Sure of You

The quarterly review deck was due in forty minutes, and Aaliyah hadn’t even added the charts yet.

She didn’t panic. Instead, she leaned back in her chair, took a slow sip of her now-cold coffee, and opened the spreadsheet with the kind of calm that made newer associates think she was psychic. She wasn’t. She just knew her numbers. Had been staring at them for three weeks. The charts would take twelve minutes, tops. She’d already calculated it.

Her desk was the organized kind of messy — sticky notes in neat rows, three pens she never used, a half-empty water bottle, and a small succulent she’d somehow kept alive for eight months. The succulent was a point of pride. Everything else was just work.

“Someone’s in a mood.”

Aaliyah looked up. Nina was leaning against the edge of her desk, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. Nina was the closest thing she had to a work best friend — which meant she knew exactly when Aaliyah was running on four hours of sleep and a questionable life choice.

“I’m fine.”

“You say that like I’m supposed to believe you.”

“I say that like I’m supposed to be fine.” Aaliyah turned back to her screen. “I will be. After this deck is done and I’ve had a real coffee.”

Nina didn’t move. “You went out with the consulting guy again, didn’t you?”

“His name is Derek.”

“His name is irrelevant. How was it?”

Aaliyah considered the question. The truth was: fine. Derek was fine. He was handsome and funny and he’d bought her drinks and taken her to a nice place and kissed her at her door like he was following a script someone had written for him. She’d let him in. It had been fine. She left before he woke up because she didn’t want to do the morning-after conversation, and she’d told herself it was because she had an early meeting.

She always had an early meeting.

“Fine,” she said.

Nina’s eyebrow stayed exactly where it was. “That’s the third fine this week.”

“That’s the third time this week someone’s asked.”

Nina shook her head, but she was smiling. “One day, you’re going to run out of men to be fine about.”

“Good thing there’s an infinite supply.”

Nina laughed and pushed off from the desk. “Deck. Coffee. Don’t die.”

Aaliyah saluted with her cold coffee cup and turned back to the numbers.

The deck was submitted at 9:47 AM, fourteen minutes ahead of the soft deadline and three minutes before the hard one. Aaliyah closed her laptop, stretched her arms above her head, and felt the tension in her shoulders release like a held breath.

She needed a cigarette.

She didn’t smoke. Not really. But sometimes she stood outside the building with the smokers just to feel like she was doing something other than sitting at her desk. It was a small rebellion. A two-minute break from being sharp and capable and in control.

She grabbed her phone and her cardholder and headed for the elevator.

The office was on the twenty-third floor. Open plan, glass walls, the kind of modern architecture that was supposed to inspire collaboration but mostly just meant everyone could see when you were scrolling on your phone. Aaliyah had gotten used to it. She’d been here four years. Long enough to know which corners had good lighting and which conference rooms had the best acoustics for phone calls.

She was halfway to the elevator when she saw him.

Mateo.

He was at his desk, head down, reading something on his screen. His coffee mug was the same one he’d had since his first week — navy blue, chipped at the rim, with a faded logo from some university she couldn’t remember. He was wearing a dark gray button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and he was frowning at whatever he was reading in a way that made him look older than he was.

He wasn’t handsome in the obvious way. He was handsome in the way that crept up on you — the kind of face you didn’t notice until you’d seen it a hundred times, and then one day you realized you’d memorized it without meaning to.

Aaliyah had memorized it. She just didn’t think about why.

He looked up.

Their eyes met across the floor. He smiled — small, easy, like he’d been expecting her to walk past. Like he always knew where she was.

She nodded. He nodded back.

That was it. That was most of their interactions during the day. A look. A nod. A shared silence that didn’t feel empty.

She kept walking.

The smokers’ corner was a small alcove on the ground floor, tucked between the lobby and the parking garage. There were three people there when she arrived. She didn’t know any of them. She leaned against the wall, pulled out her phone, and scrolled through nothing.

A text came in.

Mateo: Deck submitted?

She smiled before she could stop herself.

Aaliyah: 14 minutes early.

Mateo: Show-off.

Aaliyah: Someone has to impress the VP.

Mateo: You submitted it to the VP?

Aaliyah: No. But he’ll see my name on the file and know.

Mateo: Know what?

Aaliyah: That I’m better than him.

Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

Mateo: You need a real lunch. Not a protein bar at your desk.

Aaliyah: I have a meeting at 12.

Mateo: At 12:30, I’m getting a sandwich from the place on 4th. I’ll get you one.

Aaliyah: What if I don’t want a sandwich?

Mateo: You always want a sandwich.

He was right. She did.

Aaliyah: Fine. Surprise me.

Mateo: I always do.

She pocketed her phone. The smile was still there. She let it be.

At 12:32, a sandwich appeared on her desk. Turkey and provolone on sourdough, with the exact ratio of mustard to mayo she liked — which she’d never told him. He’d just figured it out. At some point over the last four years, he’d paid enough attention to know.

There was also a small bag of chips and a note.

“Don’t work through lunch. — M”

She ate the sandwich at her desk. But she ate it slowly. That counted, right?

The night came the way it always did when she didn’t have plans — suddenly, with an empty apartment waiting for her.

Aaliyah didn’t like the empty. The empty meant sitting still. And sitting still meant thinking. And thinking meant she’d have to figure out why she kept doing the same things and expecting different results.

So she called a friend. Then another friend. Then she ended up at a bar on the east side of the city, three drinks in, laughing at something a guy named — she’d already forgotten — was saying.

The bar was loud. The kind of place where you could be whoever you wanted for a few hours. She was wearing a black top and jeans, her hair down, her makeup still fresh from the morning. She looked good. She knew she looked good. It was part of the armor.

The guy was cute. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. She’d had enough drinks that her judgment was fuzzy around the edges, but not so many that she couldn’t still walk in a straight line. She was in the sweet spot. The place where everything felt easy.

He leaned in. Said something she didn’t catch. She laughed anyway.

And then her phone buzzed.

She glanced at it, half-expecting it to be Nina checking in. But it wasn’t Nina.

Mateo: You at O’Shea’s?

She frowned. How did he—

She looked up. Scanned the bar.

And there he was.

Mateo. Standing near the entrance, still in his work clothes — the same gray button-up, now with the top button undone. He was holding a beer he hadn’t drunk from yet. And he was looking at her.

Not with judgment. Not with concern. Just... looking. Like he’d known she’d be here. Like he’d wanted to make sure she got home safe.

She excused herself from the guy — whose name she still didn’t know — and walked over.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nina said you went out. I was in the area.”

“You live on the other side of the city.”

He didn’t deny it. Just shrugged, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “You want a ride home?”

“I haven’t finished my drink.”

“I’ll wait.”

She looked at him. Really looked. The way he stood — easy, patient, like he had nowhere else to be. The way his eyes held hers without demanding anything.

Something tugged in her chest. She ignored it.

“Fine,” she said. “But you’re buying the next round.”

He laughed — quiet, warm — and pulled out the chair next to him. “Deal.”

She sat down. The guy at the bar was already forgotten.

Mateo flagged down the bartender and ordered whatever she was having without asking. Because of course he did. Because he knew.

And as she sat there, watching him watch the room, she felt something she couldn’t name.

She didn’t try to name it. She just let herself stay.