12. Wells #2
It's been days of this, since Friday, the two of us stepping around the same thing in meetings and hallways and never once putting a name to it.
Today there's no meeting to hide inside, just the work and the hours and how close the chairs are.
She knows it. I know it. Neither of us is going to say it.
The coffee, the coasters, the notebook squared to the edge of the table, all of it is her building a wall out of professionalism, and I respect the hell out of it. I'm doing the same thing in my own way. What happened on that desk sits in the room with us, and we both pretend it's furniture.
"Are we going to be able to put this together in two weeks? We need a working model they can stress test in real time."
Cera nods. "Piece of cake."
"You sound mighty confident."
She opens her notebook and starts writing. "How much of the backend is already built?"
"Seventy percent. The logic is there. The visualization layer is a disaster."
"That's my job."
"Yeah."
We work. I walk her through the architecture while she maps the data flow on her screen. She asks questions that cut straight to the center of the problem. No filler or hesitation. She sees where the logic breaks before I have to explain it.
Hours pass. The light outside shifts from gray to full morning. Cera moves her chair around the table so she can see my screen without leaning. Her shoulder ends up six inches from mine.
The proximity ought to bother me. It doesn't. It steadies me rather than scattering me, which makes no sense until I quit trying to make sense of it and let the work carry us.
By noon, we have the first two modules roughed out. Cera builds a prototype view and spins it toward me.
"Does this track?"
I scan it. The flow is clean. The failure points are marked without being obvious. She turned the logic into something a human can read in under three seconds.
"Yeah. That works."
She pulls it back and keeps building.
We break for lunch around two. Cera orders sandwiches, and we eat at the table while the screens stay live.
She talks through a question about the third module while I finish my coffee, and I realize somewhere in the last six hours I stopped thinking about Dane or Ridge or the investigation sitting locked on my other machine.
I also realize Cera is close enough that I can smell her shampoo, close enough that I know exactly what she sounds like when she stops holding herself together. Now I get to sit beside it and pretend I don't remember.
I want to put my mouth on the curve of her neck. I shake it out of my head.
Keeping my eyes on the screen and my hands where they belong, I let the want go unanswered. It doesn't go anywhere. Neither do I.
Thursday afternoon, the deadline tightens again. The partner pushes the demo up three days. Cera doesn't flinch. She adjusts the timeline, reprioritizes the modules, and keeps moving.
We work late. The office empties around us. At some point, Cera kicks off her shoes and tucks one foot under her leg. At another point, I stand to stretch and find her watching me with an expression I can't read.
I look at my watch and realize my call with Peoria is in two and a half hours. I can't blow her off again. But I like being here with Cera, too. This shit is getting too complicated. Something's gotta give.
"You okay?"
The question catches me off guard. Every instinct says deflect, hand her the flat nothing I hand everyone.
"It's been a long week," I say, which is the closest I've come to telling anyone the truth about what's going on right now.
She doesn't push for more. She holds my eyes a beat, and that look says she heard the part I left out.
"Yeah. I realize I'm keeping you too much. We still have time to finish this. You should go home and get some rest, or do whatever it is you do outside of these four walls."
A tiny pull on her lips almost undoes me.
"Yeah. I think we have plenty of time. Are you sure? We could finish up one more tonight if you want."
"We should finish module three tonight."
"Okay."
She doesn't push, putting her head down and going back to work. But something shifts in the room, some invisible line that moved when I wasn't looking.
It's in my chest, in my hand going still on the keyboard, in how easily Cera just let me be heavy without needing me to explain it.
An hour later, she stretches and rolls her neck. "It's done. Do you want to look over it now, or wait and look with fresh eyes tomorrow before we dive back in?"
She moves to the window as she stretches. Her silhouette against the glass, the city lights behind her, holds me, and I can't pull my eyes off her. She turns around after I don't answer and busts me.
"Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about something else I need to work on tonight. Let's call it a night and take a look with fresh eyes tomorrow."
"Don't stay too late. Even vampires need rest, too."
I stop cold. Peoria said that to me once, almost word for word. I shake my head. I'm making things up now.
"I won't. Be safe getting home."
She walks out, and I sit there with the river going dark below the glass. Two women I have no business wanting. One behind a mask and a fake name, one three feet down the hall on my own payroll. I built my whole life so this could never happen, and I'm doing it twice at once.