"And this?" A dog-eared paperback. "The Leadership Challenge?"
"Classic. Required reading for certification, but I've gone through it three times on my own. Highlighted and everything."
She slides it back and moves to the next shelf, where my certifications sit in simple black frames. Her expression shifts as she reads them—surprise first, then reassessment, then something I can't quite name.
"Crisis intervention. Advanced structural assessment. Tactical operations specialist." She turns to face me. "You never mentioned any of this."
"You never asked."
"Fair point." She's quiet for a moment,fingernail tapping against her coffee cup. "Wade doesn't know about these, does he?"
"Wade knows what Wade wants to know. Which is that I'm the guy who's good with cameras and bad at taking things seriously."
"But that's not true."
"No." I drop onto the couch, suddenly tired of standing. "It's not."
Riley sits at the other end—close enough to talk, far enough to maintain plausible professional distance. She tucks her legs under her, and the casual posture does something to my breathing. This is Riley relaxed. Riley off-duty. I've never seen this version of her before.
"Why let people believe it?" she asks. "The charm-over-substance thing. Why not correct them?"
"Tried that." I lean back, staring at the ceiling. "First year here, I went the serious route. All business, by the book, no personality. You know what happened?"
"What?"
"Nobody listened. They'd tune out in briefings, ignore suggestions, treat me like background noise." I shake my head. "It was miserable. And ineffective. So I changed tactics."
"You weaponized likability."
"I adapted." The word comes out sharper than intended. "And it worked. My crew respects me. The community trusts me. Incident outcomes improved. The only people who have a problem with my methods are the ones who think leadership means having a permanent stick lodged somewhere uncomfortable."
Riley's quiet, processing. When she speaks, her voice has softened. "I owe you an apology."
"For what?"
"The thirst trap comment. The Instagram angles. The assumption that you're all surface and no substance." She winces. "I was being reductive. And honestly? Kind of an asshole."
"Kind of?"
"Fine. A complete asshole." She pulls off her glasses and rubs her eyes—her processing tell, I've learned. "I saw what I expected to see instead of what was actually there. That's bad science and worse character judgment."
"Bad science." I let myself smile. "Is that the most damning insult in your vocabulary?"
"Top three, definitely."
The room feels different suddenly. The air has weight. Less adversarial, more charged. The distancebetween us on the couch suddenly seems like both too much and not enough.
"Apology accepted," I say. "For what it's worth, I made assumptions too."
"Such as?"
"I thought you were cold. Rigid. So obsessed with protocols that you'd forgotten they exist to help people, not just create paperwork." I meet her eyes. "I was wrong. You're not cold—you're careful. You're not rigid—you're precise. There's a difference."
Her cheeks go pink. "That's... unexpectedly perceptive."
"I contain multitudes."
"Apparently."
