#dynamic disability!oc

The first time Oakley realized her wife was tired of her, it was raining.

Not dramatically. Not with thunder or wind rattling the windows. Just a steady Pittsburgh rain that turned the streetlights soft and yellow, blurring the world outside the kitchen window until everything looked smeared by a careless thumb.

Oakley stood in the doorway with one hand braced against the frame and the other wrapped white-knuckled around the handle of her cane.

Her hip had started screaming four hours into her shift.

By hour eight, her spine joined in.

By hour ten, she had stopped standing unless she absolutely had to.

By hour twelve, she had smiled at a patient’s mother while pain sparked down her leg bright enough to make her vision spot black at the edges.

And now she was home.

That was supposed to mean something.

The apartment smelled like garlic, dish soap, and the faint floral candle her wife lit whenever she was trying to pretend she wasn’t angry. Oakley could hear her in the kitchen, moving plates with a little too much precision. Ceramic against ceramic. Drawer open. Drawer shut.

Oakley stayed in the doorway for one second too long.

Her wife noticed.

“You’re late.”

Oakley glanced at the clock on the microwave. 8:43 p.m.

“Consult ran over.”

“They always run over.”

There it was.

Not a fight yet. Not even an accusation, not exactly. Just a small, flat sentence laid between them like a blade on a table.

Oakley nodded once and eased herself farther inside. Her brace pinched under her slacks. Her left hand had started to tremor from the effort of keeping weight off her bad side, so she shifted the cane, adjusted her grip, made the motion look intentional.

She had gotten good at that.

Making pain look like preference.

Making adaptation look like style.

Making survival look casual.

Her wife stood at the counter in one of Oakley’s old PTMC sweatshirts, sleeves pushed to her elbows, hair tied up messily at the back of her head. There was a time Oakley would have walked in and kissed the bare skin at the nape of her neck.

There was a time her wife would have turned around before Oakley reached her.

Now she kept chopping cilantro.

“I texted you,” she said.

“I saw. I was with a patient.”

“You couldn’t answer?”

Oakley let out a slow breath through her nose. “Not at the time.”

“You always say that.”

Because it’s always true, Oakley almost said.

Instead, she said, “I’m sorry.”

Her wife gave a small laugh.

Oakley hated that laugh.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t cruel enough to call cruel. It was worse than that. It was tired. It was the sound someone made when they had already made up their mind but still wanted you to keep performing the conversation.

Oakley moved toward the table. Every step had to be negotiated. Cane first. Right foot. Left foot. Don’t wince. Don’t breathe wrong. Don’t let the room know it has teeth.

“You should sit down,” her wife said.

Oakley froze.

There were versions of those words that had once meant love.

Sit down, I’ll bring it to you.

Sit down, you look exhausted.

Sit down, baby, please, you’re scaring me.

This was not one of those versions.

This one meant: I am watching you struggle and I wish I wasn’t.

Oakley pulled out a chair anyway. Pride was a stupid thing to bleed for, and she had already bled for it all day.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Her wife finally turned around.

Her face softened for half a second.

That was the worst part, maybe. She still looked like the woman Oakley married. Still had the same brown eyes. The same mouth Oakley had once kissed in courthouse hallways and grocery aisles and the cramped little bathroom of their first apartment because they had been young enough to think happiness could live anywhere if you made room for it.

Then the softness disappeared.

“You can barely walk.”

Oakley’s jaw tightened.

“Bad day.”

“They’re all bad days now.”

The room went very still.

Oakley looked down at her hand on the cane. Her knuckles had gone pale.

Outside, headlights slid across the rain-slick windows and vanished.

Her wife turned back to the counter as if she hadn’t said anything impossible to unsay.

Oakley lowered herself into the chair carefully. Too carefully. Her body had become a series of negotiations no one else had agreed to but everyone seemed to resent.

Dinner was already plated. Pasta. Salad. Garlic bread gone cold at the edges.

Her wife brought the plates over and set Oakley’s down first.

Not gently.

Not hard enough to be mean.

Just enough.

Oakley stared at the food and realized she was nauseous.

