"I solved a problem."
"By going around the system."
I exhale through my nose. "By finding a legal solution when the system was too slow to be useful."
Sam's hands tighten on the paper, deepening the fold line. "Tom—"
"I didn't trespass. I didn't forge anything. I didn't sneak past a locked gate. I went to a business owner, explained what I needed, and asked if I could use his fire escape for twenty minutes. He said yes. That's not breaking the rules. That's common sense."
She just looks at me. Her expression hasn't changed. She looks like I just confirmed a theory.
"And what happens when there's no neighbor?" she says. "No side entrance? No creative workaround?"
"Then I follow the protocol."
"Do you?"
The question lands hard. I take a step closer. The distance between us drops to inches, the exact same proximity we held when I almost kissed her. Only this time, the air between us is charged with ice instead of heat.
"Yes," I say, keeping my voice low. "I don't break the law, Sam. I don't fake permits or climb fences or lie to security guards. I find legal ways to do my job when the official process is too slow or too rigid to make sense. There's a difference."
"Not to the people reading that log."
"The log says I accessed neighboring property. It doesn't say I did anything wrong."
"It doesn't have to." Her voice cracks, just slightly, on the last word.
I stop. She's not mad at me. She's worried about liability. I drop my shoulders and soften my stance. "What are you really worried about?"
Sam looks down at the paper, her fingers tracing the crease. "My bosses knew you did this," she says, her voice dropping. "They paired us together because they knew I would run interference. My name is on this project." She doesn't look up. "If you go rogue again, I don't just look out of control. I look like a fool who couldn't manage her own team."
There it is.
I don't see the commanding lead architect. I see the fourteen-year-old girl she told me about on the subway—the one terrified that if she doesn't hold everything perfectly together, the whole world falls apart.
I take a slow breath, all my defensive frustration instantly evaporating. "I'm not trying to blow up your systems."
"Then what are you trying to do?"
"My job. Well."
"By going around the people whose job it is to approve you?"
"By not waiting for permission to do what I already know is safe."
Sam shakes her head. "That's not how this works."
"That's how I work."
The wind picks up, rattling a metal panel somewhere behind us against its frame. Sam folds the paper one more time and puts it back in her pocket.
"We're tethered now," she says. "Your choices impact my credibility."
I nod. "I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes, I do."
