Chapter 26 - Day 8 Your Majesty 👑
Wednesday morning, the coffee was waiting.
Obviously.
At this point, I would've been more concerned if it wasn't.
I dropped my bag beside my desk and picked up the cup.
Warm.
Perfect.
Exactly mine.
Seven days.
I stared at the coffee.
One week.
That was all that was left.
"Are you having an emotional moment with your latte?"
I looked up.
Maya was standing beside my desk, watching me.
"No."
"You were staring at it."
"I stare at things."
"Not like that."
I took a sip.
"Good morning, Maya."
"Oh, we're deflecting."
"We're working."
"We haven't started working."
"Then you should probably get on that."
She smiled and dropped into the chair beside me.
"How was the interview?"
I looked at her.
"You already asked me yesterday."
"I asked how it went. Today I'm asking how you feel about it."
"That is annoyingly different."
"I know."
I turned toward my computer.
"It was good."
"You liked them?"
"Yes."
"The office?"
"Yes."
"The work?"
"Yes."
Maya waited.
I glanced at her.
"What?"
"You keep saying yes like someone is holding you hostage."
"I liked them."
"Okay."
"I could see myself working there."
Her expression softened.
"That's good, Angel."
It was.
It really was.
I opened my email.
"They said they'd get back to me soon."
"Do you think they'll offer you the job?"
"I don't know."
"I think they will."
"You haven't seen my interview."
"I've seen you work."
I looked at her.
"That was disgustingly supportive."
"Don't get used to it."
"Thank God."
A door opened across the office.
I didn't need to look.
I looked anyway.
Adrian walked out of his office.
And apparently the black shirt had survived Tuesday.
No.
Wait.
Different shirt.
Very light green.
Bottle-green tie, threaded with a subtle lighter-green texture.
Oh, for God's sake.
Apparently visual warfare came in multiple colors.
His eyes moved across the office and landed on me.
Then Maya.
Then back to me.
"Ms. Stone."
"Mr. Vale."
He walked toward my desk and placed a set of drawings in front of me.
"The revised west elevation."
I looked down.
"You changed the glazing."
"I corrected the glazing."
I looked back up.
"You changed it."
"It needed changing."
"It needed adjusting."
"I adjusted it."
"You removed half of it."
"An adjustment."
I stared at him.
Maya made a tiny sound beside me.
I ignored her.
"You can't call deleting something an adjustment."
"I just did."
"That doesn't make it true."
"It doesn't need to be true. It needs to work."
"It worked before."
"Poorly."
"It did not work poorly."
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Review it."
"I already hate it."
"You haven't looked at it."
"I looked at it."
"For three seconds."
"It only required two."
I froze.
Adrian froze.
Maya slowly turned her head toward me.
Oh.
I looked at Adrian.
He looked at me.
That was his line.
I had actually just used his own argument against him.
His eyebrows rose.
"Really?"
I straightened.
"It was appropriate."
"You changed one word."
"An improvement."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
I smiled.
He stared at me for another second.
Then tapped the drawings once.
"Before eleven."
"Fine."
Adrian turned and walked away.
I watched him disappear into his office.
Beside me, Maya was silent.
Too silent.
I looked at her.
She was smiling.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That is absolutely not nothing."
She turned toward her computer.
"Nature is healing."
I stared at her.
"Shut up."
She laughed.
I looked back down at the drawings.
Seven days.
And apparently I'd started stealing Adrian Vale's arguments.
Great.
At least when I left, I'd have something to remember him by.
By eleven-thirty, I had reviewed the elevations.
Adrian was still wrong.
Obviously.
I made three notes, circled the section I hated most, and sent the file back to him.
Two minutes later, my phone rang.
Not my cell.
Desk phone.
I picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Come here."
I stared at the receiver.
No greeting.
No name.
Just come here.
Apparently some things were never going to change.
"Good morning to you too."
A pause.
"Ms. Stone."
"Mr. Vale."
"My office."
The line went dead.
I looked at the phone.
Asshole.
I got up and walked toward his office.
He was standing beside the large screen when I entered, my marked-up elevation displayed across it.
"You circled the glazing."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because it's wrong."
"It isn't."
"Then why did you ask?"
His eyes moved to me.
I smiled pleasantly.
He looked back at the screen.
"The western exposure creates too much heat gain with the original configuration."
"I know."
"Then why are you objecting?"
"Because your solution fixes one problem by creating another."
"What problem?"
"The interior loses half the daylight."
"Not half."
"Enough."
He picked up the remote and changed the view.
"The daylight analysis is within range."
"Within range isn't the same as good."
"It meets the requirement."
