5. Traig
CHAPTER FIVE
TRAIG
Krem appeared in the doorway behind Drogar, his clipboard in his hand. “Don’t we usually hold the meetings in the conference room?”
“We’re not having a meeting,” I said.
“Traig wrote a proposal,” Drogar said. “Last night.”
“Excellent.” Krem stepped inside and flipped to a fresh page on his clipboard, tugging the pen from where he’d tucked it beside his ear. He was always documenting something, though I’d never been sure what. “What are we proposing?”
“An educational partnership with the school,” Brovish said. “A year-long project. Traig will manage the development while Willa will handle the human side of things.”
Krem wrote this down.
“Willa’s an excellent choice,” he said without looking up. “She has strong people-talking skills. The families will respond well to her.”
“That’s what I suggested,” I said.
“And Traig will be coordinating with her three times per week,” Brovish added.
Krem’s pen paused. He looked up at me. “Three times weekly?”
“The project requires regular communication,” I said.
“For months,” Drogar added.
Greth walked past the open door, slowed, looked inside, and stopped. He studied the four of us. Nodded once. And kept walking.
“Even Greth knows,” Drogar said, watching our friend continue down the hall.
“Knows what?” I asked.
“That you’re—”
“Coordinating a project that requires solid management,” I said.
“Sure. That.”
I turned to Brovish. “Do you have anything to add?”
He tilted his head, considering. “I think Willa should lead beside you, not beneath you.”
My brain stuttered. “Beside me?”
“Yes.”
“Not under my direction but…equal.” It was all I could do to wrangle the word up my throat.
“Yes. She’s our office manager. She’ll need to handle tasks like this too.”
“But I’ve already made lists for the roles.”
“You can redo them.”
Drogar was grinning so widely I could see all his teeth.
“This means she’ll have equal authority,” I said.
“It does,” Brovish said.
“I won’t be able to maintain complete oversight.”
“No, you won’t.”
I stared at him.
He stared back with amusement.
“She’ll want input on everything,” I said.
“Probably.”
“She’ll suggest changes.”
“Likely.”
“She’ll reorganize things.”
“Almost certainly.”
Krem was writing very quickly.
“This is a good chance for you two to work together,” Brovish said. “You’re good at organizing. She’s already proving she’s good with people. This project needs both.”
“I can handle both.”
“You can only handle people when you remember they’re not systems.”
Drogar laughed.
I wanted to argue. The problem was that Brovish was correct.
The school coordinator had mentioned parent communication, community visibility, and making the program accessible. Those were the human-facing parts of the project. They required warmth.
Willa had warmth.
I had filing systems.
“Alright,” I croaked. “She’ll work beside me.”
“Excellent.” Brovish pulled my tablet closer and scrolled to the top of my proposal. “This is well done, Traig. Send it to the school this morning. And tell Willa about her new project.”
“I’ll inform her of the assignment.”
“Inform her,” Drogar said under his breath. “That’ll go well.”
I picked up my tablet and left before anyone else could comment.
Drogar said something I didn’t catch, followed by Krem’s laugh and Brovish telling them to let me handle this in my own way.
I was handling it.
I was handling it fine.
I just needed to tell Willa that we’d be working together three times a week for the next few months on a big project that would require regular communication and being close to each other and—
I stopped walking.
This was going to be alright.
I found Willa at the reception desk an hour later, and immediately regretted every decision that had led me to this moment.
Fred floated near the ceiling, grumbling his little song. Willa was writing something in a notebook, her hair tucked behind her left ear.
She looked up when I approached and smiled.
My carefully prepared introduction disappeared.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s your morning going?”
“Productive.” The word came out too formal. I leaned my arm against the counter and tried again. “Good. It’s been good.”
“Awesome.” She was still smiling. “Did you need something?”
Right. The project. I had a whole explanation prepared.
I set my tablet on the desk between us and pulled up the proposal, bracing my hands on her desk, trying not to notice how sweet she smelled.
“A human called from the local school district on Monday,” I said. “Erika Collins. She wants to bring children here to learn about the creatures.”
Willa’s full attention fell on me now. “Really?”
“I wrote out how it could work. The structure. What we’d teach them. How we’d keep everyone safe.” I turned the tablet toward her. “Brovish approved it this morning.”
She pulled it closer and skimmed through a few pages. Her eyebrows lifted. “You wrote all this overnight?”
“It required planning.”
“Traig, this is…” She scrolled through another few pages. “This is really detailed.”
Detailed. Not excessive. Not too much.
“I wanted it to be as complete as possible,” I said.
“It’s all that and more.” She looked up at me, tucking her hair behind her ear again. “I assume you want me to help with the parent parts?”
This was the moment I was supposed to explain the role structure. The division of responsibilities.
“Brovish suggested you should lead this project with me,” I said. “Not under me. Beside me.”
She sucked in a breath. “Beside you?”
