Julian dropped into his chair and opened the latest layout file on his screen. The office hummed with the usual low rhythm of keyboards and muffled phone calls. Papers shifted at the next desk. Someone laughed once in the break room and the sound cut off quickly.
Claire leaned over the divider between their workstations, tablet in one hand and a half-empty coffee cup in the other. "You look like you actually slept last night. That's rare."
He gave a small nod without looking up. "Managed a few hours."
She tapped something on her screen, then set the tablet down. "Good. Because we've got the full pitch deck due by Friday and Daniel is already panicking in the group chat. I told him you'd handle the visuals for the second half."
Julian scrolled through the file, adjusting a color value that didn't need adjusting. The work felt steady under his fingers, the kind of task that usually cleared his head.
