Closer
785 Words
Monday arrived the way Mondays always did — too quickly and without apology.
Adaeze was at her workstation by seven-thirty, which was normal. What was not normal was the way the lab felt different now. Not the lab itself — the equipment was the same, the light was the same, the familiar hum of the centrifuge was the same. But something in the air had shifted since Saturday and she couldn't put it back the way it was even if she wanted to.
She wasn't sure she wanted to.
Emeka arrived at nine. He looked at her and she looked at him and something quiet and warm passed between them that had no name yet but didn't need one.
"Good morning," he said.
"Good morning," she said.
He sat down. She handed him the updated report section without being asked. He thanked her. They got to work.
Normal. Completely normal.
Except that it wasn't, and they both knew it, and neither of them minded.
The incident happened at half past eleven.
They were cross-referencing the final surveillance data — standing side by side at the light box, both leaning slightly forward to examine the same set of results. It was a practical arrangement. The light box was small and the results required close examination and there was nothing unusual about two colleagues standing close together over shared work.
Except that she could feel the warmth of him beside her. And when he reached across to point at a data cluster his arm brushed hers and neither of them pulled away.
"This pattern here," he said. His voice was normal. Professional. "If we cross-reference with the October data—"
"It confirms the cluster," she finished. "I saw it this morning."
"You saw it before I did."
"I usually do."
He turned to look at her. They were close — closer than the light box strictly required, she was aware of that. His eyes were very steady.
"You're remarkable," he said quietly. Like a fact. Like something he had known for a while and was simply confirming out loud.
Adaeze held his gaze.
"You're not bad yourself," she said.
His mouth curved. That slow, full smile that she had decided — privately, firmly — was completely unfair.
They stood there for a moment longer than the data required.
Then Chiamaka knocked and opened the door simultaneously — her usual method — and they both stepped back to their respective sides of the light box with the practiced ease of two people who had definitely just been looking at data and nothing else.
Chiamaka looked at the light box. Then at Adaeze. Then at Emeka. Then back at Adaeze.
"Dr. Fashola wants the preliminary report by Thursday," she said.
"Tell him it'll be ready Wednesday," Adaeze said.
Chiamaka nodded. Looked between them one more time. Left.
The door closed.
A beat of silence.
"She knows," Emeka said.
"She's known since day two," Adaeze said.
That evening the report was nearly complete.
They sat side by side at her desk — the practical arrangement had migrated from the light box to the workstation sometime in the last week and neither of them had commented on it. His shoulder was close to hers. Occasionally their hands were close on the keyboard.
At seven o'clock he read the final paragraph of their conclusion aloud. His voice in the quiet lab. The words they had built together over fifty-seven days.
When he finished there was a moment of silence.
"That's good work," she said.
"That's our work," he said.
She looked at the screen. At the document they had made together — all that data, all those patterns, all those late evenings distilled into something that would actually change things for people in this city.
She felt his hand cover hers on the desk. Gently. Warmly. Not demanding anything — just there.
She turned her hand over and held his.
They sat like that for a long moment, side by side in the quiet lab, the report glowing on the screen in front of them, Lagos doing its evening things outside the window.
"Twenty-three days," he said softly.
"Twenty-three days," she agreed.
She wasn't thinking about the ending.
She was thinking about his hand in hers and the work they had made together and the way this — whatever this was — felt more real than anything she had carefully built or logically chosen.
"Emeka," she said quietly.
"Yes."
"Don't waste them."
His hand tightened around hers. Just slightly. Just enough.
"I won't," he said.
Outside Lagos kept moving. Inside the lab everything was very still and very warm and twenty-three days suddenly felt like both too little and exactly enough.
- Writer
