Aven was on the phone with Martinez, discussing the background check we were running on Leo Morales. Her chair swiveled away from me, giving me a clear view of her profile as she twirled that damn pen between her fingers, the same habit she had in Ms. Patterson’s English class.Tap, twirl, flip. Tap, twirl, flip.That was driving me crazy when I should have been focused on another deadline due in three hours.
“Perfect. Thank you, and Martinez? Tell your mom I’ll bring her some Colombian coffee tomorrow,” she said into the phone, her voice carrying a warm lilt that made everyone want to help her.
She hung up and spun back toward her desk, catching me staring. Her eyebrow rose, a question in the gesture.
“Any updates?” I asked, covering the moment with professional interest.
“Martinez found a Leonardo Morales who entered the U.S. through Miami a month ago. Tourist visa. He’s working on tracking movements since then.” She tucked a pen behind her ear, revealing the small gold hoops she’d worn since I could remember.
I nodded, forcing my eyes back to my computer screen. “Good. Let me know when we have more.”
“Got it,” she responded.
It had been seven days of her being ten feet away from my desk, close enough to smell the coconut lotion she used, close enough to see when she bit her lower lip in concentration. I was losing my damn mind trying to maintain the professional distance I’d built my reputation on.
It wasn’t her physical presence that disrupted my world. It was how quickly she’d integrated herself into the office ecosystem. Tamika, always professional to the point of robotic, now stopped by three times a day with questions that could have been emailed, lingering to chat with Aven about weekend plans or some book they were both reading. Reed brought her coffee without being asked. Even Eric from IT, who communicated exclusively through ticket systems with everyone else, personally delivered a new monitor yesterday and stayed for fifteen minutes talking about Peru.
The click-clack of her keyboard pulled my attention again. She hunched forward, brows furrowed in concentration as she typed. The position made her straightened ponytail spill over one shoulder. I remembered back in the day, her hair was always in braids for basketball games or study sessions. Now, she mostly wore her hair natural or in a ponytail that somehow looked both professional and like she just rolled out of bed.
“Fuck,” I muttered, while the Johnson CEO waited for my email.
“You okay over there?” Aven asked without looking up from her screen.
“Fine… deadline pressure.” I forced my attention back to the report, rereading the same paragraph for the third time.
Twenty minutes later, I’d written two sentences when laughter erupted from the main office area. Aven’s laugh rose above the others, full-throated, head thrown back, a laugh which always made teachers look our way in the library. Before I realized what I was doing, I stood, moving toward the door on the pretense of checking what was happening.
Aven was at the reception desk, showing Tamika and two paralegals something on her phone. Whatever it was had them all in stitches, Tamika’s usual perfect posture collapsing as she wiped tears from her eyes.
“I swear it’s real. It was sitting there in the bathroom like it was normal,”Aven said, her whole face lit up with amusement.
“Why a mannequin? In the shower?” Tamika gasped between laughs.
“That’s what I asked! Apparently, it was an art installation that never got removed, and guests just started?—”
She stopped when she noticed me standing in my doorway. I leaned against the frame, arms crossed, an actual smile pulled at my lips without my permission. The women straightened, attempting to compose themselves, but Aven’s eyes still danced with laughter.
“Sorry, work culture exchange. Very important for office morale,” Aven explained, not sounding sorry at all.
“Clearly. The Johnson files need reviewing before two.” I tried for stern but failed miserably.
“Already done, Aven reorganized the documentation system yesterday. Saved us about three hours of cross-referencing,” Tamika replied, surprising me.
Of course, she did. In three weeks, she’d not only charmed my entire staff but also improved processes I’d had in place for years. It would be irritating if it weren’t so … her. Aven always could walk into a room and immediately make it better, more efficient, more alive, more everything.
Back in my office, I found myself staring at the clock on my computer screen, watching minutes tick by while my brain replayed high school memories instead of focusing on work. Aven in a silver prom dress, moonlight in her hair as we stood by the lake, my teenage heart nearly beating out of my chest when she leaned her head against my shoulder.
The memory was so vivid. We always danced around the edges of something more, neither of us brave enough to name. Then came the hardware store fire, her unexpected alibi, and the weight of a debt I could never repay. By the time I figured out what I wanted to say, she was climbing those bus steps, leaving for a future bigger than Goodwin Grove offered.
My phone buzzed with a text from Martinez.Background check preliminary results in your inbox. This guy’s bad news.
The message yanked me back to the present, to Leo Morales and the very real threat he posed to Aven. This wasn’t high school anymore. This was about keeping her safe from a man who tracked her across continents.
I glanced over at her desk. She was unaware of my internal struggle.
“Stop it,” I muttered to myself, turning resolutely to my computer. I pulled up Martinez’s email, forcing myself to focus on the facts about Morales.
Professional distance was what I needed to maintain, what I’d built my reputation on. It was what kept me sane through building this company from nothing.
