Chapter 15 Sam
Chapter fifteen
Sam
The office is empty.
The cleaning crew passed through an hour ago. The hallway lights are on motion sensors now, flickering off in sections as the building settles into silence. It's just me, Tom, and the glow of two monitors casting blue-white light across the glass conference table.
We’ve been at this for three hours.
I had intentionally set up my laptop on the exact opposite side of the table tonight. A physical barrier. No sitting shoulder-to-shoulder like Wednesday night. No accidental brushing of arms. I need the distance.
But it hasn't stopped the rhythm. He flags an image, I pull the site plan, and we know without speaking whether it works.
The sushi containers sit between us.
He brought dinner. Showed up at six-thirty with a brown paper bag and set it down next to my keyboard without asking if I'd eaten. I stared at it for a second.
Salmon nigiri. Edamame. Pickled ginger.
"How did you know I like salmon?"
He shrugged, already pulling a contact sheet onto his screen, and set his phone down on the glass table next to his coffee cup. "You mentioned it. During the south elevation site walk. You said the food truck by the gate had good salmon rolls."
"That was two weeks ago."
"Sounds right."
My chopsticks pause halfway to my mouth. I ate four pieces before I trusted my voice enough to say thank you.
Tom taps his screen. "Connectivity section. What do you want to lead with?"
I swallow and pull up my outline. "Pedestrian flow. We need to show how the promenade connects to the transit hub without creating bottlenecks during peak hours."
"Got it." He scrolls through his files. "I have the morning commuter sequence from last Thursday. Seven-fifteen to eight-thirty. Fifteen-minute intervals."
He drags the folder onto the shared drive. Thumbnails populate my screen. Clean light, visible foot traffic, the pergola structure creating rhythm in the background.
I click on the 7:45 shot. "This one."
"Hmm…" He leans over his keyboard to see my screen.
"The angle shows the sight lines from the station entrance to the waterfront. You can see both destinations in one frame. That's the argument."
"Okay. But look at this one." He pulls up the 8:00 shot. Same angle, more people in the frame. "You get the flow. You see how they're using the space."
I study both images. He's right. The second one has life. Movement. The first one is clean, but it's sterile.
"Use both," I say. "Sequence them. Structure, then activation."
He grins. "Now you're thinking like a photographer."
"Don't push it."
He laughs.
We've been doing this for three hours and it doesn't feel like work anymore. It feels like collaboration. Like we're building something together instead of defending our separate territories.
I pull up the next section—material transitions—and Tom opens three files at once. I know which one I need before he says anything.
"The noon shot," I say.
He drags it into the shared folder. "Show me."
I point at the screen. "The light angle. It's the only one that shows the depth of the overhang without washing out the glass."
"Okay. Now you're just showing off."
I smile despite myself. "You started it."
He shakes his head, smiling too. The ease is natural. I forget to be careful. I forget to keep the professional distance I've been maintaining since the dawn shoot.
"Material palette," I say, clicking to the next section. "I want to show the glazing detail here. It's the piece that makes the whole facade concept work."
Tom scrolls. "I've got the southeast elevation at three different times of day. You can see how the glass reads differently depending on the light angle."
"Good. I'll need all three." I drag his images into the layout and start positioning them against the section drawing.
"The Board needs to understand that this isn't just aesthetic.
Aldridge signing off on the concept last week only gets us in the room on Thursday—the Board holds the actual funding.
So this has to visually justify the cost."
“Walk me through it.”
I pull up the detail drawing and zoom in on the section cut. “Look here.” I grab a chopstick and point to the line where the glass wall meets the structural grid.
“Most firms would just use standard framing. You’d see the breaks every twelve feet where the panels connect.”
I tap the drawing.
“But we’re using a custom frame that lets the glass run straight across the break. No visible seam.”
Tom leans forward across the table, studying the detail.
I keep going, the chopstick tracing the line as I talk.
“So it reads as one surface even though it’s built in sections. That matters because the whole building is designed around visual flow — inside to outside, public to private, ground level to the upper floors.”
I gesture with the chopstick again.
“If the glass breaks, the whole idea breaks.”
I’m talking faster now, the chopstick sketching invisible lines in the air. I don’t realize how animated I’ve gotten until I glance up.
Tom isn’t looking at the screen.
He's looking at me.
I stop mid-sentence. Lower the chopstick. "What?"
"You love this." His voice drops, quieter than before.
My shoulders stiffen reflexively. "It's my job."
"No." He shakes his head, and his mouth curves just barely—not quite a smile, but close. "It's not just the job. You light up. Your whole face changes when you talk about it."
My pulse kicks.
I set the chopstick down carefully. I don't know what to do with that sentence. I don't know where to file it or how to deflect without sounding defensive.
So, I turn my chair to face him.
Bad idea.
Because he is already standing up. He walks around the edge of the glass table, closing the physical distance I had so carefully set up, and crouches down right beside my chair.
