It’s obviously a rhetorical question since she doesn’t wait for an answer and walks toward my desk.
I go still and watch as she reaches for a stack.
She flips open the top folder, shifts the two stacks, and pulls out a thin file from beneath another pile of documents.
“Was it this one you couldn’t find?”
It is.
“How did you?—”
“I can see you, group by urgency, not alphabetically,” she says matter-of-factly, like she already understands my filing system. “The compliance folder was placed a little out of line from the rest of the pile, suggesting you checked it more recently.”
She sets it on the desk with care, straightening the rest of the papers almost unconsciously as she does. “It’s not the best system,” she says, “but it tends to be the most instinctual for many people who don’t know better.”
“And you do?”
She looks at me with a question in her eyes.
“Know better?” I clarify.
“I do.” She doesn’t back down. “A lot better.”
Silence fills the room.
Damn it.
“You did that on purpose.” I lean against the doorframe, assessing her.
“No,” she says calmly. “I did it becauseyou needed it.” She lets her eyes travel around the room again. “You need a lot.”
“I’m good at what I do.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she says confidently. “And I’m good at what I do.”
That much is obvious.
“Pretty bold to walk into my house and my office and start organizing my files without an invitation.”
“I don’t have any other options.”
She says it without any drama. Just a quiet honesty.
I exhale slowly. I don’t want her here. I definitely don’t want the complication that she’s certainly going to be.
But I also don’t throw people out in the cold when they’ve got nowhere to go.
“You have one month to prove you’re worth the disruption in my life,” I continue. “You stay out of my way and try not to distract me. If at any point I decide it’s not?—”
“OrIdecide,” she interrupts me.
“Right,” I correct. “Oryoudecide it’s not working, it’s over. No arguments.”
“Deal.”
“This isn’t charity,” I warn. “You need to earn your place.”
Her lips twitch up in the first smile I’ve seen. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
