Neither Will Fold

Elyn Crest did not do mornings. She did not do small talk, unsolicited opinions, or men who breathed too loudly in her direction. Today she was getting all three. “Ms. Crest your card is declining.” The man behind the desk, Gerald, according to his name tag, said it with the particular tone of someone who had already decided she didn’t belong here. “This lounge is Platinum members only.” Elyn set her bag down slowly. “Run it again Gerald.” “I’ve run it twice.” “Then you’ve only run it twice.” She held his gaze. “Run it again.” Gerald’s jaw tightened but he ran it again. The machine beeped red. He looked up at her with the expression of a man trying very hard not to smile and failing completely. “Perhaps you brought the wrong card?” he said. “A shopping card maybe? It happens to.” “Gerald.” Her voice dropped half a degree. “Who owns this lounge?” He blinked. “Crest Holdings but I don’t see what.” “Look at my name.” Silence. Gerald looked at the card. Then at her face. Then back at the card like he was hoping the letters had rearranged themselves into something that would save him. They had not. “I.” “Run it a fourth time,” she said pleasantly. “And while you do that start drafting your apology. You’ll need it.” The card beeped green. Gerald’s soul visibly left his body. “Have a wonderful.” She was already walking away. The lounge was quiet and cool, all leather seats and soft lighting and the particular silence that money bought. Elyn exhaled once, rolled her shoulders, and scanned for the most isolated corner seat available. She found it. She walked toward it. She stopped. There was a man already sitting one seat away from it. Dark suit. Long legs stretched out like he owned the floor beneath them. A coffee cup in his hand and the expression of someone who had never once been inconvenienced by anything in his entire life. He wasn’t looking at her. Which somehow made it worse. Elyn sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and opened her laptop. Fine. She could ignore one human being for forty minutes. She had ignored entire boardrooms before. Three minutes passed. “Your card works by the way,” the man said without looking up from his phone. “In case you were worried.” Elyn’s fingers paused on her keyboard. “I wasn’t,” she said. “Gerald looked like he needed a moment though.” “Gerald needed several moments and a career change.” The man smiled. She didn’t see it directly but she felt it happen somehow which was deeply irritating. She went back to her screen. Two minutes of silence. “You’re Elyn Crest,” he said. “And you’re talking,” she replied. “We both have problems.” He laughed. Actually laughed. Low and quiet like something genuinely amused him and he wasn’t performing it for her benefit. She hated that it didn’t sound annoying. “Rhys Calder,” he said. She didn’t respond. “You’re not going to say nice to meet you?” “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” He picked up his coffee. “Fair enough.” And then he said nothing else. Which should have been a relief. It was not a relief. Because now she was aware of him sitting there being completely unbothered by her dismissal like she hadn’t just shut him down twice in under three minutes and that was somehow MORE irritating than if he had kept talking. Elyn stared at her screen. The words blurred slightly. She blinked. Focus. Her flight was in forty minutes. She had a acquisition meeting in three hours. She had a company to run and a board breathing down her neck and absolutely zero time to be aware of some man’s cologne in her peripheral vision. She was not aware of his cologne. She was absolutely not. Her phone buzzed. She looked down. Gate changed. A7 to B3. She closed her laptop, gathered her bag, and stood. Rhys Calder glanced up at her for the first time. His eyes were unhurried. Like he had all the time in the world and found it mildly entertaining that she didn’t. “Leaving?” he said. “I was never staying,” she replied. She walked toward the exit without looking back. Behind her she heard the soft sound of him setting down his coffee cup. Then the sound of him standing up. Then footsteps. Going the exact same direction as hers. Elyn did not turn around. But her jaw tightened by exactly one degree.