The Conference Room Booking Was Mine, but He Wouldn't Leave

Let the record show that I booked Conference Room 4B on a Tuesday, in good faith, for two to three in the afternoon. The calendar said so. The little green block said so. I arrived at 1:58 with a laptop, a lukewarm tea, and the quiet confidence of a woman whose paperwork is in order. Then I opened the door and found Callum from Finance sitting at the head of my table, sleeves rolled to the elbow, eating an orange like it was a legal right.

I said, 'I believe this is mine.' He said, 'I believe it's a big table.' Reader, it was a big table. It seated twelve. That was the problem, because it meant there was no practical reason for either of us to leave and a great many reasons to sit down. I took the chair at the opposite end, which in hindsight was an opening move, like placing a knight on a board I claimed I wasn't playing.

We worked in silence for eleven minutes. I know because I was watching the clock in the corner of my screen instead of my spreadsheet. He peeled the orange in one long spiral and set it on a napkin without looking at it, which is the kind of unnecessary competence I find hard to forgive. The room smelled like citrus and dry-erase markers. The air conditioning hummed a low note, and neither of us mentioned that the glass walls made us, technically, a fishbowl.

I said, 'I believe this is mine.

At 2:20 he slid a segment across the table. Not toward me, exactly. Toward the middle, the diplomatic zone. I took it. Our fingers did not touch, and I want that noted, because I replayed it enough times that evening to be sure. 'Procurement thinks this room is cursed,' he said. 'Two people have gotten engaged in it.' I asked whether that was a warning or a pitch. He said he was still reviewing the scope.

At three, the next booking arrived, an anxious intern clutching a deck, and we both stood like we'd been caught at something. In the hallway he said he'd find a different room next time. I said that was probably wise. Neither of us moved. Then he turned left, I turned right, and I told myself the little jolt in my stomach was just the tea. It was not the tea. Nobody has ever been this dramatic about tea.

That night an invite arrived: 'Room 4B, Thursday, 2:00, Working Session (Optional).' Organizer, him. Attendees, me. No agenda, no description, only the response buttons waiting with their bland little faces. TheFriend is where I go to hear an AI character's voice talk through exactly this kind of dilemma, and since the characters there are not coworkers, nobody sees you rehearse. I rehearsed. My cursor has been hovering over Tentative for an hour. I am, professionally speaking, an excellent decision-maker.