JUST ANOTHER INTERN

Chapter 3: After-Hours Data

Six weeks. That was the timeline Alex had been given, and already, she was barely clinging to her disguise. Her custom-made, twenty-thousand-dollar wardrobe was gathering dust in her apartment closet, replaced by the same five slightly-too-tight, cheap blouses she rotated weekly. And worse, her entire schedule now revolved around Maya Rodriguez.

The Project Coordinator was relentlessly efficient. She worked with a quiet, focused intensity that made the rest of the Marketing floor look like they were still recovering from brunch. Maya expected the best, and when the best wasn’t delivered—usually thanks to some ill-conceived corporate policy—she did not hesitate to dissect the failure.

"Look at this," Maya muttered late one Tuesday, gesturing sharply at a screen covered in charts that looked like tangled wire. The office was quiet now, lit only by the blue glow of monitors and the emergency EXIT sign. "Ken wanted the data visualized with a logarithmic regression curve for 'executive appeal.' Executive appeal? It’s completely misleading. It makes the Q2 losses look like a gentle dip, not the fiscal canyon they actually are."

Alex, who knew the Q2 losses were, in fact, an embarrassment caused by her father's stubborn refusal to outsource a legacy IT project, swallowed the urge to defend her family. "It certainly looks nice, though," she offered weakly.

Maya turned, her hazel eyes narrowed in professional disdain. "We don't get paid to make things look nice, Alex. We get paid to make things right. Ken knows this is misleading. He just doesn't want to deal with the fallout." She paused, then tilted her head, a familiar spark of amusement replacing the frustration. "You’re still here, Intern. Did you not get the memo that the Marketing department hibernates at 6 PM?"

"The data needed organizing," Alex said, nodding toward the messy P&L binder. It wasn't a lie; she needed to stay. She needed to be near Maya.

Maya watched her for a beat, a faint, curious smile touching her lips. "You’re surprisingly driven for someone who struggles to operate the multi-function printer. I like that. Here." She slid a takeaway menu across the desk, a faint scent of garlic and chili clinging to the glossy paper. "They deliver the best Pad See Ew in the city. We’re working late, so we’re ordering up."

Alex stared at the menu. Nobody ordered her takeaway. They just told her what reservations they'd made. "I don't think I have cash on me," Alex hedged, terrified of having to ask her private banker for five dollars in quarters.

"It's on the corporate card," Maya said simply, already dialing the number. "One of the actual benefits of working overtime." She glanced up, catching Alex’s wide-eyed surprise. "Unless you have plans? Big intern parties tonight?"

"No," Alex replied quickly, leaning closer. "No plans at all." She spent the next ten minutes discussing the merits of wide versus thin noodles with Maya, feeling more seen and less like a Sterling heir than she had in years.

The silence after the takeaway delivery was companionable, broken only by the clink of plastic forks and the faint, rhythmic whir of the overworked server room down the hall. Alex hadn’t eaten Pad See Ew on the floor of an office cubicle since… well, never. It was delicious, messy, and perfect.

“So, ‘Just Alex,’” Maya began, wiping a stray noodle from the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Where are you crashing while you brave the big city?”

Alex froze mid-bite. This was the dangerous part: inventing a life. Her real apartment was a triplex penthouse with a view of the entire harbor. Her invented life had to be appropriately humble.

“Um, the Upper East Side,” Alex answered, immediately regretting the answer because of the look on Maya’s face.

Maya laughed, a genuine, throaty sound that made the fluorescent lighting seem less harsh. “The Upper East Side? With that intern stipend? Are you sleeping in a storage unit next to the Guggenheim? I meant, are you living with family, or are you in one of those awful group houses in Brooklyn?”

“A friend’s family apartment,” Alex corrected quickly, feeling her cheeks flush. “They travel a lot. It’s… temporary.” She managed to make the word temporary sound as non-committal as possible.

“Lucky break,” Maya said, clearly unconcerned by the vagueness. She gestured around the quiet, deserted office. “I’m in Bushwick. It’s loud, it smells like street tacos, and my commute is miserable, but it pays the rent and gives me a thirty-minute buffer where no one can ask me about budget forecasts.”

Alex leaned back against the cubicle wall, feeling a genuine wave of respect. “You seem like you live and breathe this job, though. The spreadsheets, the systems—you love it.”

Maya looked down, stirring the sauce in her container. “I love getting the job done right. This company does important work, Alex. It helps small businesses scale. It’s just run by people who forget what it’s like to be small. My mother ran her own flower shop until she got priced out. I wasn't to be the one who changes the system so that doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

It was a vulnerable admission, and Alex felt a sudden, fierce urge to drop the charade, to tell Maya that she wanted to help, that she could fund her mother's shop ten times over. Instead, she could only nod.

“That’s a good reason to fight,” Alex whispered.

Maya looked up then, her gaze locking with Alex’s. The air between them, already warm from the takeaway, tightened with an unspoken tension. Her eyes were serious, intense. “What’s your reason, Intern? Why are you really here?”

The question hung heavy, demanding an honest answer.