This is all I needed right now. Just this one cup of coffee from the deli, as massive as this fucking thing is, is delivering the perfect degree of comfort, heat, and caffeine.

The copious amounts of raw sugar and half and half are completing this wonderful salve for my tired-ass soul.

It’s a sunny Thursday morning. The grid of streets and sidewalks I can see though my window is glistening, buzzing, and pulsating with the life of a new day.

There’s plenty of energy to go around. Yeah, I only got two hours of sleep, but that’s plenty.

My laptop, tablet, and business phone are all glowing on my desk. They are powered up, powered on, and ready to power through another long, quiet day of work.

That’s right. Plain, run-of-the-mill, boring old fucking routine is winning out over the weird David Lynchian shit that keeps threatening to overtake this whole office.

Like yesterday, I’m in market analysis mode today.

I know it sounds thrilling.

But fucking seriously, after spending almost an entire day and night delving deep into global market analysis and weighing investment options, I am honestly thrilled to spend the rest of the week like this.

Eventually, people are going to want to talk. Partners, analysts, investors—they all want to make certain that I’m earning my four percent.

But I don’t want to talk to anyone today, and no one wants to talk business on fucking Friday, so to repeat myself, I’m goddamn thrilled to wait until Monday for any of that shit.

I close my eyes for just a moment, resting them, before getting back to work.

I’m standing by the window, but I feel my whole body relax. I let my mind slip into blankness for a few seconds, focusing on nothing but the faint sound of a phone ringing in the distance.

I open my eyes, completely refreshed. Who needs regular, time-consuming sleep anyway?

Fuck, I dropped my coffee on the fucking floor, though.

I close my eyes for a few more seconds, hearing indistinct conversation somewhere in the hallway.

I open my eyes again.

The tan ocean of coffee, cream, and sugar is slowly expanding and seeping into the carpet by my feet. Time to get to work on that shit so I can get to work for real.

I jog out into the hallway. It’s especially loud and crowded all of a sudden.

It’s almost nine o’clock, and everybody’s showing up to work, finally.

We must have paper towels around here somewhere. Where the fuck are they?

Feeling fearless, I tap John Barrister on the arm as he passes me, trying to get his attention.

Barrister stops, looks down at his arm, then looks at me with shock and bewilderment.

“Say, you wouldn’t know where I could find some paper towels, would ya?”

Barrister’s brow furrows in slow motion.

“What do I look like, a goddamn building custodian?”

I barely hold in a laugh. Barrister sees right through me. His jowls are turning cherry red.

“What’s so goddamn funny, Barrett?” he barks.

“I’ve never heard anyone say the word custodian so angrily before. To be frank, I thought it was fantastic. But seriously, do you any idea where...”

Barrister’s already hobbling away, muttering. I can’t make out most of what he’s saying, but I’m pretty sure he calls me a beatnik at one point.

“Just get a receptionist to call a janitor.”

I actually jump at the sound of Rosen’s voice behind me, but I play it cool and nonchalantly swivel around to respond.

“A janitor for what?”

“For the cheap, dime-store coffee splattered all over your office floor.”

Rosen’s arms are crossed grumpily as he looks up at me. He’s clutching his Homburg hat in one hand.

“You were in—”

“That’s right. I graced your office with my very own presence, if you can believe such a thing. Only I didn’t find you there. I found only the evidence of your rubbishy taste and your carelessness.”

“I think it’s good coff—”

“But not to worry. I sent an intern to clean it. I need to drill in your head that you are not to waste your talents, nor part of a costly business day, on janitorial work. It’s absurd.”

“Uh-huh. Why were you in my office?”

Rosen’s arms uncross, but he keeps his hat up by his chest, close to his heart.

“Did someone die?”

“Is that your attempt at humor, Barrett?”

“No.”

“Everyone at the firm is still very much alive, but so is this blasted investigation.”

My accumulated fatigue rams into me with the weight of a truck. Luckily, it doesn’t last long, and I’m back in lucid work mode before I can conk out on the floor.

“Right. I guess we just need to let them do their jobs, right? If we’ve got nothing to hide...”

“What are you on about, Barrett?” Rosen crosses his arms again. “We need you in the meeting at five. But until then, please don’t say a word about it!”

I swear that Rosen makes a literal huff noise when he spins around and strides away from me.

The unfortunate intern tasked with cleaning the coffee from my office did a fine job. When I walk back in, the carpet is pristine and the cup is gone.

My manic enthusiasm for working is also gone.

There’s another meeting with the SEC in just a few hours. I sit down on the small burgundy love seat by the window.

I feel charged with excitement, but not the kind of excitement that’ll help me focus. I lie down to rest my eyes for a few more seconds.

I open my eyes to see my office awash in auburn sunlight. That’s better; all I need is a few seconds at a time, or a few...

What fucking time is it?

I leap off my love seat and make it all the way to my desk in one bound. I grab my phone and fuck, of course it’s fucking five-twenty already.

Is Madeline even still here?

