Astoria recognized the posture. She used it herself when she was trying very hard not to think about something.
Thursday kept surfacing despite her best efforts to bury it. The elevator, the scattered papers she’d dropped, Miller's hand brushing hers, the shock from the contact that still lingered on her skin four days later. And then there was Miller’s face, that frozen moment of something Astoria couldn’t quite name,before she’d stammered an excuse that wasn’t really an excuse and disappeared into the stairwell.
Miller’s voice replayed in her mind.“Actually, I’m going to— I need?—”
What had she needed? What had sent her running?
Astoria was fairly certain she knew; she just wasn’t sure what to do with this knowledge.
“If we could take a ten-minute break,” Rachel said, and Astoria blinked back to the present. Rachel had her phone in her hand, the screen lit with what looked like a text message, and her expression had shifted to something more urgent. "I apologize. I have a client emergency on another matter."
“Of course,” Gerald said.
Rachel was already pushing back from the table. “Miller, keep reviewing the exhibits. I’ll be back shortly.”
Miller nodded without looking up. “Take your time.”
The door closed behind Rachel, and the room felt smaller. Astoria turned back to her documents, determined to use the break productively. The allocation schedules needed her attention anyway. There were patterns in the numbers that Gerald hadn't fully grasped, connections between?—
Gerald’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, frowned, and muttered something under his breath.
“Problem?” Astoria asked.
He was already standing, his phone pressed to his ear. “I need to take this. Five minutes.”
And then he was gone, too, the door clicking shut behind him, and Astoria was alone with Miller Scott.
The silence was instant and unmistakably awkward. Astoria kept her eyes on the documents. Allocation schedules, right. Pattern analysis. She’d been thinking about pattern analysis.
Across the table, she could hear Miller turn a page, the soft scratch of pen on paper, then the creak of her chair as she shifted her weight.
The room’s aggressive neutrality suddenly felt suffocating.
“The authorization documents are actually in Exhibit E,” Astoria muttered aloud. “Not D. Gerald misspoke.”
Miller’s pen stopped moving, and Astoria could feel the heat from Miller’s gaze on her. “What?”
“The underlying authorization for the intercompany transfers Rachel asked about. Gerald said it’s in Exhibit D, but it’s E. Exhibit D is the board resolution from the previous quarter.”
Miller paused an extra beat. “Thank you.”
Astoria turned another page that she wasn’t really reading. “Saves time for everyone if the record is accurate.”
More silence. Miller’s pen resumed its movement, though Astoria noticed out of the corner of her eye that it was now slower, more tentative. The clock on the wall ticked, and Astoria could hear muffled footsteps outside the door.
“About Thursday,” Miller said.
Astoria’s hand stilled on the page. “What about Thursday?”
“I—” Miller stopped, then started again. “I should apologize for leaving so abruptly. It was unprofessional.”
“You had somewhere to be.” Astoria kept her voice neutral. “It’s fine.”
“I didn’t have anywhere to be.”
The admission hung in the air between them, and Astoria finally looked up. Miller was already watching her, the legal pad forgotten and her expression the most unguarded Astoria had ever seen it. Not the formal professionalism from the mediation or the focused competence from the preliminary hearing, but something rawer, something that made Astoria’s chest feel tight.
“Then why did you leave?” Astoria knew she shouldn’t ask. She knew she should let this go, let Miller’s non-apology stand, and return to the documents while waiting for Gerald to come back.
