Chapter six
961 Words
By the end of my first week at Voss Industries, I had learned three things.
One: the building never sleeps.
Two: nobody explains anything unless you already look like you understand it.
Three: black coffee is treated like a personality trait here.
Unfortunately, I was still trying to survive all three.
My office was right next to his.
Which sounded like a privilege until I realized it actually meant I could feel his presence without seeing him.
Not literally.
But almost.
The kind of almost that makes you sit straighter without knowing why.
And the worst part?
For the first two days, he wasn’t even mostly in his office.
He was in mine.
Correcting.
Explaining.
Watching.
Not in a suffocating way.
In a quiet, controlled way that made it impossible to ignore your mistakes.
On day one, I made the coffee mistake.
He had said it clearly.
“Black coffee.”
Two words. Simple. Direct. Final.
I looked at him and nodded like I understood the assignment.
“I got it.”
I did not, in fact, “get it.”
Ten minutes later, I walked back in with coffee.
Light. Smooth. Soft brown.
Safe coffee.
Coffee that had never suffered in its life.
I placed it on his desk proudly.
He looked at it.
Then at me.
Then back at it.
“You changed it,” he said.
I shrugged.
“I improved it.”
Silence.
“Black coffee is a bit… harsh.”
A pause.
I continued, because apparently my mouth had no survival instinct.
“And honestly,” I said, gesturing slightly, “you’re a very handsome man, so black coffee kind of reduces your… aesthetic presence. Coffee with milk enhances it. I did my research.”
Silence.
Immediate silence.
Even the air conditioner sounded like it stopped breathing.
My brain froze mid-sentence.
“I see” he asked calmly.
That was the moment I realized.
I called my boss handsome
Oh no.
No no no.
I cleared my throat fast.
“I mean—professionally speaking. In a… lighting sense. Not personally. I don’t do personal observations at work. That would be inappropriate.”
“Please forget I had just said that”
He just stared at me.
Unmoving.
Unhelpful.
Extremely present.
I nodded too fast.
“Black coffee it is.”
I turned immediately.
Walked out.
Very quickly.
Like speed could erase embarrassment.
After that, things got worse before they got better.
Not because of him.
Because of everything else.
Files from the past month were chaos.
Schedules didn’t align.
Meetings overlapped.
Appointments had been moved so many times they had basically lost identity.
At one point, I stared at a document and muttered:
“Who designed this? A stressed raccoon?”
No answer.
Of course.
By day three, I stopped complaining out loud.
Because I no longer had time for it.
Instead, I just worked.
Fix.
Adjust.
Reschedule.
Rebuild.
Repeat.
On day five, I snapped slightly.
At the system.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered, scrolling through yet another broken schedule. “Why are there so many errors? Do people here just throw meetings into a blender and hope for the best?”
I leaned back in my chair.
“I’ve corrected this same week four times.”
By day seven, something shifted.
I stayed late.
Very late.
Fixing everything that had been wrong for months before I even arrived.
I don’t know what surprised me more.
The number of errors…
Or how badly structured everything had been before I got here.
“This is not an office,” I muttered. “This is a historical reconstruction site.”
I worked through everything.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Then cleaner.
Something in my brain just… clicked.
Patterns started making sense.
Systems aligned.
Mistakes stopped repeating.
When I was done, I backed everything up.
Twice.
Then a third time, just in case reality changed its mind.
I stood up from my desk, rolled my shoulders, and exhaled.
My body hurt.
My brain was fried.
But everything was done.
I walked into his office with a drive and a stack of files.
He looked up immediately.
As always.
“Done?” he asked.
I nodded.
“And I fixed everything from the past month,” I added. “Every schedule, every overlap, every mistake. Even the ones I think people were pretending not to see.”
I placed the files on his desk.
He didn’t touch them immediately.
Just looked at them.
Then at me.
“You did all this in one week?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“I complained the entire time,” I added honestly.
That made something in his expression shift.
Almost amusement.
Almost.
Then he opened the drive.
And I watched his expression change slowly.
From neutral…
to focused…
to slightly surprised.
“This is…” he paused.
Rare.
He rarely pauses.
“…correct.”
I blinked.
“Is that good or ‘you didn’t break anything’ good?”
He looked up.
“It means there are no errors.”
I nodded.
“Then I did my job.”
Silence again.
Then—
“Good work,” he said.
Two words.
Simple.
But somehow heavier than expected.
I cleared my throat.
“So I’m not getting fired today?”
“No.”
“…tomorrow?”
“No.”
I nodded slowly.
“Great. I’ll continue my streak of not being unemployed.”
I turned toward the door.
Then paused.
“Oh,” I added, glancing back. “Black coffee is still bad.”
A pause.
Then—
very faintly—
something like amusement crossed his expression again.
But he said nothing.
And somehow…
that silence felt less like distance.
And more like the beginning of something he hadn’t named yet.
- Writer
