“AJ.”
I turn. “Josh.”
He leans one shoulder against the doorframe and folds his arms. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I know. Radical concept, doing it anyway.”
His smile flickers, then fades into something more serious. “You came in under less than ideal circumstances. You could have made it harder. You didn’t.”
“I considered it occasionally.”
“I noticed.” He glances towards the station beyond us. “The article matters. Not because anyone here wants to be flattered. They don’t. They’ll hate that.”
“I’ve gathered.”
“They want to be understood. That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“Write it honestly,” he says. “Not heroic. Not defensive. Just true.”
It is probably the best instruction anyone could give me.
“I will.”
Josh nods once, then looks past me.
I turn.
Pippa is in the corridor with a folder tucked under one arm.
Her expression is professional. Calm. Watch Manager Hart in full and proper order.
My body, the traitor, remembers her beneath me.
Her eyes meet mine.
For one impossible second, I forget Josh exists.
Then Josh, who unfortunately still exists and notices more than most surveillance systems, clears his throat.
“I’ll check that thing in the bay,” he says.
There is, obviously, no thing.
Or if there is, it has never been less important.
Pippa gives him a narrow look.
He ignores it with the calm bravery of a man who has decided to be elsewhere.
Then he leaves.
Coward.
Pippa and I are alone in the corridor.
