But somewhere along the way, the creativity had curdled into procedure. The design teams ran on fear of disapproval. The approval chains were so long that a good idea could die of old age before it ever reached a client. And the people who actually held the place together, maintenance operations, reception, the woman who restocked the supply closet, and somehow always knew when you were running low on printer paper, were treated like background noise. Dorian had watched it happen gradually and said nothing because saying something was not what people in his position were supposed to do.
He was not a director. He did not sit in the big conference rooms. He fixed what broke and kept his opinions between himself and the four walls of his apartment, where Amara would occasionally ask him why he looked tired, and he would say he was fine, and she would give him the look that said she was eight, not stupid. The Friday it happened was ordinary in every way that mattered. He had already handled a water pressure complaint on the fourth floor, argued a delivery company into rescheduling a late shipment, and sweet-talked the ancient photocopier on three back into functioning temporarily, as always before 9:00 in the morning.
He was heading back to his office when he spotted her. She was standing beside that same photocopier which had apparently staged a relapse. Folders were stacked precariously in both arms, a few sheets already making a break for the floor. Her access badge hung from a lanyard with the telltale look of something printed that morning, white background placeholder font not yet loaded into the system. She was wearing a white button-down and dark jeans, hair pulled back, and she had the expression of someone who had been told to go make copies and had arrived to find the machine actively hostile.
Dorian crouched down, picked up the escaped pages, and pulled open the paper tray with the specific angle of pressure that convinced the machine to cooperate. He set the stack straight on top of the folders she was holding and straightened up with an easy smile. "Good morning, beautiful," he said, just the way he had light, unhurried, meaning it just enough. "First day?" She looked at him with something that might have been surprise and might have been amusement.
"Is it that obvious?" "The badge," he said. "And the fact that you're trying to negotiate with the worst machine in the building. Rule number one, this copier has a grudge and it's personal. Rule number two, if you need someone to show you how the rest of the place works, I accept payment in smiles."
She laughed then, a real one, not the polite version people offered when they wanted someone to go away. She shifted the folders to one arm and looked at him with genuine curiosity. "And what exactly does the tour cover?" "Everything they don't put in the welcome packet," Dorian said. "Which elevator to avoid, which conference room is actually haunted, where they hide the good coffee, the essentials."
Her name, she offered, was Tessa. No last name, no title, nothing further. Dorian didn't push. New interns were often nervous about how much to share with people they'd just met, and he'd learned a long time ago that making someone feel comfortable was mostly about not demanding anything from them. So, he talked, and she listened, and then she started asking questions.