Supplier C Highest cost, two-day lead time. National chain, reliable but impersonal.
Let me know which you'd like me to contact for a formal quote.
Best, Mason
It's helpful.
It's meticulous.
It's infuriating.
This is his weapon, competence. He takes the messy magic of my world, turns it into bullet points and lead times, and leaves me feeling amateurish in my own business.
I slam the laptop shut. The barn feels too small, too sharp. I can't stay here.
I grab my keys and walk out without turning off the music. Let it scream into the empty space.
It's the one sound loud enough to drown out the ache.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MASON
The cold war is four days in. We've spent hours locked in silent, simmering tension. The barn, once full of energy and accidental teamwork, feels like neutral ground in a battle neither of us will admit we're fighting. We move around each other like ghosts, careful not to collide. It's maddening.
But it's the silence that gets me. After those first two days, when she blasted angry noise through the speakers like a weapon, she went quiet. And somehow, that's worse. The quiet makes everything louder, the clack of my keys, the scratch of her pen, the creak of the rafters.
I'd take one of her chaotic, glitter-covered outbursts over this hollow stillness any day.
I've settled back into my work, the loft giving me a brief escape from the self-loathing curling tighter after Mrs. Patterson's words. I'm the shark. And Maddy knows. The weight of it lands hard, carving out the space where confidence used to live.
The music came first, loud, raw, impossible to ignore. Then nothing. Four days of silence that felt louder than the noise.Now, every note from that morning plays on a loop in my head, sharp and punishing. A soundtrack to everything I did wrong.
She stays on the main floor, a queen ruling over a kingdom of fabric swatches and half-finished dreams. We communicate when necessary, via emails so formal they could be filed as legal documents. My work has become a refuge. I finalize the grant application framework for the Morrison Center with efficiency born of deep frustration. My files are immaculate. My schedule is optimized. My focus is, on the surface, absolute. And I've never felt more disconnected or out of place.
My mind, wired to spot patterns and root causes, replays every moment leading up to the break, searching for where it all went wrong. The drone lesson. The meeting with Clara. Every memory circles back to the same, undeniable truth, we were building something. A partnership. A friendship. More.
Her sudden, complete withdrawal strikes hard, a verdict handed down without a trial. A judgment without explanation. The angry music, the smothering silence, her way of stacking walls against the monster she believes she's seen. And she's right to build them.
I know the real reason, the one I don't want to say out loud. She knows my past. She's protecting herself from me.
But instead of sitting with that, I latch onto another theory, one that stings a little less. Maybe this is her holding firm to our agreement. Maybe, after days of letting her guard down, she took a hard look at the situation and decided she was right all along. We're a bad idea. We don't work. This distance is her pulling the emergency brake before we crash.
I'll take that version. Because if she truly believes I'm the threat, everything she was warned about, then stepping back is the right move.
If she needs space, I'll give it. I match her silence, her distance, her careful restraint. I know how to survive in thiskind of cold, I was raised in it. I stepped away from that version of myself long ago, but now I'm wearing him again. Not to take control. Not to win. But because staying soft might hurt her more. Funny how trying to be better makes me look more like the man I never wanted to be. Maybe her light doesn't redeem me. Maybe it sharpens the shadows.
Late Thursday morning, the crunch of tires on gravel announces an arrival. A sleek, silver BMW. I know from a clipped email, "Client meeting, 11 AM. The Jacksons.", that this is an important pitch for her. From my vantage point, I watch them step out of the car. They look like their vehicle suggests, expensive, polished, and radiating casual superiority. This will be a difficult negotiation for her. I find myself leaning forward in my chair, my work forgotten, subtle, involuntary concern stirring within me. I try to focus on a trust amendment, but their voices carry up to the loft. I hear Maddy move into her bright, public-facing pitch, a sound that now feels like it's from another lifetime. I hear the genuine passion in her voice as she describes a complex concept, recreating the night sky inside the barn. It's a beautiful idea, the kind of impossible magic she somehow brings to life.
I also hear the clients' sharp, skeptical questions, each one a small, deliberate probe at her confidence. My jaw tightens, a familiar instinct to defend her flaring, despite the tension between us.
"And you're sure this won't appear ... amateurish?" the woman, Mrs. Jackson, asks, her tone dripping with condescension that makes my jaw tighten involuntarily.
"Absolutely not," Maddy replies, her voice strained but holding steady. "The fiber optics are theater-grade, and the fog effect will create a sense of depth, as if you're floating in a nebula..."
That's when I hear it. A low, sick gurgle from the main floor, followed by a violent, sputtering cough. I close my eyes and press my fingers to the bridge of my nose. The fog machine. Of course. A burnt, chemical odor, the unmistakable smell of failing electronics, drifts up to the loft. It's the smell of a deal going south. Cold dread begins to trickle down my spine.
