Page 16 of Cava with My Colleague

“Berlin will be close to three hundred.” He swipes to another photo. “Press in the front rows. Pharmaceutical reps from across Europe. Patients—usually in the back, sometimes with family members.”

Three hundred people. It’s a lot. But I’ve done good work here. The presentation is solid.

“I can handle it,” I say, and this time I almost believe it.

Carlos studies me for a moment. “You’ve put in the work. The presentation is competent. Just remember—” He pauses. “They want to know you care about what you’re presenting, not just that you know it.”

“I know.” I’ve heard this note from him before. But I also know that my presentation is technically sound. That has to count for something.

When I look up, Carlos’s eyes are on my hands—I’m rubbing my wrist. I cross my arms. His expression shifts—not quite concern, but something close.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says quietly. “Rebecca can find someone else. Mercedes has done it before⁠—”

Excuse me? I’ve just spent all this time working, revising, practicing. What right does he have to try to toss me aside this late in the game? I grit my teeth. “I can handle it.”

“Can you?”

I meet his eyes. There’s no mockery in the question, no judgment. Just genuine doubt.

And that, somehow, is worse than if he’d been cruel.

“I guess you’ll find out in Berlin,” I say, standing and gathering my materials.

Carlos watches me pack up. “Jade⁠—”

“What?”

He seems to struggle with something, then shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ll see you in Berlin.” He pauses at the door. “The presentation is good, Jade. You’ve improved.”

It’s the closest thing to a compliment he’s given me. I should be pleased.

Instead I’m standing in the hallway thinking about his hands. The way they’d felt when he handed back the crop—warm, deliberate, like he’d been careful not to touch me and touched me anyway. The faint scent of his cologne lingering in the air after he walked away.

I shake the thought off. Absolutely not.

Monday morning, we board our flight to Berlin.

I have my presentation memorized. I have backup slides. I have talking points for every possible question.

What I don’t have is confidence.

At least Carlos is a good traveler. He’s sitting next to me, reading something on a tablet that looks more like fun reading than work reading, but I try not to peer over his shoulder.

He must have arrived a few minutes before me, as he was a few people ahead of me in the security line. We had that awkwardness of passing each other every time the line moved.

Should I say hi every time? Should I ignore him?

We settled on quick, tight smiles.

I was still in line when he went through security. Quick, efficient, polite.

God, these next few months would be even more awful if he was rude to the staff or had to be reminded every time to take stuff out of his pockets every time we went through security.

And now we’re elbow to elbow on an airplane.

The flight attendant offers me a drink. I order water, not wine. I need to stay sharp.

Outside the window, Madrid falls away beneath me. I watch it go—the terracotta rooftops, the wide boulevards, the way the city sprawls into the dry plateau around it. The surrounding area reminds me of central Texas, how when you leave Austin you are out on flat plains and dry dirt. Once you are in the cities, though, Austin is new and weird, and Madrid is old and settled. It’s a city that doesn’t apologize for the heat or the fact that everything closes in August because people here have decided that rest is non-negotiable.