Chapter 9 Tom
Chapter nine
Tom
Ifigure I'll be the first one here.
It is exactly two minutes before seven, but when I open the glass door to the conference room labelled Morgan + Bennett, Sam is already entrenched.
Her laptop is open, a slide deck fully built and glowing on the screen.
A massive site plan is spread flat across the long conference table, its edges pinned down by her ceramic coffee mug and a highlighter.
The margins are completely covered in her precise handwriting—blue, green, and red ink for anything she deems urgent.
She is a walking masterclass in preemptive defense.
The deck is finished. The notes are color-coded. The battlefield is fully prepared.
A second cup of coffee sits waiting on my side of the table.
I pick it up and take a sip as I set my bag down and pull out my tablet. I brace for the battle. I know how this goes. She’ll hand me the deck, assign my talking points, and tell me where to stand.
"Morning."
Sam glances up. Her expression is professional, but her jaw is tight. She looks at the laptop screen, then at a stack of printed notes.
"I drafted a structure for the presentation."
I hold back a sigh.
"Okay."
She presses her lips together, fingers drumming once against the table.
"But I think we should start with your image sequencing," she says. "We can adjust the narrative around your strongest shots. Does that work for you?"
I stop moving.
I look at the finished deck on her screen, then at her.
She built a cage.
Then left the door open.
"Yeah," I say, pulling out my chair. "That works."
We spread out in the quiet room.
I pull up the image folders, the tablet casting a bright reflection across the polished wood table, and angle the screen toward her. She leans closer, pen hovering over a fresh page in her notebook.
"Walk me through this sequence," she says, tapping the first image with the back of her pen. "Why start here?"
"Pedestrian flow." I tap the corner of the frame. "See how the sightline pulls toward the water? I wanted the approach first."
Sam writes something. I wait for her to redirect me.
She doesn’t.
"This one," I say, swiping to the next frame. "Morning light on the brick. Makes the plaza feel bigger."
She studies the screen, tilting her head slightly.
"I want to move that earlier," she says. "Right before the waterfront."
I shake my head. "I’d keep it here. If you show the plaza first, the reveal dies. They need to feel the walk."
Sam’s pen stops.
She studies the sequence on my tablet, then flips back to her notes.
"Show me."
I drag three frames into a new order. Street. Approach. Then the wide sunlit plaza.
She watches the progression carefully. "Okay," she says finally. "You’re right."
She draws an arrow in her notes and renumbers the list.
No asterisk. No hedge. Just the arrow.
I like when someone just gets it.
We move on.
"This one—" she says, pointing to a frame near the end. "It reads differently than the others. Too quiet."
"Because that block is quiet at seven in the morning," I say. "It’s locals grabbing coffee and walking dogs. People who actually live there."
Sam sets her pen down.
"Investors are going to question it," she says. "To them, energy equals money."
Here it comes. The corporate compromise.
I wait for her to kill the shot.
"But," she says, tapping her finger once against the table, "it shows we aren’t hiding anything. It builds trust."
She studies the image another moment.
"We keep it."
"Good," I say. "We keep it."
For the next few minutes, we don’t hit a single wall.
I pull up the afternoon frames, explaining how the shadows fall differently than her blueprints suggest, and she leans closer, tracking the light across the screen. She leans closer, her shoulder brushing mine as she tracks the light across the screen. Neither of us pulls away
I don’t have to translate what I’m seeing.
I don’t have to defend it.
Somewhere around the fifth minute, breathing in the scent of her vanilla coffee, it hits me that I’m completely in my element.
Collaborating with someone who actually understands what I’m seeing.
My phone suddenly vibrates against the table.
I glance down, see a text from my sister, and flip the phone face-down. I don’t want anything breaking the momentum.
"So the sequence builds west to east," I say, sliding the tablet a little closer to her. "Which means if you open with the transit hub—"
The phone buzzes again.
And again.
Sam pauses, pen hovering midair while she waits for me to deal with the distraction.
I grab the phone and swipe it open.
Three messages from Wren.
Tommy you around?
Call me when you get this
Tommy call me NOW
My sister is not the type to escalate. She is fiercely independent; she would wait all day before triple-texting me during work hours unless something was seriously wrong.
"I need to take this," I say, already standing up and stepping away from the table.
