Chapter 16 Tom
Chapter sixteen
Tom
The subway glass is black except for my reflection. The train rattles through the tunnel and my face distorts in the dark window. I don't look away.
We almost kissed.
I leaned in. She didn't pull back. If Wren's call hadn't come through, I would've closed that last two inches and kissed Sam Morgan in her office with the door unlocked and the contact sheets still open on her screen.
The train stops at Union Square. People get off. More people get on. I stay pressed against the window, shoulder to the glass, watching the platform lights blur past as we pull out again.
She didn’t stop me. That's the part I keep circling back to. I’ve been telling myself this is one-sided. That I’m the one blurring the lines, that she’s just being polite or professional or caught up in the work.
But she didn't pull away. Which means the line between professional and personal isn't just blurred. It's gone.
The woman next to me shifts her bag. I look down to see if I can make some room and notice my phone screen glowing in the dark glass. Two texts from Sam. Both about Thursday's presentation.
I pull my phone out and open my email instead.
The draft saves automatically. Subject line first: Thursday Presentation—Final Check. Clean. Professional.
I start with "Hey Sam," then stop. Stare at it for three seconds. Backspace until it's gone.
Straight to bullets.
Confirm slide deck is locked
Review transitions one more time
Arrive 15 min early for tech check
My thumb hovers over the send button. It looks like an email I'd send to a client I've worked with twice. Polite. Distant. Exactly what I need it to be.
I hit send before I can second-guess it.
Her reply comes in five minutes. I'm still on the train, two stops from home.
Received. Thanks.
No emoji. No warmth. No sign of the woman who laughed at my bureaucracy joke last week or sent me a GIF of a cat wearing safety goggles.
I lock my phone and shove it back in my pocket. It stings, but I tell myself it's necessary. Better distant than reckless.
The train pulls into my stop and I get off, climbing the stairs to street level, walking the four blocks to my building without seeing any of it.
Thursday morning I text Sam at seven-fifteen.
Running late, see you at the presentation.
I'm not late. I'm in a coffee shop three blocks from the site office, drinking an americano I don't want, killing time so I don't have to stand next to her in the lobby and pretend we didn't almost kiss two days ago.
We always grab coffee together before Board meetings. It's been our routine since week two—her oat milk latte, my black coffee, ten minutes of low-stakes conversation that settles us both before we walk into the room.
This week I'm sitting alone at a table by the window, watching the clock on my phone tick closer to eight.
The air in the boardroom is stifling. I anchor myself to the edge of the conference table while Sam runs the deck, keeping as much physical distance between us as the room allows.
She cues me halfway through, right where we practiced. She pauses, giving me the opening to explain how the light shifts in the pedestrian corridor.
I stay silent.
She waits. Two seconds. Three. Her hand hovers over the clicker and her eyes flick toward me—confused, maybe annoyed—before she keeps going.
She recovers because she's too good not to, but the rhythm is broken. Aldridge's pen taps against his notebook—tap tap tap.
I give my next section exactly as scripted. Technically accurate. Professionally distant.
Every single word lands completely flat. I am pulling back to keep the lines clear, but watching Sam's shoulders tighten with every word I say makes me feel sick to my stomach.
When we finish, the Board claps politely. The Developer stands, shakes our hands, and says the work is solid but we seemed disjointed today.
"Everything okay with you two?"
"Yes," Sam says.
"Absolutely," I say at the same time.
He doesn't look convinced, but he lets it go.
***
Sam corners me by the elevators before I can make it to the stairwell.
"What was that?"
I hit the call button. "I didn't want to step on your toes."
She steps closer, invading my space the exact same way I invaded hers on Wednesday. I smell her shampoo—sharp citrus. "You weren't stepping on my toes. You were backing out of the room."
The elevator dings. The doors slide open. I step inside and turn to face her, one hand on the rubber bumper to keep it from closing.
"I'm trying to keep this professional, Sam."
Her jaw tightens. "We were being professional. But you pulled back and the work suffered."
