“THE NIGHT EVERYTHING CRACKED OPEN”
She grabbed my tie to keep from falling — and accidentally put her hand flat on my chest. Then she whispered, “Your heart is racing.” I should’ve lied. I didn’t.
My name is Mason Ellis. Thirty-two years old. Senior project manager at a marketing firm in the Loop, which is a polished way of saying I professionally talk people down from disasters that are, nine times out of ten, entirely self-inflicted.
Natalie Pierce sat twelve feet across the open floor from me in brand strategy. For eighteen months, she had been the most infuriating, most precise, most inconveniently attractive person I had ever shared Wi-Fi with.
She bled red ink on my slides. I rewrote her timelines in blue. She once called my client meetings “ambitious little hostage situations.” I told her one of her slogans sounded like a Yankee Candle store having a nervous breakdown. We were technically adults. Put us in a conference room and every VP in the building leaned back like they’d bought ringside seats.
