The diner was one of those places that hasn't been updated since like 1987. Wood paneling. Cracked vinyl booths. It smelled like bacon and burnt coffee and butter, so much butter, and honestly it smelled amazing because she'd skipped lunch again.
Christopher was in a corner booth. He'd taken off the fancy coat. Rolled his sleeves up. And somehow that was worse? Like he was getting comfortable. Like he already knew she'd come back and had just been sitting here drinking bad coffee and waiting.
She slid into the booth. Didn't say hi. Didn't take her jacket off. Didn't smile. She put both hands flat on the table and pressed down hard against the Formica so he couldn't see them shaking. Little trick she learned. If you push hard enough against a flat surface the trembling kind of cancels out. Mostly.
"You have ten minutes."
He didn't waste them.
He reached down beside him and pulled out a leather portfolio and opened it and there were blueprints inside and—
Oh no.
Oh come on. That's not fair.
Large format. Printed on the good paper, the heavy stock stuff that feels smooth under your fingers. Title block in the corner: *THE ZENITH — Thorne Development LLC — Preliminary Structural Design.*
She told herself not to look. Stared at the saltshaker. Stared at the menu. Stared at a coffee stain on the table that was shaped like Florida.
But blueprints are... OK look. Blueprints for Rosaline were like... you know how people talk about their drug of choice? How do they say they can't be around it? That's what structural drawings were for her. She could smell them. Not literally or maybe literally, they do have a smell, that paper and ink smell, and her brain just lit up. Every time. Three years of nothing and her brain was still wired for this.
She looked.
Took her less than thirty seconds.
"Your lateral bracing is wrong."
It just came out. She didn't decide to say it. Her mouth just opened and the words were there like some kind of reflex, like a doctor hitting your knee with that little hammer thing.
Christopher didn't say anything. Just watched.
And then she couldn't stop.
"The core to perimeter ratio is forty through sixty, you're going to get torsional drift in high winds. It's not even close." Her hands were on the drawings now. Moving on their own. Fingers tracing lines she hadn't touched in three years, but her hands remembered. Muscle memory is a real thing and hers was apparently still fully operational. "And this transfer truss at twenty-two? Whoever designed this doesn't understand asymmetric loading. Like at all. This isn't a maybe situation. You put a full dead load on this configuration, and the east elevation is going to twist."
She was leaning over the table. Both elbows on the blueprints. The voice is completely different now, not shaking, not quiet, not any of that. Sharp. Clear. Fast. The voice she used to use in meetings when some senior engineer twice her age was about to make a stupid decision and she had to stop him without making him feel stupid because men don't like feeling stupid and they especially don't like feeling stupid because of a woman half their age.
She caught herself.
Pulled her hands back. Sat up. Crossed her arms. Tried to look like she hadn't just done that.
"Your team needs to start over."
"I agree." Something happened at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. Almost a smile. The ghost of one. "That's why I need you."
"You don't need me. You need a structural engineer who didn't get indicted and a project manager who knows what they're doing. You can afford both. Probably with what's in your wallet right now."
"I can afford a lot of things."
He reached into the portfolio again. Pulled out a white envelope. Thin. Set it on the table. Pushed it toward her with two fingers. Slow.
"But I can't buy what you just did in thirty seconds."
She didn't touch it.
"Open it."
"No."
"It's a consultation fee. Fifty thousand. The check's already been deposited into an escrow account."
Fifty thousand dollars.
Her brain just... stopped. Like a computer freezing. Little spinning wheel behind her eyes.
Fifty thousand was David's treatment. A whole year of it. That was the number on the hospital paperwork. The one she'd stared at so long the digits stopped looking like numbers and started looking like a joke. Some kind of cosmic prank. *Here's what your brother needs to live. Here's a number you will never in your life be able to—*
Fifty thousand.
She looked at the envelope. looked at him and then looked at the blueprints still spread out on the table.
"What's the catch?"
It wasn't even a question the way she said it. More like a statement. More like *I know there's a catch so just tell me.*
"No catch."
"Yes, there is. There's always something. Nobody writes a check that big for a conversation over bad diner coffee. Especially not for somebody like me."
He leaned back. Arms folded. And something shifted in his face, just for a second. Behind the tiredness, behind the composure, something moved. It looked like... she didn't know. Guilt maybe. Or grief. Something heavy and old that he was carrying around and trying not to show.
"Let's just say I owe a debt." His voice was quieter now. Almost not there. "And you're the only person who can help me pay it."
The diner was loud around them. Plates clanking. Some woman was laughing at the counter. The cook yelled about an order. But their booth felt silent. Like a bubble.
She looked at the envelope.
Fifty thousand dollars.
David's face on FaceTime last week. How thin he looked. How he smiled anyway.
She reached for it.