I try to work.
I try to read the paper in front of me.
I try to remember how to breathe like a normal person.
But she’s right there. In my office. In glasses. In soft clothes. Still a little red around the eyes. And she keeps… humming. Quietly. Deliberately. Like she’s daring me to look at her.
Which, of course, I do.
Too often.
She angles her body so her hair falls forward, and she tucks a strand behind her ear — slow, purposeful. Her foot bounces softly. Her lips purse as she reads. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her knuckle, and something inside me snaps every time.
She’s teasing me.
On purpose.
She knows it. I know it. The whole room knows it.
I clench my jaw and try to focus, but she keeps going — inch by inch, little by little, every movement another
