Monday carried that strange hush—the kind that settles over an office when everyone is pretending to work but is really waiting for sothing else entirely. At Gray & Milton, the "sothing else" was the Urban Developnt Council’s verdict.
No one said it out loud, but the air felt taut. Keyboards clicked a little too fast. People lingered in the hallway for no reason. Even the coffee machine sounded nervous, sputtering like it knew it was serving a room full of people who were absolutely looking for an excuse to hover around it.
I had just logged in and opened a docunt I definitely wasn’t reading when Derrick spun his chair around and locked eyes with .
"Nervous?" he asked.
"Who, ?" I pointed at myself, leaning back casually. "Nope."
He didn’t blink. "You look nervous."
"Must be your monitor reflection. Makes everyone look tense." I turned back to my screen.
"Uh-huh." He rested his elbow on his armrest. "You’ve checked the ti like seven tis in the past ten minutes."
I scoffed. "It’s called being productive."
"It’s called waiting for the biggest announcent of your career," Derrick countered. "Or, you know... waiting to see if your wife’s company just got obliterated in daylight."
I shot him a look. "First of all, don’t use the word ’obliterated.’ Second of all... Val already said they wouldn’t win."
He blinked. "Wait—why? Moreau Dynamics doesn’t just lose. That’s like... a cosmic rule."
I hesitated. Just a beat.
Just long enough for him to catch it.
"Kai," he said slowly, "what happened?"
"Nothing dramatic," I said, choosing my words carefully. "They just... had so internal setbacks. Timing issues. A few things didn’t line up the way they needed to."
Derrick raised a brow. "Internal setbacks? At Moreau Dynamics? What, did sobody unplug the building?"
I huffed. "It’s complicated."
] "Complicated how?"
"Company stuff," I replied. "Family stuff, really."
His expression shifted imdiately—respectful, quiet, like he’d just stepped too close to a line and realized it. "Ah. Got it. Not my business."
"Exactly."
He nodded, but his eyes softened. "Still... that doesn’t an it’s not ssing with you."
I stayed quiet for a beat too long.
He grinned. "There it is. That tiny eyelid twitch you do? Dead giveaway."
"I don’t twitch."
] "You twitch like a man being hunted."
"Thanks."
"Anyti," he said, folding his arms. "But seriously, you good?"
I exhaled slowly. "I just... want this win. For the company, yes, obviously. But also—" I stopped myself, but Derrick gave the look. The one that said I already know, Kai. Stop pretending you can out-subtle a man who has seen you panic over misplaced airpods.
"What?" he pressed. "Don’t give the mysterious pause. You only pause like that when sothing is emotional, expensive, or related to your wife."
I gave him a look. He wasn’t wrong.
"Val told ," I said quietly, "that since Moreau Dynamics isn’t going to win it... I should. She wants to."
Derrick’s eyebrows lifted. "Yeah... honestly? From the few tis I’ve t her, I kinda figured she’d want you to win from the start. She gives off that ’my husband better be the best in every room’ energy."
I snorted. "She doesn’t say it like that."
"No," he agreed, "she says it nicer. But the vibe is the sa."
I rubbed the back of my neck, the truth settling heavier now that I’d said it out loud. "She ntioned it again this weekend. Not directly, but... yeah. I know she’ll be disappointed if we don’t give win it."
Derrick leaned back and stretched his legs out. "Hey, you did give it everything. So did the team. So did I, obviously, because without my moral support—"
"Please," I cut in. "Your contribution was eating my fries."
He pointed at . "Fueling your body."
"Stealing."
] "Borrowing."
"You didn’t return anything."
"That’s because," he said confidently, "you ate the fries."
I stared at him.
He grinned. "See? Teamwork."
I couldn’t help laughing. "You’re insufferable."
] "And yet you thrive because of ."
I snorted, shaking my head and looking back at my monitor. Another ten minutes crawled by. People tried to appear normal—typing, writing, walking around with papers they didn’t need—but the tension was everywhere.
I tried focusing on a spreadsheet. Failed. Tried answering an email. Stared at it for too long and closed it. My phone buzzed once—just a work notification—but even that made my pulse hitch.
Because sowhere across the city, Val was also waiting. And I knew her well enough to know that even if she smiled and pretended she didn’t care, she was feeling it.