We're knees-to-knees now. The space between us is maybe eight inches. The air feels suddenly heavy, still. The faint hum of the building's HVAC system is the only sound left in the world.
Tom's gaze flickers down to my mouth, then slowly, deliberately, back up to my eyes.
My hands grip the armrests. I forget to be careful. I forget everything.
Tom leans forward. Slowly. His hands come down, resting over mine, his long fingers gripping the plastic edges of the armrests as he boxes me in. Then, his right hand comes up. Knuckles brush my jawline, rough and warm, and then his thumb settles just under my chin.
The contact is light.
My breath stops.
He tilts my face up. Just a fraction. I meet his eyes.
I don't pull away.
His thumb traces along my cheekbone. The calluses on his skin catch slightly against mine. Heat floods down my neck, across my shoulders, into my chest.
"Sam." His voice is low and rough.
"Yeah?" It comes out barely more than a breath.
He doesn't answer right away. His gaze moves over my face—eyes, mouth, back to eyes—and the silence stretches. Outside, a car horn sounds faint and distant. The refrigerator in the kitchenette hums.
Then he speaks.
"I want to know what else makes you look like that."
My brain stalls.
"Like what?" I manage.
He leans in.
Six inches between us. Then four.
I soften against his hand. My body tilts toward him, closing the distance he left open.
His eyes are green. I see the darker ring around the iris. The pale flecks catching the monitor light. The place where his jaw tightens, holding himself back.
Three inches.
The project disappears.
Thursday doesn't exist. The Board doesn't exist. The compliance log, the careful distance—all of it stops mattering.
Two inches.
His phone vibrates against the glass table.
The harsh buzz violently shatters the quiet.
We freeze.
For one long, agonizing beat, neither of us moves. The phone buzzes again, rattling against the glass.
Tom closes his eyes. His jaw clenches so hard I can see the muscle jump. He exhales—a sharp, frustrated sound—and his hand drops from my face.
The sudden loss of his heat leaves my skin feeling cold and completely raw.
He leans back, runs a hand through his hair, and reaches for the phone. His grip is tight, knuckles showing white for a second before he loosens it on purpose.
"It's Wren," he says. His voice is strained, thick with whatever we just stopped ourselves from doing.
I nod. I don't trust myself to speak. My face is burning where his hand was.
He stands, his boots shifting loud against the floor, and steps into the hallway. The glass wall between us might as well be a mile. I see him pacing, phone pressed to his ear, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck.
My pulse hammers in my throat. My chest is tight.
I wasn't caught off guard. That's the terrifying truth. When he closed the gap, I met him halfway. I let the project, the Board, and my entire career disappear for a pair of green eyes.
I stand and start packing. My hands are shaking, so I shove them into my pockets and use my forearms to gather the sushi containers. Stack them. Wipe the table. Close the laptops. Efficient. Methodical.
The door opens.
Tom steps back in. He looks frustrated and tightly restrained. He starts to reach for his camera bag, then stops, staring at the perfectly cleared table.
"She thinks she found a space," he says. "In Greenpoint. She wants me to see it tomorrow." He stops. Takes a breath. "Look, Sam, about just now—"
"That's great." I cut him off, voice too bright, too fast. "You should go. Help her."
He doesn't move. Just stands there, watching me, his chest rising and falling visibly under his shirt.
"Sam—"
"Thursday's ready," I say quickly. "We're all set."
He looks at me for a long moment. He knows exactly what I'm doing, putting the wall back up. Then, he nods.
"Okay." His voice is quiet. "Are we good?"
"We’re good."
We walk to the elevator in silence. The hallway lights flicker on, tracking our movement, then fade into darkness behind us. Our footsteps echo flatly on the tile.
The elevator doors open. We step inside.
Tom presses the button for the lobby. The doors slide shut, sealing us in the small metal box. The cables hum overhead, a low, mechanical grinding that makes the space feel suffocatingly tight.
I stare at the floor numbers ticking down—12, 11, 10—and count each one to keep from screaming.
The elevator dings. Lobby.
We step out. The night security guard glances up, nods, goes back to his screen.
Tom stops near the door. I stop a few feet away.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it, his jaw shifting once like he swallowed the words.
"See you Thursday," he says.
"Thursday."
He pushes through the glass door and disappears into the street. I watch him turn toward the subway, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders tight as he walks.
The strap of my bag cuts deep into my palm. I don’t loosen my grip. I let the stiff leather bite into my skin, needing the sharp, grounding sting to clear my head.
I can't blame the late hour, or the quiet office, or him. I wasn't caught off guard. That's the terrifying truth. When he closed the gap, I met him halfway. I let the project, the Board, and my entire career disappear for a pair of green eyes.
I wanted him to kiss me. I still want him to.
And now I have to figure out how to walk into the boardroom on Thursday without him seeing that truth written all over my face.