The room emptied in stages. Jordan left first, mumbling something about a nap being a fundamental human right. Belle followed, laptop tucked under her arm, already texting the bid confirmation to the FGRA portal. Hikaru vanished the way she always did, present one second and gone the next, like she'd never occupied the chair at all.
Blair lingered.
She sat across the table with her arms still crossed, frost-blue eyes locked on me with an intensity that would have made a lesser man check his pulse. The temperature in her corner of the room hadn't recovered. Whatever she was thinking, it had teeth.
Naomi's hand tightened on my knee, then released. She stood, gathered her staff, and gave Blair a look I couldn't quite decode. Something between challenge and courtesy.
"I'll wait outside," Naomi said. To me. Not to Blair.
Then she left, and it was just the two of us in a conference room that smelled like recycled air and someone's forgotten coffee.
