
Mara’s eyes stayed on her food, though she hadn’t taken a bite. When Lauren mentioned that HR was offering free counseling sessions later, Mara gave a small, unexpressive nod.
Nicole glanced between them. Each phrase felt tidy. She heard what they meant more than what they said.
Nicole took a drink of water and tried to steady her breathing. She had no appetite. Sweat stuck her blouse lightly to her back. Bloomwell hummed with a strange, contained silence.
Across the courtyard, Adrian stood at the entrance to Quad 2, talking to a security guard. He spotted Nicole and dipped his head in quiet acknowledgment. Nicole froze and looked away quickly, tracing the ring of condensation on her bottle. She could feel Peter’s eyes on her without looking up. She felt suddenly exposed, as if a curtain had been pulled back without warning.
Lauren stretched her legs out. “People will probably head home early today.”
Mara agreed softly.
“Tough week for Bloomwell,” Lauren said. “And they’re getting sued too?”
Sued?
“Probably not the best place to talk about it,” Peter said, quickly.
Nicole looked at him. His tone wasn’t pointed, but he held her gaze just long enough for her pulse to quicken.
Don’t.
That was what the look said.
Lauren and Mara started packing their containers. They headed back toward the building, murmuring between them. About Lila, Nicole knew.
Nicole stayed seated. The sun burned her shoulders. Peter hadn’t moved.
She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what.
He stood then, picking up his lunch. “Walk?” he asked.
His voice stayed even, but she heard something behind it, tension, maybe, or the strain of keeping something to himself.
They walked the narrow path at the side of Quad 2, where the shade cut a thin line along the wall. The air felt cooler there, the noise from the courtyard fading behind them.
Peter stopped near the maintenance door, leaning one shoulder into the siding. He paused a second before speaking.
“You looked off this morning.”
Nicole shifted her weight. “I didn’t sleep much.”
He nodded. “A lot of people didn’t.”
There was space between those words that neither of them touched.
She looked at the grass underneath them. “Lunch felt… strange.”
“People are worried,” Peter said. “And they’re trying not to show it.”
Nicole glanced back toward the courtyard.
“Why did Lauren say we’re getting sued?”
“Age discrimination.”
She waited.
“Bloomwell tends to hire younger,” he added. “It fits the image.”
Nicole’s brows pulled together. “Is it true, though?”
Peter lowered his voice. “I can’t go into it here.”
Two analysts walked by. One paused mid-step, watching them with a steady, impersonal stare. Nicole chewed her bottom lip.
“I thought about asking Adrian what’s actually going on.”
Peter’s expression changed in the tiniest way: a tightening at the corners of his mouth, a flicker that passed over his eyes quickly but not fast enough.
“I wouldn’t go to him about this,” he said.
“I mean, he’s been here for a while,” Nicole said. “And he’s close to Katrina.”
“He’s close to leadership.” Peter kept his tone mild, but his eyes didn’t match it. “And he tends to repeat what they want said.”
She felt heat climb her neck. “You’re assuming a lot.”
Nicole felt the current between them, steady and unnerving. He saw her differently than he had yesterday, and the awareness of that settled under her skin.
Peter looked down, his jaw working. “What did Adrian tell you about Lila?”
Nicole hesitated. “He said she had an abusive partner.” The words tasted off even as Nicole repeated them; the shrug in Adrian’s voice, the way he’d spoken like Lila’s private life was a footnote. She tried not to let it, but it still bothered her.
“Lila’s been divorced for five years, Nicole,” he said quietly. “Her ex remarried ages ago.”
Nicole stared at the line of sunlight cutting across the pavement.
“He sounded sure,” she said, though the certainty felt thinner now. Her pulse nudged at her throat. “Maybe he misheard.”
“Nicole.”
He dragged a hand through his hair before meeting her eyes again. His voice sounded strained, but behind it was concern he was trying hard to hide.
“Just be careful what you say out loud here,” Peter said at last. “That’s all.”
Nicole nodded.
Peter stepped away from the wall. “We should get back.”
She followed him toward the courtyard. He didn’t look at her again.
He didn’t have to.
She already felt everything he wasn’t saying.
Nicole walked down the hallway toward A12 just as Adrian came the other direction.
She slowed. “Hi.”
He kept his eyes on his phone and walked past her, his shoes tapping lightly on the carpet.
Nicole stood there for half a second before continuing down the hall. Had she done something wrong? Her stomach dropped.
By the time she reached her desk, her hands felt unsteady. She stared at her login screen without typing. The cursor blinked back at her like a silent accusation.
Later, she looked up and saw Adrian at another cubicle, leaning against the divider, laughing softly with the new hire who started that day. A thirty-something who would be working in Payroll. Adrian’s head tilted down, mouth close to the woman’s ear.
Nicole looked back at her screen, opened a program, and tried not to let her thoughts race.
After a few minutes, her phone buzzed.
Adrian:
Busy after work. Raincheck.
Busy, with who?
Her heart sank. She stared at the message until the screen dimmed and her reflection stared back, her face tense and eyes lost. She looked younger than she felt. Dismissable.