She may have already accepted the loss, but losses still sting. Especially ones her father’s company used to win without question.
I tapped my pen against my desk. Derrick turned toward , ready to say sothing else—probably another remark about being one heartbeat away from bolting out the window—when Hale’s office door clicked open.
Every head within ten ters lifted.
Hale stepped out with a blank, unreadable face—the man could win the lottery and look like soone stole his sandwich. He dusted his suit jacket with a casual sweep of his hand before saying, loud enough for the entire floor to hear:
] "Everyone, gather."
The way sound drained out of the office was almost impressive. Chairs rolled back. Desks were abandoned. Screens were left glowing without supervision. Everyone moved toward him, forming a semi-circle in the open space.
I stood near the front with Derrick beside , both of us straightening unconsciously. My pulse thudded once, hard.
A mont later, the rest of our ridian team slipped in too—Tasha, Ji-ho, Noah, Gabriel. They must’ve gotten the sa instinct everyone else did, because they moved straight toward us, forming a quiet cluster near the front.
Tasha caught my eye as she stepped in beside . She didn’t speak—her lips just shaped the words:
You good?
I gave the slightest nod back.
Ji-ho folded his arms, already vibrating with barely contained anticipation.
Gabriel adjusted his glasses for the fifth ti in under a minute.
Noah stood with that calm, unreadable face he always wore before big news, like he’d already calculated every outco.
But all of us were watching the sa thing:
Hale, standing there in front of us, expression blank as a locked safe.
Hale’s expression didn’t change. Not even a little.
He cleared his throat. "The Urban Developnt Council has finished their deliberations."
Silence fell so heavily you could hear soone drop a pen on the other side of the room.
"The higher-ups have been inford," Hale continued. "We expect the council to release the official statent to the press first thing tomorrow morning."
Murmurs rose and died again.
He inhaled.
] "The decision has been reached. I was notified a few minutes ago."
I felt Derrick shift beside . My fingers curled into my palm.
Hale’s face remained maddeningly neutral as he said:
"So the main contractor for the ridian Developnt Initiative Project is..."
He paused.
Soone whispered, "Holy—just say it."
Hale blinked once and finished: "Gray & Milton."
The room exploded.
Cheers erupted from every direction. The sound hit like a physical wave—shouts, clapping, laughter, soone yelling "LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO!" from the back. People hugged. Hands slapped shoulders. Soone tossed a stack of papers into the air like they’d been waiting their entire career for this exact dramatic mont.
Tasha grabbed my arm. "WE DID IT!"
I didn’t even realize I was smiling until my cheeks hurt. People sward around us, congratulating, squeezing my shoulder, shaking my hand. The project team looked like they were two seconds away from jumping on furniture.
Hale allowed a small, barely-perceptible nod—his version of an emotional breakdown.
I laughed, breathless, letting the noise wash over . It felt good. It felt earned. Months of work, sleepless nights, late calls, revision after revision... it all crashed into this one mont.
But even in the middle of the celebration, a thought slipped through—a quiet one, threading its way past the excitent.
What’s happening right now at Moreau Dynamics?
Because while our office erupted into joy...
...hers might have fallen silent.
I pictured Val sitting at her desk or maybe pacing her father’s office, arms crossed, jaw set, pretending she didn’t care. Pretending the result didn’t matter.
Pretending it didn’t hurt a little.
I tried to shake the thought off, but it stayed. Not to dampen the win—never that—but because everything in my life had beco inevitably connected to her. Her victories felt like mine. Her losses did, too.
Derrick bumped my shoulder. "Hey," he said over the noise, "your face."
"What about it?"
] "You look like you’re trying not to think about soone."
I didn’t deny it.
He sighed. "Text her later. Celebrate first. You earned at least ten minutes of unfiltered triumph, man."
I huffed out a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
Soone called my na, pulling into another round of fist bumps and thanks and excitent. I let myself sink into it—into the relief, the validation, the sheer joy of knowing Gray & Milton had just claid the biggest project of the decade.
But a part of —quiet, steady, unavoidable—kept circling back to the sa question.
How’s Val doing?
Because even on my brightest day... she was still the center of my gravity.
And the win didn’t change that.
Not even a little.
---
To be continued...
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