I’ve been doing such a good job of not thinking about when Maddie will show up next, of letting things happen in their own time, that I may just fucking miss her entirely.

I use the front camera on my phone to quickly check my hair, then I tear out of my office like Usain Bolt rushing to make a tight connection at LaGuardia.

It takes about twenty seconds to walk from my office to the boardroom at a leisurely pace. Fortunately, I’m traveling much faster than that.

I see a quick blur of the gothic hallway and hear a split second of what sounds like somebody laughing, and I’m already opening the door to the boardroom and seeing Kallie giving a presentation.

Wait.

What?

The fuck?

Kallie’s wearing her bright-blue hair down today, and it’s falling almost to her shoulders. She’s wearing a very similar dress to the one she had yesterday, only this one is dark gray instead of black.

She’s pointing to something on the wall, and just as I walk in, a gale of laughter bursts from the conference table.

I have no idea what Kallie said, but she got a huge laugh from the firm’s upper management, and now she’s smiling at me as if she expected me to walk in.

I take a few more steps in, trying not to look too fucking tentative. Maddie is sitting at my usual spot at the far end of the table. She’s wearing a pleasant expression, but she doesn’t have the same amused, shit-eating grin the partners and execs are all displaying.

“Thank you, Ms. Fern.” Barrister is standing up, slowly, and he’s using his kindliest voice. “That’s a wonderful demonstration of modern securities practices, and I’m sure an illuminating view of how we do things for Ms...”

“Madeline,” Maddie says, also standing up. “I appreciate all your effort, Ms. Fern, but I’m quite familiar with industry machinations.”

That word instantly sucks the air from the room.

“Machinations?” Rosen’s voice asks accusingly.

“Excuse me, I mean your methods, your procedures, your way of functioning...”

“That’s not what it sounded like to me.” Rosen spins in his seat to face me. “What did it sound like to you, Mr. Barrett, now that we’re almost half an hour into this important meeting?”

“It sounded like an innocent mistake,” I answer. “An imprecise word choice.”

There are crumpled plastic bags from the office supply store at Kallie’s feet. It looks like she’s mounted a whiteboard to the wall and left a pile of various colored markers on the floor beneath it.

“That’s very interesting.” Rosen’s voice is becoming his infamous snarl. “I’m so glad our time is valuable enough for you to show up at all!”

Holy fucking shit. I don’t usually hear him yell that intensely.

“Alright, Leroy. I know this is tense for all of us.” Barrister’s using his best soothing tone as he glares at Rosen and sits back down.

“Please, proceed,” Rosen says hoarsely.

Madeline walks around the side of the table, getting closer to the whiteboard, and to me.

She’s wearing a black-and-white pleated dress, and her hair is done up in sort of a loose bun.

I forgot how Maddie looks fucking amazing with her hair up, letting her features stand out on their own.

She’s walking in my direction, and I stay where I am. Kallie sidles toward me to make room for Madeline.

“Not to harp on this, although that’s what I’m sort of here to do.”

A grumbling rises from the men at the conference table. They’re all visibly uncomfortable right now, so I look back at Maddie.

Maddie ponders the colorful mess on the whiteboard, and I can see the laughter in her eyes. She lets out the start of a laugh, but she stops it and clears her throat.

Madeline turns to face the table directly and continues.

“Gentlemen—and I’m sorry to exclude you, Ms. Fern, you weren’t here yet, but you’re welcome to stay now—anyway, if any of you gentlemen would please indulge the issues I’d like to bring up with your timing last July...”

The grumbling restarts, louder than before.

“That’s just the start,” Maddie continues. “There are a few irregularities going back—”

“Please, Madeline,” Barrister interrupts. “Save your breath. None of us are going to discuss these matters in this setting.”

The conference table grumble evolves, becoming self-righteous.

“I guess we’ll have to pursue this some other way, then,” she responds quietly.

“I guess so.” Barrister stands up smugly with his smug statement, and the rest of the table follows.

I remain in my spot, watching the suddenly very quiet executives leave swiftly. I sense an air of uneasy victory as they walk by.

Kallie gives Madeline a weird, seemingly meaningless look before walking out behind the executives, leaving her shit all over the floor.

They do clear the room very efficiently.

“What do you think?” Maddie asks once the room is empty.

I think I enjoy the sound of her voice echoing lightly through the vacant boardroom, but that’s not the answer she’s looking for.

“I don’t know.”

I feel the heat of Maddie’s gorgeous eyes as she reads me for a long moment.

“You really don’t know, Ethan. I believe it.”

“What don’t I know?”

“You don’t know how to get to a meeting on fucking time. I know that now.”

“Oh? And what else?”

Maddie takes a deliberate step in my direction, then another.

“I don’t think I could tell right now.”

“If it helps, we’ve got the place to ourselves.”

“This room?”

“This whole fucking suite of offices. It’s after five, and everyone’s on their way to the elevator at the very least.”

“No one stays past five?”

“Only me.”

“Bullshit.”

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Okay, let’s see this.”

Despite my offer to show her, Maddie is first out the boardroom door, and I follow.