Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
Maci
Encrypted Message: Rune
The best communities aren't built with code. They're built by the people who make room for someone new.
Saturday morning, I wake up to the sound of the penthouse intercom buzzing like someone is trying to electrocute the wall.
For one blissful second, I have no idea where I am.
Then the Austin morning skyline reminds me.
My half-unpacked suitcase sits open near the closet, and the softest sheets in the history of rich people wrap around my legs.
Right. Witt O'Ryan's penthouse. Temporary housing.
Dream job. Questionable life choices. All of it comes rushing back right as the intercom buzzes again.
I stumble out of bed, throw on a robe over my sleep shirt, and pad barefoot toward the panel near the hallway.
My hair is a disaster, my eyes feel gritty from staying up too late reading gala details, and I am absolutely not emotionally prepared for human interaction.
Which is why I assume it's Dara. Dara seems like the kind of woman who shows up on Saturday morning with a clipboard, a crisis, and a color-coded plan to fix it.
"Hello?" I press the button.
"Buzz me in," a cheerful female voice says.
Not Dara.
Before I can ask who it is, my thumb betrays me and presses the unlock button.
The elevator hums to life, and thirty seconds later, the doors slide open to reveal Noelle Stricker with two coffees, oversized sunglasses, a massive tote bag, and a smile bright enough to make the Austin skyline look underdressed.
"Good. You're awake."
I glance down at my robe, then back at her perfect outfit. "That feels generous."
She steps inside like she's been doing it her entire life, which, based on what I've learned about the O'Ryans, she probably has. "I brought coffee, emergency carbs, and the kind of enthusiasm Witt finds emotionally alarming."
"Are you here to see Witt?”
"No.”
"Dara?"
"No, I’m here to see you."
“Me?”
Noelle lifts one shoulder, completely unbothered.
I take the coffee she offers because caffeine feels safer than trying to understand O'Ryan family logistics before nine in the morning. "Did he tell you I was here?"
"Technically, yes."
Technically?
That word never means anything simple.
Noelle walks farther into the penthouse, her gaze sweeping over my abandoned laptop, my pixel-heart mug, and the dress I bought online out of panic that is currently draped over the back of a chair. Her mouth presses into a sympathetic line.
"Oh, honey. No."
I stiffen. "What?"
"It’s black tie."
"I know."
"That dress says you don't."
I look at the dress like it might defend itself. It does not. "I was going to figure it out."
"No, you weren't." Noelle sets her tote on the island, pushes her sunglasses up into her blonde hair, and gives me a look that somehow manages to be kind and terrifying at the same time.
"You were going to panic, buy something safe, hate every picture taken of you, and spend the whole night tugging at fabric instead of letting everyone see how brilliant you are. "
My throat tightens a little because that is painfully specific.
"Did Dara send you?"
"No."
"Then how did you know?"
Noelle's smile softens into something quieter. "Witt mentioned you didn't have anything for the gala."
I freeze with my coffee halfway to my mouth.
Witt mentioned me. To his sister.
About a dress.
Why does that feel bigger than it should?
"He did?"
"He said it like an operational problem," Noelle says, waving a hand. "Very dramatic. Very Witt. Something about you having two days and no suitable formalwear."
"That sounds... nice?"
"It was." Her eyes warm. "You just have to learn how to translate him."
I don't know what to say to that, so I take a drink of coffee and burn my tongue. Perfect. Wonderful. Very glamorous.
Noelle claps her hands together. "Go get dressed. We're shopping."
"Shopping?"
"Yes."
"I don't know if I should leave. I have work to do."
"It's Saturday."
"Gaming doesn't observe weekends."
"No, but I do." She points toward the hallway. "Go. Jeans are fine. Cute shoes if you have them. If not, we'll fix that too."
Fifteen minutes later, I'm in Noelle's car, holding a croissant she insisted was breakfast and trying to process how quickly my quiet Saturday became a full-contact bonding event.
She drives like she talks, confident and fast, weaving through Austin traffic while telling me about her kids, her husband Matt, the gala, the foundation, and the fact that Witt hates surprises unless he is the one creating them.
"He doesn't hate people," she says as we pull into a shopping district that looks far too expensive for my current emotional state. "People think that sometimes, because he's quiet and blunt and doesn't do all the social cushioning everyone expects. But he doesn't hate people."
"I didn't think he did."
"Good." Noelle parks and glances over. "Because he notices more than anyone. He just doesn't always know what to do with what he notices."
That lands somewhere I don't expect.
Because I have seen it. Witt noticing my mug. My box. My pretzels. The photo in my office. Chase on the phone. The way he sees everything but doesn't always react the way other people would.
"He noticed I didn't have a dress," I say quietly.
Noelle smiles like I've passed a test. "Exactly."
