“Alongwith Jordan’s capabilities for making everyone uncomfortable,” Lennon muttered under their breath.
Alex shot them a look that probably would have been sharper if I hadn’t been standing there. The distance in her expression hadn’t faded—if anything, it seemed more pronounced now, like she was calculating something several steps ahead and to the right of the current conversation.
I checked my phone. Dom had indeed sent a follow-up.
Dom:tell alex I said you’re not allowed to date anyone cooler than me
I showed Alex the message, watching her expression shift from calculating to genuine amusement.
“Like I’m breaking up with you to save his ego,” she snorted. “Should I be worried about his approval?”
“Nah. He’s just jealous I found someone who actually runs a successful business instead of pretending to be fictional characters for money.”
“Hey,” Casey protested with mock outrage. “Fictional characters pay very well, thank you very much. How do you think we fund all this?” He gestured around the break room.
“And they’reusuallymuch less maintenance than real people,” Lennon added.
The easy banter felt normal in a way I hadn’t experienced much since returning home. But I kept noticing the way Alex held herself slightly apart from the conversation—as if most of her attention was elsewhere entirely.
“Finn?” Her voice held a note of careful examination as her gaze moved over me. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah,” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Just soaking this all in.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Casey,” she said, never taking her eyes off me as she gestured behind her. An ink stain on her fingers caught the light. “Would you mind showing Finn moreof the creative floor? I need to wrap up a few things. We could do lunch in an hour or so.”
“Absolutely,” Casey stepped away from the counter. “Come on, I’ll show you where the real magic happens.”
I caught Alex’s reflection in the glass partition as I followed Casey. She was still watching me, her mind whirring loudly behind her eyes.
As we headed toward the elevators, I stopped. “Actually, mind if we take the stairs?”
Casey glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “Sure. Any particular reason?”
“Motion sensitivity. Ride on the way up was rough.”
“Ah,” Casey nodded without missing a beat. “Stairs it is. That thing’s been on its last legs for months. Alex keeps threatening to withhold rent until the landlord fixes it.”
The stairwell was clean, well-lit, with concrete steps that felt solid under my feet—better than the trap masquerading as an elevator.
“How long since your accident?” Casey asked as we climbed.
“About eight months,” I appreciated that he’d asked directly rather than dancing around it. “Still figuring out all the ways my brain decided to rearrange itself.”
“That why you’re not flying anymore?”
“Among other things.” We reached the eighth-floor landing. “Turns out the Navy has opinions about pilots who can’t pass basic flight readiness tests.”
Casey paused at the door, keycard in hand. “Their loss.”
No platitudes about everything happening for a reason or how I’d find my new purpose. It was nice.
He swiped his card and held the door. “Welcome to where the magic happens.”
The creative floor stretched out before us—open and airy like the main floor, but with a different energy. Casey explained thatroughly sixty percent of the space was dedicated to creative work, the rest to development. Low-walled cubicles were clustered in organic groupings with collaborative spaces scattered throughout—light flooding in through large windows. A smaller kitchenette sat in one corner, and I could see a few conference rooms with glass walls along the far side.
Two small offices occupied prime real estate near the east windows—one clearly Casey’s based on the vintage movie posters and analog synthesizer setup Lennon had mentioned, the other Jordan’s judging by the multiple monitors and the cable management of someone who treated technology like a religion.
“This is where Legends of Heliox was born,” Casey smiled, gesturing toward a cluster of workstations where several people hunched over tablets and monitors. “Animation, character design, environmental art. The whole visual world.”
