Mondays at Coleman & Hart always smelled like burnt espresso and panic.
By 8:47 a.m., I was on my second paper cut and third crisis. The copier had staged a mutiny, IT was "looking into it," and someone on the tenth floor had managed to lock themselves out of their own email. Again.
"Emma, can you—" Lily’s voice floated over the low partition, half-apologetic, half-amused.
"Already on it," I said, swapping the phone to my shoulder as I typed. "Yes, Mr. Lang, I see the error message. No, I didn’t personally change your password. Try ‘Forgot password.’ Yes, the button right under the box. No, the other—there you go."
I hung up, pressed save on the service ticket, and finally looked up at Lily. She was leaning on the edge of my desk, her short curls escaping their clip, clutching a cardboard drink tray like it contained state secrets.
"I come bearing tribute," she announced. "One large salvation with oat milk. Also, you look like you’ve fought a war and lost."
"We don’t lose," I said, taking the cup and inhaling the heat. It stung pleasantly against the chill of the overworked AC. "We just...redirect the chaos."
She snorted. "Spoken like a true ground floor goddess."
I rolled my eyes, but warmth flickered under my ribs. The ground floor was a maze of glass and cubicles, a blur of ringing phones and harried footsteps. Executives swept through here on their way to the elevators—tall, crisp suits, perfect hair, the occasional whiff of expensive cologne—but nobody ever really saw us.
Which was perfect. Safe.
I had built my whole adult life on the idea that invisible meant untouchable. No expectations. No disappointments. Pay the rent, pay the bills, keep your head down, stay small.
"You’re going to be late," Lily said, flicking her gaze toward the far end of the lobby where the marble gleamed under vaulted glass. "The altar awaits."
My stomach dipped. 8:50. Right. The coffee run.
Every morning, someone from admin ran drinks to the executive floor. It rotated, allegedly at random. Somehow, "random" meant my name showed up on the schedule more than anyone else’s. Maybe because I was efficient. Maybe because I didn’t chatter when I got up there. Maybe, as Lily claimed, because the universe had a messed up sense of humor.
"If I spill eight lattes, will they finally ban me from the twentieth floor?" I asked, but I was already standing, slipping my feet back into my flats.
"You won’t spill anything." She winked and held up the tray she’d just delivered. "You’re the queen of balance, Em."
If she only knew.
I grabbed the prepped drink carriers from the breakroom counter—four trays, each holding four cups with careful labels in my neat, blocky handwriting—and inhaled once, slow, like the yoga videos said.
Don’t think about it.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime. I stepped inside, trays balanced like precarious architecture, and pressed 20. The doors closed, sealing me in with a mirror polished to corporate perfection.
A pale woman stared back. Brown hair twisted into a functional knot. Dark circles artfully minimized with drugstore concealer. Navy dress that skimmed, didn’t cling. The official Coleman & Hart lanyard, clipped precisely to the left.
Plain. Unremarkable. Exactly how I liked it.