I looked at him.
"You hate that argument."
"I don't."
"You absolutely do."
"I use requirements when they're relevant."
"You call minimum requirements lazy design."
"When they're being used to justify lazy design."
I pointed at the screen.
"Exactly."
"This isn't lazy design."
"It is boring design."
His jaw shifted.
"Those are not the same thing."
"Sometimes they are."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
I pointed at the screen.
"You're choosing efficiency over the actual experience of the space."
"I'm choosing a solution that performs."
"A prison performs. Doesn't mean I'd want to live in one."
His eyes moved slowly to mine.
"Are we doing this again?"
"If you keep designing prisons, yes."
"It's an office building."
"Then stop making it look like one with visiting hours."
Silence.
Then-
"Ms. Stone."
"Mr. Vale."
He stared at me.
I stared back.
There it was again.
That familiar irritation.
That familiar little current underneath it.
The thing we'd somehow started doing without either of us admitting we liked it.
Arguing.
Not fighting.
Not what had happened in that conference room.
This.
Architecture.
Two stubborn people convinced the other one was wrong.
And apparently neither of us had learned anything.
Adrian turned back to the screen.
"I'm keeping the revised glazing."
"You're wrong."
"I'll try to recover."
"You won't."
"I've survived worse."
"Name one thing."
His eyes slid toward me.
"You."
My mouth fell open.
"Excuse me?"
"You asked."
"That was incredibly rude."
"It was accurate."
I stared at him.
He looked completely serious.
"You know I'm still employed here, right?"
"For seven more days."
The words landed differently than everything before them.
I stopped.
So did he.
For a second, the argument disappeared.
Seven days.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
He'd corrected me yesterday when I'd said five days.
He was counting too.
His expression closed slightly.
Then he looked back at the screen.
"The glazing stays."
And just like that, Adrian Vale had rebuilt the wall.
I should've been annoyed.
Instead, something almost like a smile pulled at my mouth.
"You're still wrong."
"I heard you the first six times."
"Good. I wanted to make sure."
I turned toward the door.
"Angelica."
I stopped.
His voice had changed just enough to make me look back.
He was still facing the screen.
A second passed.
Then-
"Send me your alternative before two."
I blinked.
"You just said you're keeping yours."
"I am."
"Then why do you want mine?"
"Because if you're going to spend the rest of the day telling me I'm wrong, I'd prefer you prove it."
Oh.
I smiled.
"Fine."
I reached for the door.
"And when I prove it?"
"You won't."
"We'll see."
I walked out.
Ben looked up as I returned to my desk.
"Well?"
"He's wrong."
Ben nodded solemnly.
"Good. I was worried something terrible had happened."
"What?"
"You two agreed yesterday. We were all concerned."
Nicole looked over her monitor.
"I slept badly."
Daniel nodded.
"Same."
I dropped into my chair.
"You're all idiots."
Ben smiled.
"And yet nature continues to heal."
I pointed at him.
"Maya already used that one."
His smile disappeared.
"Damn it."
Maya didn't even look up.
"Get your own material."
I laughed and opened the elevation file.
Seven days.
I looked toward Adrian's office.
Then back at my screen.
Seven days was starting to sound much shorter than one week.
By one-thirty, I had finished my alternative for the west elevation.
It was better than Adrian's.
Obviously.
I was still deciding how obnoxiously to tell him that when Nicole appeared beside my desk.
"Conference room in five."
I looked up.
"For what?"
"Solara coordination."
"Who called it?"
She gave me a look.
Right.
Stupid question.
Five minutes later, we were gathered around the conference table.
Ben was beside me.
Nicole across from us.
Daniel near the screen.
Maya had taken the chair on my other side.
Claire sat near the end of the table.
And Adrian stood at the front, because apparently sitting like a normal human being was beneath him.
My phone was face-up beside my notebook.
Adrian went through the latest coordination issues with the structural team, rejected one proposed change in approximately six seconds, questioned another for long enough that Daniel visibly regretted bringing it up, and assigned three follow-ups.
Normal meeting.
Normal Adrian.
Then Claire asked him about one of the updated files.
"I have it in my office."
He walked out.
Daniel changed the drawing on the screen.
Ben leaned toward me.
"Do you think he practices that?"
"What?"
"The disappointed stare."
"No."
"You don't think?"
"I think it comes naturally."
"That's worse."
My phone lit up.
Then started ringing.
I glanced down.
And stopped breathing.
Ben looked down.
There was a beat of silence.
Then-
"Who the hell is Your Majesty?"
My hand shot toward the phone.
Too late.
Maya saw it.
Her eyes went huge.