Chapter 08

Emery Quinn

Friday night felt different.

Not because anything had changed, but because—for the first time in days—I knew I wouldn't see him tomorrow.

No locked doors. No clipped orders. No silence that felt like a punishment stretched thin across conference rooms and corridors that somehow always seemed to echo with his presence, even when he wasn't there.

Just a weekend.

Two whole days to breathe without the weight of his scrutiny pressing against my shoulders like a physical thing. Two whole days to exist without calculating every word, every gesture, every breath to ensure it wouldn't be found wanting by those steel-gray eyes that seemed to catalog my failures with the precision of an accountant balancing books.

Two whole days to not wonder if the man behind the glass wall was going to unravel me with a glance or freeze me out completely, leaving me to navigate the treacherous waters of his expectations without so much as a compass.

I sat on the bus with my forehead resting lightly against the window, watching the city blur past as dusk settled in like a familiar blanket. The glass was cold against my skin—a sharp, clean cold that cut through the fog of exhaustion that had been my constant companion for weeks. Comforting. Real. Something I could trust to be exactly what it appeared to be, unlike everything else in my life lately.

The city outside moved in slow motion: office buildings bleeding warm yellow light from their windows, people hurrying home with briefcases and shopping bags, couples walking hand in hand down sidewalks I used to know like the back of my hand before my world narrowed to the suffocating confines of the thirty-second floor.

I exhaled slowly, deliberately, letting my shoulders sag for the first time all week. The tension that had taken up permanent residence between my shoulder blades loosened by degrees, like ice beginning to thaw under spring sunshine.

It was over. At least for now.

The bus lurched to a stop at my corner, and I gathered my things with movements that felt foreign in their lack of urgency. No one was timing me. No one was waiting with pursed lips and impatient glances at expensive watches. I could take my time, move at my own pace, breathe without permission.

The evening air hit my face as I stepped off the bus, cool and fresh in a way that made me realize I'd been holding my breath for days. Street lamps were beginning to flicker on, casting long shadows that danced across the cracked pavement. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear laughter spilling out of a restaurant, the sound so genuine and unguarded it made my chest tighten with something I couldn't quite name.

When had I last laughed like that? Really laughed, not the careful, professional chuckles I'd perfected for meetings and networking events?

I couldn't remember.

I found Milo on the couch exactly where I'd left him that morning—hoodie on, laptop open, headphones in, existing in the kind of comfortable disorder that had once driven me crazy but now seemed like a small miracle. A bag of chips sat half-eaten on the armrest, and the faint scent of burnt microwave popcorn lingered in the air like incense in a church dedicated to the art of not trying too hard.

The apartment looked the same as always: books stacked in precarious towers on every available surface, Milo's art supplies scattered across the coffee table in a chaos that somehow made sense to him, the throw blanket our mother had crocheted draped over the back of the secondhand armchair we'd rescued from a sidewalk three years ago.

Home. This was home—messy and imperfect and completely removed from the sterile perfection of glass offices and imported marble floors.

"You know you're supposed to open a window when you burn popcorn, right?" I said, dropping my bag by the door and kicking off my shoes with a groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep in my bones.

The simple act of removing those professional heels—the ones that pinched my toes and made every step across the office floor feel like a declaration of intent—felt like shedding armor I'd forgotten I was wearing.

Milo pulled off one headphone and turned toward me with a grin that reminded me of the gap-toothed kid who used to follow me around the playground, begging to be included in whatever adventure I was planning. "And you're supposed to be home hours ago. It's past eight."

"I stayed late. Again." The words tasted bitter, like medicine I'd been forcing myself to swallow. "There was a presentation Monday that needed—" I stopped myself. Not tonight. Tonight I wasn't going to justify my absence with corporate buzzwords and manufactured urgency.

He raised an eyebrow, and I could see him cataloging the exhaustion written across my face with the same careful attention he paid to his art. "Let me guess—Mr. Cold and Broody had another meltdown and took it out on the spreadsheets?"

Despite everything, I found myself almost smiling. "Something like that."

The truth was more complicated, of course. It always was with Killian Vale. There had been no meltdown, no dramatic display of temper. Instead, there had been that particular quality of silence he wielded like a weapon—the kind that made me second-guess every decision, every word, every breath until I felt like I was drowning in my own inadequacy.

He'd stood at his office window for what felt like hours that afternoon, hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing while I presented quarterly projections that I'd spent weeks perfecting. When I finished, he'd simply nodded once—a movement so slight I might have imagined it—and dismissed me with the kind of polite indifference that somehow hurt worse than outright criticism.