“Yes. Making decisions together. I’ll handle the lesson planning and schedules. You’ll handle the people parts, such as the parents and the coordination with the school, among other tasks.” I paused. “If you want to.”
“If I want to?” She was fully smiling now, the kind that made her rich brown eyes brighter. “Traig, of course I want to. This sounds amazing.”
My chest felt too tight and too full at the same time.
“We’d need to meet regularly,” I said, pulling up the schedule I’d drafted at two in the morning. “Three times per week. Ninety minutes per session unless we need longer.”
“For the whole school year?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a moment, still looking at the tablet, then at me.
“You wrote a complete proposal for a plan that’ll run for…nine months or so?”
“I wrote it because the school partnership is good for the facility,” I said. “The fact that we’ll be working together is simply necessary. For the project.”
Fred grumbled from the ceiling and floated down to hover between us, his black and white fur rippling as Willa scratched between his ears. His grumbles grew louder.
Willa’s attention remained on me, however.
“I’ll send you the meeting schedule,” I said, picking up my tablet. “We can meet tomorrow to start going through things.”
“Traig?”
I stopped.
“I’m really looking forward to this,” she said. “Working with you, I mean.”
With me. Not for me. With me.
“Good,” I strangled out. “That’s…good.”
I left before my brain could come up with more articulate responses and made it halfway down the hall before I had to stop and lean against the wall, my tablet pressed against my chest.
An entire school year.
Three meetings per week.
Ninety minutes per session.
I pulled up my calculator and did the addition I’d already done six times in the last hour.
At least one-hundred-and-eight meetings.
One-hundred-and-sixty-two hours of sitting near Willa, catching her scent and trying not to smooth her hair behind her left ear myself.
I was either a genius or completely doomed.
Both. It was both.
Stepping outside, I walked the perimeter, stopping to examine each creature. Making sure they were alright.
This wasn’t a distraction. It was part of my job.
Finished, I turned and started back toward the building.
Through the window, I could see Willa sitting at her desk, Fred floating beside her head, his tiny wings a blur. As she spoke on the phone, she stroked his back and scratched between his stubby ears.
I wanted her to scratch between my pointed ears.
“No,” I growled, though I kept my voice low. “I don’t want her doing anything to my ears.”
But I did. Not necessarily scratching, but touching.
And that was a big problem.
I went to my office and reviewed the proposal one more time, making a few notes. Twenty-nine pages of notes, but all important.
Finally, the building quieted, and I made myself close my tablet and leave. After locking all the doors, I crossed the parking lot and took the path leading to our cottages.
I didn’t have to look back to know I was being followed.
Fred bobbed along the path like a balloon tethered to me.
“The cottage is at capacity,” I said, not slowing my pace.
When we reached the cottage, Fred navigated through the doorway, heading straight for his corner, nudging into it.
I sat in my usual chair and opened my tablet.
“This is highly irregular,” I told Fred, who continued to bump across the ceiling until he hit the opposite wall.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him to leave.
The second chair at my table was still empty.
No one had sat in the second one. Not in three years. My friends came over sometimes, but we usually gathered at Brovish’s place, where the furniture was more comfortable and the space didn’t feel like it was holding its breath.
My cottage was quiet. Clean. Efficient.
Lonely.
I stood in the center of the room and spoke, keeping my voice low, though no one would hear. Our cottages had been built far enough apart we couldn’t see the next.
“She tucks her hair behind her left ear when she’s concentrating.”
My voice sounded too loud. I kept going anyway.
“Two cups of coffee. Both with cream. No sweet dust.” I strode to the kitchen counter, bracing my hands against it. “She laughs before she’s decided it’s appropriate. Then looks embarrassed about showing she feels joy.”
The words kept coming, spilling out like I’d been holding them behind a wall.
“She writes in her notebook the way I use my tablet. Fred grumbles louder when she touches him.” I turned back toward the empty chair. “She moved the message pad. I moved it back. She didn’t argue. She smiled.”
The silence in my cottage pressed against my ears.
It wasn’t normal to speak aloud to furniture about a woman I’d known for only a few days.
But the empty chair was still there, and I was still standing in front of it, and I heard myself say the thing I’d been avoiding since the moment she’d walked through the front door.
“I want someone to sit there.”
The admission hung in the air.
“I want it to be her.”
I sat at my table with the tablet open to tomorrow’s meeting schedule, the cursor blinking at the end of the notes section.
Thursday Meeting
Initial Framework Discussion
Topics: Creature selection, safety protocols, lesson structure
Duration: 90 minutes
Location: Conference room
My finger hovered over the screen.
I added one more line.
Bring coffee. Two creams. No sweet dust.
This was inappropriate. I was her colleague, not her…whatever type of person who brought people coffee without being asked.
I closed the tablet, leaving the note there.
For the meeting, I’d bring her coffee and set it down in front of her without comment, as if I always brought coffee to meetings, as if this was normal behavior and not anything else.
She’d probably smile.
I’d do my best not to melt into a puddle on the floor when she did it.