Elena's POV
"You're staring at his door again."
Ruth's voice pulled me back into my body so fast I nearly knocked over my coffee, my eyes snapping away from the frosted glass I'd been watching for the better part of twenty minutes without fully realizing it.
"I'm not staring," I said. "I'm working."
"You've read the same email three times. I've been counting." Ruth's mouth curved, not quite a smile, more like the shape of someone deciding whether to press further. "He's fine, you know. Whatever happened there, he's fine."
"How do you know what happened?"
"I don't. I know him." She said it simply, gathering her files, already moving on to the next task before I could ask anything more specific. "He needs quiet sometimes. It's not personal."
I didn't believe that, not entirely, but I