Shopping with Noelle is less like shopping and more like being swept into a hurricane with excellent taste.
She doesn't ask whether I like something before she hands it to me.
She decides what will work, what won't, what will make me feel powerful, what will make me feel uncomfortable, and what will make Witt "short-circuit in a very respectful way.
" Her words, not mine. I nearly choke on my iced coffee when she says it.
By the fourth boutique, I've tried on three black dresses, one navy dress, something red that made me look like I was auditioning to be a scandal, and one silver gown I refused to leave the dressing room in because it clung to every curve I normally try not to think about.
Noelle knocks on the door. "Come out."
"No."
"Maci."
"Noelle."
"I saw it on the hanger. I know it's good."
"It has no respect for personal boundaries."
"Neither does this family. Come out."
I groan, unlock the door, and step into the fitting area.
Noelle goes silent.
For the first time all morning, she has no immediate commentary, and that makes me more nervous than if she'd screamed.
The gown is deep emerald with soft, structured fabric that skims instead of squeezes.
The neckline is elegant but not boring, the waist pulls in just enough to give me shape, and the slit up one side makes my legs look approximately eighteen miles long.
My silvery-pink hair falls over my shoulders, and for one strange second, I don't feel like the girl who never fit in at baseball fields or soccer games or corporate parties.
I look like someone who belongs at the gala.
Someone who might belong at Synatrix.
Someone Witt O'Ryan might look at twice.
Dangerous thought. Delete immediately.
Noelle's eyes shine. "That's the one."
I swallow. "Are you sure?"
"No." She steps beside me, turning me gently toward the mirror. "I'm positive."
The woman staring back at me doesn't look like she's borrowing someone else's life. She looks like she finally stepped into her own. My chest aches a little, and I blink too fast because I refuse to cry in a boutique where a single shoe probably costs more than my first car.
Noelle sees it anyway.
Of course she does.
"Hey," she says softly. "You deserve to feel beautiful and brilliant at the same time. You don't have to pick one."
I laugh, but it comes out wobbly. "You O'Ryans are dangerous."
"I'm a Stricker now,” she says, beaming with pride.
"Still dangerous."
"Fair."
By the time we return to the penthouse, we're laughing so hard I can barely carry the bags.
Noelle has somehow talked me into the dress, shoes, earrings, and a tiny clutch that holds almost nothing except a lipstick and the illusion of preparedness.
The elevator opens, and we stumble inside with garment bags and shopping bags and the kind of bright, easy noise that definitely does not belong in Witt's perfectly ordered world.
We make it six steps before a door opens down the hall.
Witt appears in black athletic pants, bare feet, and a T-shirt that looks unfairly soft. His hair is slightly messed up like he's been dragging his hand through it, and he has headphones around his neck. The second he sees us, his expression tightens.
"I'm trying to work."
I stop immediately.
The warmth from the morning drains straight out of me.
Noelle, however, doesn't even flinch. "And we're trying to improve your gala optics. Everyone has a struggle."
His gaze flicks over the bags, then to me, then back to Noelle. "You bought the entire store."
"No. I left several ugly things behind."
"I have calls."
"You have noise-canceling headphones."
"I shouldn't have to wear them in my own home."
"You grew up with four siblings."
"Past tense."
Noelle walks over and kisses his cheek. He sighs like a man who could run a billion-dollar empire but cannot win a single argument against his sister.
"You're welcome," she says.
"I didn't say thank you."
"You thought it loudly."
"I didn't."
"You did."
Then she turns to me, completely unconcerned. "Don't take it personally. That's just Witt. He protects his quiet the way other people protect their hearts."
My gaze shifts back to him before I can stop it.
He looks away.
A small, painful twist pulls inside my chest.
Noelle leaves twenty minutes later after hanging the dress in my room, making me promise not to second-guess it, and inviting me to her house "whenever the silence gets creepy.
" Then the penthouse becomes quiet again.
Too quiet, somehow, after a morning filled with laughter and movement and Noelle's effortless way of making me feel like I was already included.
I stand in my guest room staring at the emerald dress hanging from the closet door.
It looks beautiful. But it’s also temporary the same as me living here.
Just like my mug sitting on the nightstand instead of in the kitchen where it might bother Witt's perfect row of black ones.
Maybe I should look harder for a place.
The thought settles heavily.
I haven't had time. Between the move, the new job, the rookie program, and trying to prove I deserve every penny they're paying me, house hunting has become a tab open in my browser that I keep minimizing.
But this is Witt's space. His routine. His quiet.
His carefully built world. And maybe I'm standing in the middle of it, laughing too loud, touching too much, wanting things I have no business wanting.
Don't get comfortable, Maci.
Comfortable is how people forget temporary means temporary.