My alarm went off like a tiny demon with a cymbal. I smacked at it, missed, smacked again, and sent my phone skidding off the nightstand. It survived. My dignity did not.

Group chat was already on fire.

Coco: good morning, sinner

Tari: and how are the forearms today

Me: i hope you both step on lego

Coco: tender! she’s tender!

Tari: brunch pics or it didn’t happen

I sent them a single beige photo of soup from last night with no context. Petty. Perfect.

Coco: that’s code, right

Tari: i hate you

I threw on clothes, did the mascara thing without poking my eye, grabbed a banana that was one day from retirement, and bolted. Elevator, lobby, the usual chorus of coffee breath and deadlines.

At my desk, Ken from Security had dropped a calendar invite titled Quick Check-In with the kind of smiley face that means there won’t be any smiling.

“Kill me,” I muttered.

“Already on it,” Coco said, materializing with a croissant like a fairy godmother with carbs. She looked me over, clocked the borrowed-soft glow in my cheeks, and lifted a brow. “You look… refreshed.”

“It was soup,” I said.

She grinned. “Soup can be very restorative.”

Ken’s ping arrived: Now? Which is corporate for “I’m standing behind you,” and of course when I turned, there he was, not actually behind me, thank God. He waved from the glass corridor.

“Go,” Coco stage-whispered. “If he says ‘privacy policy’ three times, text pineapple.”

Downstairs, Ken had a binder, a tablet, and the gentlest “I hate my life” energy.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said, which is exactly what people say before they read you your rights. “Two items. First, we scrubbed the hallway clip. It’s off the server. I logged it as a noise false positive.”

“Bless you.”

“Second,” he continued, “someone requested footage from the building’s exterior cameras, time window eight to nine last night. No subpoena. No formal letterhead. I denied it and flagged it.”

My stomach dipped. “Who asked?”

“A private email with no company domain. I’ve routed it to legal. If they push, we’ll let you know.”

I let out a breath. “Thank you. Really.”

Ken nodded, already moving on to the minor apocalypse of others. “Keep your head down. And… maybe don’t use Twelve’s event corridor for… soup.”

“Noted.”

Back upstairs, I braced for Coco’s interrogation. Instead I walked straight into a crime scene. My coffee had toppled, a slow brown tide claiming my keyboard. “Shit.”

“Language,” Coco said, throwing me paper towels. “Also… mood.”

We mopped. We saved the space bar. I swore once more for good luck. When I finally sat down, a new message blinked on my phone from a number that was not saved and very much not friendly.

X: Cute shadows yesterday. Try not to trip over your own story.

I stared at it until the words stopped looking like words. My heart did a small, pissed-off drum solo.

“Bad?” Coco asked.

“Just a clown,” I said, and forwarded it to him with nothing else.

His reply came seconds later.

Him: Logged. Don’t respond. Lunch at 1, the bookshop again. Bad lighting is our friend.

Me: Copy that. Also, fuck this person.

Him: Fully agreed.

The day pretended to be normal. I filed things. I clicked things. I told a spreadsheet I loved it until it did what I wanted. He sent a photo of a soup pot like a threat. I grinned at my monitor like an idiot.

At 12:03, HR sent an invite to everyone for Respectful Workplace Refresher next week. I snorted so hard it hurt. Tari, two rows over, yelled, “Finally, a course I can sleep through.”

By 12:59 I had fixed my lipstick, told Coco I was “going to the library,” and practiced not looking guilty in reflective surfaces.

The bookshop still smelled like paper and ambition. He was already there in the back, pretending to read, hands in pockets, that stupid calm that made me insane.

“You’re early,” I said.

“You’re late,” he said with a ghost of a smile, and then, quieter, “You okay?”

“Fine. Slightly murderous. Otherwise great.”

He nodded. “We’ll be boring and excellent at it. Ready to walk?”

We did the loop: past the florist, past the bar with the fake Ivy League crest, toward the park that thinks it’s Paris. He stayed half a step off me like a courtesy that also read like possession. It should have annoyed me. It didn’t.

“So,” he said. “Two options for tonight. Pottery class or cook at your place.”

“Pottery?” I said. “Like Ghost?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, suffering. “Ahmed’s wife swears it’s good at keeping people from checking their phones for ninety minutes.”

“I hate how correct that sounds,” I said. “Also… clay is very sexy. Messy, chaotic, never the same shape twice…”

He gave me a look that said, Kindly stop talking in metaphors in public. “Pottery it is.”

“Perfect. And if we make something usable, we’ll call it a bowl. If we make something that looks like a cursed mushroom, we’ll call it… modern.”

“Deal.”

We made it back to the bookshop without being hit by a scooter or a sign from the universe. He bought two tiny notebooks at the front to tip the owner and we parted with a civilized shoulder brush that felt dirtier than a kiss.

Work crawled then sprinted. The afternoon bled into evening. At six, Coco popped up with the garment bag again like a Broadway understudy. “Pottery?” she asked.

“Pottery,” I confirmed.

“You two are the reason rom-coms exist.”

“You say that like it’s a crime.”

“It is on my block,” she said. “Text me when you get home. Or when you break a kiln.”

~ ~ ~

The studio looked like a Pinterest board exploded. Plants, fairy lights, a chalkboard with loopy instructions: Center… Cone… Collar… Calm. There were eight wheels and one instructor who looked like he’d moved to the city to be an actor and accidentally found a calling in clay.

He was already at a wheel, sleeves shoved up, clay under his nails like he’d been born at a riverbank. He looked at me like I’d arrived with the sun.

“You came,” he said.

“You keep saying that,” I said, smiling. “At some point we have to accept that I do that now.”

“Good habit.”

We took the two wheels in the corner like teenagers hiding in the library. The instructor launched into metaphors about breath and pressure and how you have to stay steady at the core even while the edges spin like hell.

“Holy therapy,” I muttered, putting my tragic lump on the wheel.

He blinked at his own lump. “This looks easier in the montage.”

“Everything looks easier in the montage.”

We tried to center the clay. The clay fought back. My first attempt flew off like a UFO and landed in a plant. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

“Language,” he said, amused.

“Please don’t HR me at pottery.”

He laughed, low and real, and it did a thing to my insides that clay cannot do. He reached behind me to flick the speed pedal. The move put him close enough that I could feel him at my back for a heartbeat, then he eased away like he hadn’t done anything at all.

“Gentle pressure,” he said. “Steady hands.”

“Are you talking about the wheel or…”

“Yes,” he said.