Just more tired. And blonde.
With dry eyes.
“This is too much.” I gesture at the room. The flowers. The actual cloth napkins. “I was gone for three months, not three years.”
“You were gone for three months without warning,” Layla corrects gently. “You left a group chat message that said, ‘Taking a Swedish fellowship, flight leaves tonight, love you all’ and then you were gone.”
“I gave details later.”
“You sent a follow-up text from the airport. That’s not detail. That’s a hostage proof of life.”
She’s not wrong. I did leave abruptly. I left because if I’d stayed one more hour, I would have called them crying. And then I would have had to explain why I was crying, and explaining why I was crying would have meant admitting what happened, and admitting what happened would have meant facing the fact that I’d thrown myself at a man who put up his hand like a crossing guard stopping traffic.
We don’t talk about that.
“Well, I’m back now.” I reach for my water glass. “Fully debriefed. Ready to rejoin society.”
“And we’re so freaking happy we’re all in the same city again,” Serena puts in. “Those Zoom catchups in different time zones were a killer. If we all drank wine together, someone would need to go into the office tipsy. And if we had coffee together, someone was going to be up all night.”
“That’s why it became candy hour.” Layla nodded. “We could all handle a sugar crash.”
“The transatlantic gummy bear summit,” I say, smiling despite myself. “I got a stash of Swedish Fish from duty-free. The irony was too good to pass up.”
“Please tell me you have the salty licorice too,” Serena says. “I need to know if it’s actually as disgusting as everyone claims.”
“It’s worse. I’ll bring some over so you can suffer.”
The conversation flows easily after that—Layla’s latest battle with a florist who apparently doesn’t understand the difference between ‘blush’ and ‘dusty rose,’ Serena’s nightmare client who keeps changing the crisis narrative, Caleb’s niece Michaela and her increasingly elaborate schemes to get a puppy.
It feels normal. It feels like before.
Almost.
“So,” Caleb says during a lull. “Sweden. What was it really like? Beyond the meatballs and the sub-zero depression?”
“It was...” I look into my wine, searching for the right word. “Quiet. The lab was incredible—cutting-edge equipment, brilliant researchers, really innovative approaches to neural interface design. But the days were short and dark, and I spent a lot of time alone.”
“By choice?” Layla asks carefully.
“Mostly.” I shrug. “I needed the space. Time to think. Time to—” I stop myself. “Time to focus on work.”
The table goes slightly quiet. They know what I’m not saying. They’re too polite to push.
“Well, you’re back now,” Bennett says, smooth as ever, redirecting the conversation. “And you’ve got a whole week to decompress before you have to think about work again. Robert was very clear that you should take the full time.”
“Robert Carmichael said that?”
“He did. Unprompted.”
That’s... unusual. Robert is not known for his generous approach to employee wellness. The man once sent an email at4 a.m. asking why a report wasn’t finished yet—a report that wasn’t due for another week.
“That’s weirdly nice of him.”
Bennett and Layla exchange a look—his eyebrows lifting a fraction, hers tightening in response. A whole conversation in micro-expressions.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” Layla reaches for her wine. “He’s just been... there’s been a lot going on. I think he’s trying to be more conscious of burnout.”