"Did he at least look hot while doing it?" Milo asked, and there was mischief in his voice, the kind that used to get us both in trouble when we were kids.

I threw a pillow at him, but there was no real force behind it. "Shut up."

"Just saying. If you're gonna sell your soul to a corporate overlord, might as well enjoy the view."

The pillow caught him square in the chest, and he laughed—that same bright, uncomplicated sound I'd heard from the street. When had I stopped laughing like that? When had joy become something I had to schedule between meetings and deadline?

"I'm not talking about Killian Vale tonight," I said firmly, settling into the armchair and tucking my legs beneath me.

"Ugh, you just used his full name. You are totally obsessed." He was grinning now, the laptop forgotten in favor of this familiar game we played—him pushing, me deflecting, both of us pretending it was just sibling banter and not something deeper.

"Am not."

"Are too. You get this look on your face whenever you talk about him. Like you're trying to solve a puzzle that's missing half its pieces."

The observation hit closer to home than I cared to admit. "I'm going to the store," I announced, pushing myself up from the chair with more force than necessary.

He grinned wider, clearly pleased with himself. "You're deflecting."

"And you're annoying."

"It's a gift," he called after me as I headed for the door.

The grocery store was blissfully uneventful—a temple to the ordinary where nothing was analyzed or optimized or subjected to the kind of ruthless efficiency that had become the background music of my daily existence.

Just rows of fluorescent-lit produce arranged with cheerful imperfection, aisles filled with familiar labels and prices I didn't have to justify to anyone, and checkout clerks who smiled because they wanted to, not because customer service was a line item in their performance review.

I took my time—something that felt revolutionary after weeks of measuring my life in fifteen-minute increments. I picked up Milo's favorite cereal, the kind with cartoon characters on the box that I used to tease him about but now seemed refreshingly honest in its childish joy. I selected fruit that wasn't halfway to dying, running my fingers over apple skins and testing the give of pears with the kind of attention I used to reserve for contract negotiations.

In the tea aisle, I found myself standing before a display of imported blends I'd been eyeing for weeks but had never allowed myself to purchase. Too expensive. Too indulgent. Too frivolous for someone who was supposed to be responsible, practical, focused on the future rather than present pleasures.

But tonight felt different. Tonight I was just a woman in a grocery store. I picked up a box of Earl Grey with lavender, inhaling the faint scent that escaped through the packaging, and added it to my cart without calculating the cost per serving or wondering if I deserved such a small luxury.

A small indulgence, but it felt monumental. Earned. Like a prize for surviving another week in the gladiator arena of corporate ambition.

I didn't think about work once while I shopped.

Okay. Maybe once.

When I saw a man in a charcoal suit with the same rolled sleeves and tightly wound energy as Killian, I nearly backed into a stack of soup cans, my heart performing a complex percussion solo against my ribs. For a moment, the carefully constructed peace of my evening threatened to shatter like glass hitting concrete.

But it wasn't him.

Of course it wasn't him.

The man turned, revealing a face that was nothing like the sharp angles and calculating intelligence that had haunted my thoughts for weeks. This stranger smiled at his companion—actually smiled, with teeth and crinkled eyes and the kind of warmth that made me realize how cold I'd grown accustomed to living.

Killian Vale didn't exist outside that building. He couldn't. The world beyond ValeCorp wasn't built for men like him—men who moved through silence like it was currency, men who watched instead of spoke, men who could reduce you to your component parts with nothing more than a glance and a barely perceptible nod.

Here, in this fluorescent-lit haven of the mundane, there were real things. Food. Noise. People who said thank you and have a good night instead of you're late and you're slipping and we need to discuss your performance metrics.

Here, I could be human again.

I returned home to find Milo asleep on the couch, his laptop still balanced precariously on his chest, the TV still playing some old sci-fi rerun where the special effects were charmingly outdated and the problems could be solved in exactly forty-two minutes. His face was soft in sleep, younger somehow, and I was struck by how much he'd grown up while I'd been busy climbing corporate ladders and chasing approval from men who seemed incapable of giving it.

I tucked a blanket around him carefully, the way our mother used to do when we fell asleep during movie nights, and sat at the kitchen table with my new tea steeping in my favorite mug—the one with the chip on the handle that I'd never bothered to replace because it fit perfectly in my palm.

The tea was everything I'd hoped it would be: complex and soothing, with layers of flavor that revealed themselves slowly, demanding attention and patience rather than quick consumption. I sat there in the quiet, letting the steam warm my face and the silence fill my lungs like clean air after months of breathing through a filter.

And for the first time in weeks, I felt normal again.

Almost human.