At 4:40, she shut her laptop and stood.
She walked down the corridor to his office and knocked once.
“Come in.”
Adrian sat behind his desk, sleeves rolled, expression open.
“Hey,” he said.
“You’re busy?” she asked.
He glanced at his screen. “I got five minutes.”
“You seemed pretty free earlier.”
His brow lifted slowly, but his posture didn’t shift. “Excuse me?”
“You canceled,” she said.
“I’m busy.”
“With her?” Nicole gestured to A12.
“With work.”
She didn’t move.
“We’re not married, Nicole.”
The coldness in his voice made her flinch. She stepped inside fully and shut the door.
Her voice lowered. “You didn’t look at me all afternoon,” she said.
“Funny, neither did you.”
Her breathing stalled.
“That’s not the same.”
He studied her face. “Isn’t it?”
“I didn’t want it to be obvious.”
“To who? Your coworkers?”
“Stop.”
“—or to Peter?”
Nicole became aware of the buzz in her own ears.
“You can look at me when we’re alone,” he said. “You don’t have a problem then.”
The back of her ears burned. “You’re making this into something it’s not.”
“But in front of them?” he shrugged.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“You looked embarrassed, Nicole.”
The word landed heavily.
“I wasn’t embarrassed.”
She swallowed. Her throat knotted.
“You think he didn’t notice?” Adrian continued quietly. “You think Peter missed that? You like sharing him with Lauren?”
“Adrian—”
“I’m the secret you keep tucked away while you play nice with the orientation puppy who’s been humping every new leg that walks through the gate.”
He leaned back slightly. The watch on his wrist caught the light.
“Or maybe that’s the game. Maybe you get off on knowing I’m watching. That I’ll smell him on your skin later. That I’ll still bend you over anyway.”
Her stomach dropped.
“It’s actually sick,” he said.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
“I don’t, do I?” Adrian said. He let the question sit.
“You like your job, don’t you?”
The room felt smaller.
Adrian stood slowly and walked around the desk until he was a few inches from her. Close enough that she had to tilt her chin up slightly to hold his gaze. The citrus metallic scent became overwhelming.
“I don’t like being hidden,” he said. “If you’re embarrassed, say it.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“Then next time,” he said softly, “don’t look away.”
He nodded toward the door. “You can go.”
Nicole slid into her chair and woke up her monitor.
Calm down. Her hands shook. She felt angry, stupid, and scared at the same time. She wanted to go back in there and scream at him. She wanted to shrink into a corner.
He’d never spoken to her like that before.
The spreadsheet reopened where she’d left it.
He’d been so nice.
Her jaw ached from how hard she was holding it.
But, more than that, he’d been jealous. She didn’t want to think too deeply yet about what that meant.
She stared at the numbers on the screen without seeing them.
Because she’d worked hard for this. Because she had finally started to become more independent. Because her mom had been proud of her. She had been proud of herself. Of Bloomwell. The campus, the reputation, the sense of having made it somewhere that mattered.
Now it might all be taken away, and why? Because she didn’t smile at someone?
She stared at the spreadsheet columns without filling them.
If she had just nodded at him outside, would it have changed anything? If she’d laughed it off in his office instead of pushing back? The scenes replayed in fragments, each version rearranging her words, changing her reactions, softening them, rewriting them into something smarter.
But no, why should she have to do that?
She wasn’t going to make herself small to stroke some grown man’s ego. He needed to get over it. Maybe grow-up.
Her fingers found the keyboard. She adjusted the column width and began typing. Her hands steadied. The rhythm of data returned, predictable and obedient.
Slack chimed.
She clicked into a new cell instead of the notification, corrected a formula, and pressed enter harder than necessary.
Another chime.
The banner slid down across the top of her screen before she could dismiss it.
Bloomwell Community Reminder: Internal Matters Stay Internal.
Her fingers stopped.
She hovered over the message. The sounds of the office suddenly became muted, as if her head had been dipped underwater.
She clicked.
The message expanded in a white box.
Exterior paths near building access points, including maintenance doors, remain high-visibility zones. Conversations about litigation or compliance concerns should be redirected through approved channels.
Nicole froze.
It felt like someone had been standing inside her chest, listening, recording the words, pushing them back at her now into corporate guidance.
Her conversation with Peter.
Nicole sat perfectly still. The cursor blinked in the corner of the message as if waiting for her to acknowledge it.
She lifted her eyes from the monitor. A movement stirred at the corner of her vision. She turned her head slightly toward the far wall of A12, the same white stretch she walked past every morning without thinking.
It was moving.
Barely at first. A faint outward swell, as if the drywall flexed around something inside it. Then another. Expanding and contracting in a way that looked unnervingly organic, as if veins swelled with fluid, pushing outward before drawing back in. Like the slick, membranous gills of a fish straining for air in shallow water. As if living bodies moved inside the walls.
She stopped breathing.
The wall eased back into place as quickly as it had moved. Flat again.
She kept her eyes on it, waiting, almost willing it to move a second time. The stillness held.
Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, trembling just enough that she noticed.
For one impossibly clear moment, it looked like the building was breathing.