"Go," Sam says without missing a beat. "I'll run through the sequence again."
I hit call the second I clear the conference room.
Wren picks up on the first ring. "Hey."
It’s a single syllable, but her voice is wound so tight I can practically hear the string snapping.
“Hey. You okay?"
"My landlord called this morning," she exhales, the sound shaky. "The building sold. The new owner wants to convert the ground floor to high-end residential. I have thirty days."
My stomach completely drops out. Six years. She spent six years building her client base on that block, earning referrals, becoming a staple in the neighborhood. I start pacing the length of the hallway, instantly kicking into fixer mode. "Okay. Have you talked to a broker?"
"Two. I already made the calls."
"And?"
"Everything in my price range is either too small, the wrong zoning, or not available for three months." Her voice goes totally flat. "I'm not going to find something in thirty days, Tommy."
"You don't know that yet."
"I know what I saw."
I stop pacing, pressing my free hand against the cool hallway wall. "We'll figure it out. I can help you move, I can—"
"I know you will." It is so quiet. "You always do."
The sheer exhaustion in her response stops me dead in my tracks. She isn't comforted; she hates that she needs me to save her again.
"Go back to your meeting," she says, and hangs up.
I stand frozen in the hallway, the phone still pressed to my ear. I feel entirely useless. I pull the phone down, stare at her name on the dark screen, and force myself to take a deep breath before reaching for the conference room door.
When I walk back in, I plan to apologize for the delay and dive straight back into the images. But the moment Sam looks up from her laptop, the professional script evaporates. Her eyes narrow, catching the absolute wreck of my posture in a split second.
"Everything okay?"
I collapse into my chair. My defenses are completely shot. I don't have the energy to lie to her, even though I fully expect her to offer a polite, empty apology and pivot straight back to slide four.
"My sister's losing her shop lease," I say bluntly. "Building sold. Thirty days."
Sam doesn't flinch. She must register something in my voice. She doesn’t offer some hollow sympathy line. She just drops her pen onto the notebook.
"What kind of space does she need?"
No I'm sorry. No that's awful.
"Tattoo parlor. Greenpoint. Six years in the same spot. Around 800 square feet. She needs street level, decent foot traffic."
Sam is already on her phone, typing. "Zoning for tattoo studios in Manhattan is specific. Has she looked at shared creative spaces, or does she need sole retail?"
"I don't know."
"What's her budget relative to current rent?"
"I—" I set both hands flat on the table. "I don't know that either."
Sam looks up.
"I also don't know if she's open to a shared space." I laugh.
I've been trying to solve a problem I don't understand.
"Listen." Sam sets her phone down. "I know a few people.
Commercial real estate — developers, property managers who work with small retail.
If your sister's open to it, I can make some calls.
" She pauses. "But I need specs first. Square footage, budget range, must-haves versus nice-to-haves. I can't go to anyone vague."
I stare at her.
She isn’t hesitating.
This isn’t a polite let me know if I can help. She’s already working on the problem. Calling people she knows. Doing it for someone she’s never met. On a morning when we’re supposed to be prepping a Board presentation.
"You don't have to do that."
"I know." She holds my gaze. "But while you're sitting there running the math on your sister's shop, you're completely useless to me anyway."
I blink.
She holds the straight face for half a second. Then the small, dry smile. "I'm kidding. Mostly. I can make a few calls. Let me help."
I don't answer right away. Helping Wren is what I do. She and I moved around a lot when we were kids. She was the only constant.
Sam is still watching me.
"I'll ask her," I say.
I pull out my phone and type the text. Hit send. The phone sits face-up on the table between us. Sam's hands are in her lap. I look at the site plan. She looks at her laptop screen. Neither of us is actually reading anything.
The reply lands in under a minute.
Is this the architect?
Yeah.
Bring her by the shop. I want to meet her anyway. And I'll give her the specs myself.
I look up at Sam.
"She wants to meet you," I say. "At the shop. Now, apparently."
Sam doesn't look at her color-coded notes. She doesn't check her perfectly optimized calendar. She just stands up and grabs her coat. "Let's go."
The presentation is still open on her screen. The site plan is still spread across the table.
Neither of us mentions it.
The professional boundary we walked in with is gone. We walk out together.