Monday carried that strange hush—the kind that settles over an office when everyone is pretending to work but is really waiting for something else entirely. At Gray & Milton, the "something else" was the Urban Development 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 document I definitely wasn't reading when Derrick spun his chair around and locked eyes with me.
"Nervous?" he asked.
"Who, me?" 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 time like seven times in the past ten minutes."
