Controlled Variables
Riley
Riley had brought the data home because she stopped trusting herself to complete it at Declan’s house. The conclusion was irritating.
For months, his home had functioned as an effective working environment. She had completed reports there, analysed data there, written entire research sections while he moved through the background of the house without disrupting her concentration.
That was no longer the case. Their arrangement remained surprisingly uncomplicated.
Nothing had been redefined since their conversation at his front door. They were not dating, no expectations were established beyond the ones Riley had explicitly outlined, and Declan accepted those boundaries with an ease she was still trying to understand.
The parameters themselves were straightforward: they spend time together. They talked; they kissed. That was all. Which, from a purely practical perspective, should not have any measurable impact on her ability to complete client reports.
Unfortunately, reality appeared uninterested in reasonable measures.
Because now, whenever she attempted to focus on her work at his house, Declan developed an unfortunate tendency to exist.
He would walk in from the kitchen with fresh coffee for her, and her attention would follow him.
He would sit beside her on the floor while she worked on her spreadsheet in the corner of the gym, and she would become aware of his shoulder resting against hers.
He would lean over to ask a completely innocuous question about her day and suddenly she would find herself thinking about his mouth instead of her spreadsheet.
It was deeply inconvenient. Worse, she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to fix it.
Riley stared at the half-completed data set on her laptop, aware that she had spent the last several minutes thinking about Declan rather than analysing behavioural trends. Again.
The irritating part was that she genuinely enjoyed being distracted by him.
They settled into a pattern over the last few days that Riley had made no attempt to disrupt.
They remained purely professional from when she arrived in the morning until after her own personal training session was completed.
But at some point afterwards, usually while discussing something entirely unrelated, one of them would close the distance.
Riley discovered she liked kissing Declan considerably more than was practical, which was precisely why her work was currently spread across her dining table instead of being completed at his house.
Because every time she sat down intending to analyse data, she somehow ended up making entirely different use of her time.
Across the table, Dee watched her for a moment before setting down her coffee. “You know,” she said, “most people who stare at a spreadsheet for twenty minutes without typing anything are procrastinating.”
Riley looked up from the screen. “I am not procrastinating.”
“I know,” Dee replied immediately. “That’s what worries me.”
A small furrow appeared between Riley’s brows.
She wasn’t avoiding the work, the work simply wasn’t holding her attention in the way it normally would.
Every time she attempted to refocus, her thoughts wandered elsewhere.
To a conversation, a smile, the feeling of Declan’s hand settling against her waist before he kissed her.
The distraction itself was distracting. Dee seemed to follow the direction of her thoughts without difficulty. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
Riley considered the possibility of denying it before discarding the idea. “Yes.”
Dee looked insufferably pleased with herself. “You’re making such good progress.”
“That is not progress.”
“It absolutely is.”
Riley glanced back at the laptop. The unfinished analysis remained exactly where she had left it, patient and unmoving. Her attention, meanwhile, continued demonstrating an alarming tendency to drift. “I am attempting to work.”
“You’ve been ‘attempting to work’ for nearly an hour.”
“I completed several sections earlier.”
“After rereading the same paragraph six times.”
Riley paused. That was, unfortunately, accurate. A laugh escaped Dee before her expression softened slightly. “Ri,” she said, leaning forward onto her elbows, “you’re allowed to do things that aren’t productive.”
“I do things that are not productive.”
“No, you do things that have a purpose.”
The distinction made Riley hesitate, because Dee wasn’t entirely wrong. Even her hobbies tended to become projects. Reading became research, exercise became research. Rest became recovery from research. Research had become her life.
The idea of doing something simply because it was enjoyable still felt strangely incomplete. Which was ironic, considering she had spent the better part of the last week doing exactly that.
Her thoughts drifted briefly toward Declan again, and Dee immediately pointed at her. “There. That face.”
Riley frowned. “What face?”
“The one where you’re thinking about him.”
“I do not have a specific face.”
“You absolutely have a specific face.”
Riley looked away. Dee’s grin widened. “Okay, that’s actually adorable.”
“It is not.”
“It really is.”
The warmth that accompanied the observation was mildly irritating. More irritating was the fact that Riley didn’t entirely dislike it.
Dee settled back in her chair. “My point is that you’ve spent your entire life treating happiness like it needs to justify itself first.”
The statement lingered longer than Riley expected. She wanted to argue with it, to explain that optimisation and stability were not the same thing. That productivity served a function.
Instead, she found herself looking at the darkened reflection in her laptop screen and wondering when exactly she had stopped enjoying things for their own sake, or whether she ever had.
Dee stood abruptly and grabbed her handbag. “Come to the café with me.”
Riley blinked. “What for?”
“Coffee.”
“We have coffee.”
Dee grimaced. “Not good coffee.”
Riley considered this. “Would there be a secondary objective?”
“No.”
“A measurable outcome?”
Dee groaned loudly. “The outcome is coffee with your friend, Riley.”
That seemed insufficient.
Riley struggled to see how an activity could justify itself on those terms alone.
There was no identifiable purpose, no optimisation, no measurable outcome beyond acquiring a coffee and then drinking it.
Under normal circumstances, that absence of structure would have been enough for her to dismiss the idea entirely.
Yet, as she considered it, she found the prospect wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Perhaps it was because Dee looked so hopeful, or perhaps because the work would still be there when she returned.
Or perhaps because, for the first time in a very long time, Riley was beginning to suspect that not every decision required a practical justification before it could be made.
“Okay,” she said.
Dee froze. “Okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re coming?”
Riley nodded once. The smile that immediately spread across Dee’s face was so disproportionate to the situation that Riley felt compelled to comment.
“Don’t make this strange.”
“I’m not making it strange.”
“You are already making it strange.” Still grinning, Dee headed for the door before Riley could reconsider.
Riley closed her laptop and followed. The analysis remained unfinished, the data remained unresolved. The work would be waiting when she got back. For once, she found she could leave it there.
Simply because, for the next hour, something else mattered too.