Jennifer: Let’s review the Falkirk brief today. I have post-investor edits.
Me: Okay.
Sarah: Sam is asking for five minutes before the 10:15. 10:05 OK?
Me: Yes. Thank you.
I slipped my phone into my bag as we pulled up to Elion.
Sarah waited by the elevator, tablet in hand, expression sharp with organized urgency. “Good morning, Ms. Sinclair, your morning coffee is on your desk. I shifted your schedule—Sam at 10:05, Kevin and Jennifer at 10:15.”
“Thanks,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt as the elevator doors slid shut.
Upstairs, peonies and rich coffee softened the edges of glass and steel. Kevin’s overnight PDF got a quick skim—most redlines approved, one roadmap phrase swapped out—less scalability, more strategic flexibility—before sending it back.
At 10:05 on the dot, a single knock cracked against the door.
“Come in.”
Sam, head of metrics and efficiencies, stepped in, sleeves rolled, tie slightly askew.
“Morning.” He held up his tablet. “CND Projects is melting down again. Their system keeps erroring out. I can either do a quick fix that’ll hold for now or rebuild the connection from scratch.”
“Timeline?”
“The quick fix is done today. Rebuild takes about three days.” He hesitated. “If I’m being honest, the quick fix looks faster from the outside.”
“And from the inside?”
His mouth quirked. “Inside? It’s like slapping lipstick on a corpse.”
“Rebuild it. Elion doesn’t ship half-finished anything.”
His brows lifted, a flash of admiration—or wishful thinking—crossing his face. “Noted. I’ll loop in Martinez. We’ll just call the delay a proactive upgrade.”
“Good. And next time? Don’t wait for me to approve it. You already know what I’m going to choose.”
His grin broke wide. “I just like hearing you say it. Makes it official.”
“Get out of my office,” I teased, shooing him away.
He laughed, tablet jostling against his stomach. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Sorry about that,” Sam managed, nearly colliding with Kevin in the doorway.
Kevin waved him off. “No problem. I like to sneak up on people.”
“We were just walking through the CND Projects issue.” Sam chuckled, recovering quickly. “Deployment’s stable by Monday. You’ll have the updated report before lunch.”
“Good. Nice work,” Kevin said, impressed.
Sam offered a mock salute. “Just trying to keep us off fire watch.”
As he disappeared down the hall, Kevin glanced back at me with a crooked smirk. “He’s a good one.”
“Yeah, he is,” I agreed, attention already drifting toward my phone and the message I’d left unanswered.
Kevin dropped into the velvet chair across from my desk with a grunt belonging to someone who’d slept less than five hours. “So…” he began, rubbing the back of his neck.
