Chapter 3 #3
I straighten my spine, squaring my shoulders with the same precision I use to align spreadsheet columns.
"I make contingency plans. Multiple ones, actually.
Color-coded by severity level. I have backup systems for my backup systems. Redundancies built into my redundancies.
And when those inevitably encounter variables I haven't accounted for—" which happens more often than I'd ever admit in a performance review, "—I adapt and overcome using real-time data analysis and strategic resource reallocation. "
"Like a warrior," he says, and there's something almost reverent in his tone, as if I've just described a battle strategy rather than basic project management protocols.
I look up from my tablet, genuinely startled by the comparison.
My fingers pause mid-scroll, hovering over the screen as I process what he's just said.
"I'm not a warrior," I correct him. "I'm a project manager.
I manage timelines and deliverables and stakeholder expectations.
I mitigate risks. I optimize workflows. That's not warfare, Thraka.
That's corporate operational management. "
"The difference is smaller than you think." He leans forward to examine something on the screen, and suddenly he's right there, chest brushing against my shoulder, his breath stirring the hair near my temple.
Every nerve ending lights up.
My heart kicks into overdrive, pounding against my ribs with a force that makes my Fitbit buzz a concerned inquiry on my wrist.
Professional distance. I need to maintain professional distance. This is a fundamental principle of workplace conduct, clearly outlined in section 4.2 of the employee handbook, which I have not only read but also helped revise during the last policy update cycle.
I should move. The logical, rational, professionally appropriate action would be to create physical space between myself and my colleague.
To relocate to a different position in the room.
To step back, reclaim my personal boundaries, restore the proper radius of interpersonal separation that corporate culture dictates.
I don't move.
My body remains exactly where it is, frozen in place like a system caught in an infinite loop, unable to execute the next command in the sequence.
My muscles refuse to respond to the clear directives my brain is issuing.
It's as if every protocol I've ever established has suddenly been overridden by something far more primitive, something that doesn't care about HR guidelines or professional conduct policies or the fact that I have never, not once in my entire career, allowed personal considerations to interfere with workplace professionalism.
"Why does your heart beat like a trapped bird, Little Manager?" His voice is low, curious, too close to my ear.
Heat floods my face.
"It doesn't," I lie, smooth and automatic, the same voice I use to assure executives that projects are on schedule when they're absolutely not.
"I can hear it." He taps the side of his head with one thick finger, drawing attention to the pointed ear that's visible through the wild tangle of his hair.
"Orc hearing. Very, very good. Better than human.
I can hear your pulse from here, Little Manager.
Fast. Rapid. Fluttering. You sound like prey. "
The word sends an involuntary shiver down my spine that I absolutely refuse to acknowledge.
"I'm not prey," I say, injecting as much ice into my tone as I can manage, which is considerably less than usual given the current circumstances.
"Then why do you run?" His head tilts, genuinely curious, like he's trying to solve a puzzle that doesn't quite make sense to him.
"I'm not running." I gesture unnecessarily at my current position, my voice rising just slightly despite my best efforts to maintain professional composure. "I'm sitting. Right here. Exactly where I've been this entire time. Stationary. Sedentary. Definitionally not running."
But even as I speak, even as I list the factual evidence of my physical location, my body wants to run.
Or maybe it wants something else entirely, something my rational brain refuses to process because Thraka is a co-worker and this is a workplace and I have professional standards that I will not compromise regardless of how warm his proximity feels or how my traitorous heart continues its frantic percussion solo.
I stand abruptly, putting the chair between us, reclaiming space and sanity.
"Break time," I announce. "Fifteen minutes. There's a break room on this floor. Do not eat anyone's lunch. Do not challenge anyone to a duel. Do not decapitate, maim, or otherwise physically harm any employee."
"Those are many rules."
"And you're going to follow all of them."
He rises, unfolding to his full terrifying height, and grins down at me with something that looks almost like fondness.
"You are very small and very fierce, Orla Peace," he rumbles, and there's something in his tone, amusement, maybe, or appreciation, or some primal recognition that makes my spine straighten reflexively.
My name in his mouth sounds different. Sounds wrong, somehow, in the best possible way.
Sounds like something I want to hear again, preferably not in a corporate training environment where professional boundaries should theoretically still exist. He shapes the syllables with that slight accent, that roughness around the consonants that turns my perfectly ordinary name into something almost exotic.
I should not be cataloguing the phonetic qualities of my own name as pronounced by a co-worker.
I should not be noticing how his voice drops slightly on the second word, how he lingers on the vowel sounds.
I should definitely not be wondering how it would sound in other contexts.
"And you're very large and very aggravating, Thraka," I counter, aiming for dismissive and landing somewhere in the vicinity of flustered. My professional composure is developing stress fractures. I can feel them spreading like cracks in overloaded infrastructure.
His grin widens, showing those intimidating teeth that should terrify me and somehow don't.
"This is true," he agrees cheerfully, utterly unbothered by the accusation, as if being aggravating is a point of pride rather than criticism. "I am excellent at both."
He heads toward the break room, leaving me alone in the cubicle, surrounded by broken keyboard fragments and the lingering warmth of his presence.
I sit back down in my chair with perhaps more force than necessary, the ergonomic cushion exhaling a soft wheeze of protest beneath me.
Check my Fitbit with the kind of clinical detachment I use when reviewing quarterly reports, tilting my wrist to catch the screen's glow.
Heart rate: 142 BPM.
I blink at the number. Stare at it. Will it to recalibrate, to correct what is obviously a sensor malfunction, a reading error, a glitch in the hardware.
It doesn't change.
Resting rate: 65 BPM.
The numbers don't lie. They never do. That's what I've always loved about data, its ruthless, uncompromising honesty. Numbers are immune to self-deception, to rationalization, to the careful narratives we construct to protect ourselves from inconvenient truths.
A 77 BPM differential. That's not normal. That's not professional. That's not the cardiovascular response of someone who is simply irritated by a disruptive colleague.
That's the cardiovascular response of someone whose autonomic nervous system has completely abandoned its professional standards.
I tell myself it's stress.
Just stress.
Elevated cortisol levels. Adrenaline response. The physiological manifestation of prolonged exposure to chaos and unpredictability in my carefully controlled work environment.
Nothing else.
Certainly nothing else.
Nothing that has anything to do with how he says my name, or how his hands looked holding that keyboard, or the way his grin makes something flutter dangerously in my heart.
Just stress.
But my heart keeps beating its trapped bird rhythm, and somewhere in the breakroom, Thraka is probably terrorizing the coffee machine, and I have two more hours of training to survive before I can retreat to my office and process what the hell just happened.
Contingency plans.
I need contingency plans.
For this.
For him.
For whatever this feeling is that I refuse to name.