My Rival, My Partner

Chapter One: The Bid

Dane's POV

The conference room at the Halloway Civic Center smelled like burnt coffee and ambition, and Dane Copper had learned a long time ago that both were survivable if you kept your face still.

He'd rehearsed the pitch in his head so many times the words had gone smooth as river stone. Twelve minutes to convince the city selection committee that Voss & Marsh Architecture deserved the Halloway Museum redesign, the kind of project that didn't come twice in a career, let alone in the career of a junior architect three years out of school with a scholarship-funded degree and a chip on his shoulder the size of the building itself.

He was reviewing his notes for the fourth time when the door at the back of the room opened, and every head in the place turned like sunflowers finding the sun.

Callum Ashworth walked in the way certain men walked into rooms, like the room had been waiting for him and was relieved he'd finally shown up. Tailored charcoal suit, no tie, sleeves not quite rolled but somehow suggesting he could roll them at any moment and get real work done. He had the kind of face that made strangers assume things about him, easy, golden, unbothered, and Dane, who had spent two years competing against Ashworth & Vance for smaller commissions and losing more often than not, hated how effective it was.

"Copper." Callum said his name like a greeting and a challenge at once, dropping into the seat one row ahead and turning to face him.

"Didn't know Voss & Marsh was still in the running. I heard you lost the Brindlewood contract."

"We didn't lose it. We walked away from a client who wanted a parking structure disguised as 'visionary civic architecture.'" Dane kept his voice level.

"But I appreciate you keeping track of my failures. Must be a full-time job."

Something flickered across Callum's face, amusement, maybe, or its cousin, before he turned back around, and Dane spent the next four minutes furious at himself for noticing the particular way Callum's jaw moved when he was trying not to smile.

The pitches went in alphabetical order, which put Ashworth & Vance well ahead of Voss & Marsh. Dane watched Callum stand at the podium and deliver a presentation that was, infuriatingly, good, not flashy, not empty charm dressed up as vision, but a real understanding of how the museum's original 1920s bones could hold a contemporary expansion without fighting it. Dane found himself nodding before he caught himself and stopped.

When it was his turn, he didn't try to out-charm anyone. He laid out the numbers, the sustainability plan, the four community consultations his firm had already run with local artists who'd be using the space.

He talked about growing up two neighborhoods over from the museum, sneaking in on free days, how a building could tell a kid he belonged somewhere even when nothing else did. He hadn't planned to say that part. It came out anyway, and the room went quieter than it had for Callum's polish.

Afterward, in the hallway, Callum caught up to him by the elevator bank.

"That bit about growing up nearby," Callum said. "Was that real, or strategy?"

"Does it matter?" Dane pressed the button harder than necessary.

"It matters to me."

Callum's voice had dropped the performance he'd worn in the conference room, and for a second Dane saw something that looked almost like envy.

"I grew up knowing exactly which museum wing had my family's name on a plaque. I've never once snuck into anything."

Dane didn't know what to do with that, with the honesty of it, unearned and unasked for.

"Must be nice," he said, which was cruel and also, he suspected, exactly what Callum expected to hear, because Callum's mouth twisted into something rueful instead of hurt.

"May the better firm win, Copper," Callum said as the elevator doors opened.

"It will," Dane said, and stepped in before he could see whether that landed as a joke or a warning, because he wasn't entirely sure himself.

Three days later, the city selection committee released a statement that made Dane read it twice, then a third time, standing in his kitchen with his coffee going cold: the committee had been unable to select a single winning proposal and was inviting the two finalist firms to submit a combined design, developed collaboratively, sharing office space provided by the city for the duration of the schematic phase.

Voss & Marsh Architecture and Ashworth & Vance, Together For three months, minimum.

Dane read the email a fourth time, hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something less absurd. They didn't. Three months, One office, Zero chance this doesn’t end in disaster.

His phone buzzed. A text from a number he didn't recognize, though he'd know that particular breed of confidence anywhere.

*Guess we're roommates, Copper. C.A.*

Dane set the phone face-down on the counter, and told himself the thing tightening in his chest was dread. He almost believed it, right up until a second text lit the screen a minute later, one line long, and he picked the phone back up faster than he'd meant to.

*Don't leave me on read. I know you're staring at it.*

He was, That was the problem.