He saw Darius come in and cross the room to shake his hand with the warmth of a man who valued Darius work and made a sincere effort to not be someone with a limited imagination, which put him ahead of a lot of people. "Glad you made it," Richard said. Then he saw Clare. His expression moved through something too fast to name and landed on professional warmth. And you brought this is Clare.
Darius said, "My neighbor." Clare extended her hand. "Clare Bennett. Nice to meet you." Darius noticed that he had said neighbor.
He noticed Clare notice it, too. She didn't react. She shook Richard's hand and smiled and made small talk, and he watched her choose in real time to give him that grace. It sat in his chest uncomfortably because he knew he owed her better than neighbor and he had said it anyway. And the reflex had been so fast he hadn't caught it in time.
They moved into the room. They got drinks. They circulated for 20 minutes. It was exactly what he'd hoped manageable. He talked to a homeowner from the Westfield area whose compressor he'd replaced in the fall.
He talked to a woman on the neighborhood improvement committee who recognized Clare's name from a design project in the area. He stood next to Clare and felt her warmth beside him and told himself this was fine. Then it cracked. A man named Patterson, mid60s, well-dressed in the way of someone who had been well-dressed his whole life, approached the drinks station at the same time as Darius. Patterson was the kind of man who filled a room sideways, not by being loud, but by assuming the room already belonged to him.
He glanced at Darius. You're with the catering team, right? We're running low on the sparkling water. Darius went still. The specific stillness, the internal quiet that came from decades of practice.
No, he said. His voice was completely level. I'm a guest. Patterson looked at him. The recalibration happened.
The polite recovery. Oh, of course. Forgive me, Patterson. He extended his hand. Darius shook it.
Darius Whitaker. And you're here with the company table. Whitaker HVAC Solutions. He didn't clarify that he worked for a company rather than owning it. He let the sentence sit.
Patterson smiled. Right. Right. Good people. He got his drink and moved away.