“It’s useful,” I say.
She studies my face for a second like she’s cataloging me the way she catalogs a room. I let her. It feels like a fair trade for the way I’ve been memorizing the sound of her laugh against my will.
“Tell me something boring,” she says. “Distract me.”
“Boring,” I repeat, buying time. “I could talk about permits or escalations or deliveries that never arrive when they say they will.”
She laughs. “Okay, maybe not quite that boring.”
“Facts,” I say. “I’ll give you facts. Then you give me one.”
“Deal.”
“My least favorite sound is a fork scraping a plate,” I say.
She blinks, then smiles, surprised. “You? I would’ve guessed chaos.”
“Chaos has uses,” I say. “Forks do not need to scream.”
She laughs under her breath. “Okay. My least favorite smell is a burned lemon. Not scorched, burned. You think it’s going to be bright and then it’s bitter all the way down.”
“That’s specific.”
“I served at a restaurant through high school and college,” she says. Her shoulders soften another millimeter. “It’s not a smell you forget. Your turn.”
“I don’t drink coffee after noon,” I say.
“That sounds like discipline.”
“It’s survival,” I say. “Or I won’t sleep.”
“Not sleeping seems like it would be your brand,” she says. “You look like you could stare down a spreadsheet till it begged formercy.”
“I prefer contracts,” I say. “But mercy is useful.”
Her mouth tips. “I drink coffee at all hours,” she says. “I tell myself it doesn’t affect me because I can still fall asleep. But I sleep like crap.”
“Noted,” I say.
Blue eyes flicker to me. “Going in the file?”
“The list,” I correct.
She grins, then she exhales, and the breath leaves her chest without shaking.
We sit in the quiet. I’m aware of the heat that comes off her in a slow, human way, the subtle clean smell of her shampoo, the faint shine of the watch at her wrist when she adjusts her sleeve. I am not a man who gets unsettled by nearness. Not usually.
“You were kind about the chair,” she says after a moment. “And the office.”
I look at the panel light. “You needed a door.”
“I did,” she says. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The answer is simple. It still feels like more than a courtesy.
“Do you always do that?” she asks softly.
“What.”
