It works.
“So.” Logan swings his attention to me. “What's the play for Thursday?”
“We present a proposal so airtight that the council can't say no without looking corrupt. Maddox is digging into who Victor has reached out to. Vivien is handling the financials.”
Logan nods, but his eyes stay on me. He has always been too good at reading the gaps in a conversation. “You keep checking your phone,” he says.
I stop my hand mid-reach for my pocket. “No, I don’t.”
“You’ve looked at it three times since I walked in. Is it a deal?”
“Something like that.” I lie.
“Bullshit,” Logan says cheerfully. “You don't check your phone for deals. You have people for that.”
My phone buzzes before I can respond. I glance at the screen.
Mom: Darling, I heard your father has been making calls about ELK. He's in one of his moods. I hate being caught in the middle. Call me? I worry about you.
“Helena?” Ethan asks, reading my expression.
“Playing the concerned mother.”
“What does she want?”
I scan the message again.I worry about you. My mother has never worried about anyone but herself, but she's useful sometimes, a window into my father's thinking. She hears things, picks up details he lets slip when he's had too much wine at dinner.
“She says Victor's making calls. I’ll deal with her later. Right now, we focus on Thursday. We have a week to prepare.”
For the next two hours, we dig into strategy. The renewable energy contract would make ELK the primary provider for the city’s municipal buildings.
Throughout it all, I check my phone twice more. Nothing.
She has no reason to text me. She starts her new job on Monday. She is probably preparing with the friend who bailed on her last night. The only friend she has in this city, she had said. I grind my teeth thinking about her alone in a new place with no one to celebrate her win.
I could text her. Every version I write in my head gets deleted before my thumb moves.
“Okay.” Logan stretches, cracking his neck. “I need food. Ethan needs more of his bottled poison. Kai, you need to tell us what's actually going on with you.”
“Nothing is going on.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Ethan says. “Your tell is the way your jaw ticks.”
“I don't have a tell.”
“You do,” Logan says. “Is it a woman? Last time you were this distracted was Brianna.”
“It isn't Brianna.” The words are sharp. My body recoils. I shut it down before the memory gets further than her name
“Okay,” Logan says, raising his hands. “Then who is she?”
“There’s no one.”
Logan holds my gaze for a long moment. He knows I am lying. We have been friends for twenty years, and he can spot mytells a mile away. “When there is something to tell, you talk to us. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I watch them head for the elevator. Once the doors close, I take the stairs down to the workspace Maddox uses. It is a cave of glowing monitors and drawn blinds. He reports to no one, but he works with us because we've earned his trust.