The doors try to close. I hold them open, but I don't step back out.
"I'll see you next week," I say, and let the door go.
The doors close on her face, cutting off the furious, betrayed look in her eyes.
***
I'm home by six. My apartment is too quiet and too small and I can't sit still.
I pull my camera bag onto the kitchen table and start cleaning lenses I already cleaned on Tuesday.
Microfiber cloth in small circles, the motion almost soothing.
When I run out of lenses I reorganize the bag.
Rearrange the dividers. Move the backup battery to the outside pocket and then move it back.
The fridge hums in the corner. A car horn blares outside and fades down the street.
My laptop is open on the counter. I've been editing the dawn shoot photos all week, tweaking white balance by half a degree and then changing it back.
There's one shot I keep coming back to. Sam standing at the east corner of the site, early light hitting the side of her face.
She's looking at something off-camera—probably her phone, checking the schedule—but the angle makes it look like she's watching the sunrise.
Her expression is unguarded. Focused. Beautiful.
My phone buzzes on the table. I ignore it. It buzzes again thirty seconds later. Again a minute after that.
I've been dodging Wren since the Greenpoint viewing yesterday.
I showed up physically to look at the space with her, but I spent the whole hour checked out, changing the subject every time she asked about the Harbor project.
Since I left her there, I've been ignoring her texts.
I couldn't figure out how to explain what happened without admitting we almost kissed.
I pick up the phone now. Three new texts.
How'd the presentation go?
Sent at 6:30.
Tommy. You always text back after Board meetings. What happened?
Sent at 7:15.
The third one just came through.
If you don't answer in five minutes I'm calling.
I set the phone face-down and go back to the lens I've already cleaned twice. Four minutes later the phone rings.
Wren. I could let it go to voicemail. She'd call back. She always calls back.
I answer on the fourth ring.
"You're doing the thing," she says. No hello. No preamble.
"What thing?"
"Shutting me out," her voice is flat, the way it gets when she's already three steps ahead of the conversation. "You barely spoke at the walkthrough yesterday, and now you're dodging my calls. What happened?"
I switch the phone to speaker and set it on the table so I can keep cleaning the lens. "Nothing happened. The presentation was fine."
"Fine?" She draws the word out, skeptical. "Last week you said you and Sam were crushing it. Now it's fine?"
"We had an off day."
"Okay." She pauses. I hear her moving around her apartment, probably pacing. "So what are you doing to fix it?"
I set the lens down and pick up the cloth, folding it into a smaller square. I don't have an answer.
"Tommy." Her voice softens, just slightly. "What happened with Sam?"
I don't answer. I can't answer because if I start talking, I'm going to tell her everything, and then she's going to ask me why I'm sitting in my apartment hiding from it.
"You always do this," Wren says quietly. "You pull back the second things get complicated. But Sam seems like someone who'd handle the truth. She just can't understand what you refuse to tell her."
I close the photo of Sam. The screen goes black and I'm left staring at my own reflection. My face looks tired. My jaw is tight and my shoulders are up around my ears, the same way Sam's were by the elevator.
"I have to go," I say.
"Tommy—"
I hang up before she can finish.
I open my laptop and find the email I've been avoiding all week.
Subject: Dubai Commission—FINAL DEADLINE EXTENSION (Need Answer EOD)
The dates overlap Harbor District's final presentation. The one Sam will have to deliver alone if I take this job.
I've never turned down a commission this size. Not in ten years. The reply box is open. Cursor blinking.
I open the dawn photo of Sam again—her face in the early light, unguarded and focused. I look at it, and the truth Wren just tried to tell me finally clicks into place.
I pulled back today to protect the project. To protect myself from crossing a line. But watching Sam stand alone in that boardroom felt worse than any risk I could have taken. By trying not to ruin this, I sabotaged it myself.
I look back at the Dubai email. The escape hatch.
I delete my draft. I close the window without sending anything.
I pick up my phone instead. Sam's text from this morning is still on the screen.
I'm sorry, I type. Can we talk?
My thumb hovers over the send button.