Pain did that sometimes. Crawled up her spine, hooked fingers into her stomach, made even the smell of butter feel like a threat.

Her wife sat across from her.

Neither of them picked up a fork.

After a while, her wife said, “Did you use the chair today?”

Oakley’s eyes flicked up.

“At work?”

“Where else would I mean?”

Oakley leaned back, the movement sending a dull pulse through her hip. “Yes.”

Her wife looked away.

That, somehow, hurt more than the question.

Oakley’s voice came out quieter. “It helps.”

“I know.”

“You say that like you don’t.”

“I said I know.”

“No.” Oakley swallowed. “You said it like it costs you something.”

Her wife closed her eyes.

There was a warning in it. A plea. Maybe both.

“Oakley.”

“No, say it.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

Oakley laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That’s convenient.”

Her wife’s eyes opened.

The anger came then, finally. Honest enough to be almost a relief.

“You think this is easy for me?”

Oakley stared at her.

The candle flickered on the counter, spitting sweet smoke into the air.

“No,” Oakley said slowly. “I don’t think any of this is easy for you.”

Her wife’s mouth trembled. For one foolish second, Oakley thought she might cry.

Instead, she said, “I miss how things were.”

The words landed softly.

They still broke something.

Oakley looked at the woman across from her. Her wife. Her person. The woman who had held her hand in neurology waiting rooms, who had once kissed every brace mark on her skin, who had said they would figure it out, whatever it was, however long it took.

I miss how things were.

Oakley knew what that meant.

I miss when you could walk farther.

I miss when we could make plans without checking your pain first.

I miss when your body did not enter every room before you did.

I miss the version of you I married.

Oakley’s fingers loosened around the cane.

For a moment, she imagined saying all of that aloud. Throwing each translation onto the table between the cold pasta and untouched salad. Making her wife look at the shape of what she had confessed.

But Oakley was tired.

Not ordinary tired.

Not shift tired.

A deeper thing. A tiredness with roots.

So she only said, “Me too.”

Her wife looked relieved.

That was the second time something broke.

Because she thought Oakley had agreed.

Because she thought they were mourning the same thing.

Oakley looked down at her plate. The fork was on the wrong side. Her wife always set it on the wrong side when she was distracted. Oakley used to switch it without thinking, and her wife used to notice and smile.

Tonight Oakley left it there.

Her wife picked up her fork. “You should eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat.”

“I’m nauseous.”

A pause.

Then the sigh.

Small. Almost nothing.

Oakley heard it anyway.

Her wife set her fork down. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Oakley blinked.

“What?”

“I made dinner. I waited. You came home late. You’re in pain. You can’t eat. You don’t want to talk. You don’t want help. What am I supposed to do, Oakley?”

Oakley sat very still.

There were answers.

Plenty of them.

You could ask me what I need.

You could sit with me.

You could stop making my body sound like an inconvenience I brought home to punish you.

You could remember I’m the one living in it.

But none of those answers felt safe in her mouth.

Her wife pushed back from the table and stood, rubbing both hands over her face.

“I can’t keep doing this.”

There it was.

Not shouted.

Not dressed up.

Not cruel enough to hate.

Just honest.

Oakley felt her expression go calm.

It happened automatically, the way it did at work when someone started screaming, when a patient threw a chair, when a family member collapsed against her shoulder in a room that smelled like antiseptic and grief.

Her attending face.

Her crisis face.

Her don’t-let-them-see-where-it-hurts face.

Her wife saw it and looked even more exhausted.

“Please don’t do that.”

Oakley tilted her head. “Do what?”

“That. The doctor thing.”

Oakley almost smiled.

Almost.

“You mean regulate?”

“I mean disappear.”

The words should have softened her.

Instead, they made her cold.

Because her wife could still see her. That was the thing. She could still name the trick. She could still reach across the table and put her hand over Oakley’s and say, come back to me.

She simply didn’t.

Oakley reached for her cane and stood.

It took effort. More than she wanted to show. Her hip caught halfway up, a hot bolt of pain tearing through the joint, and for one humiliating second she had to grip the edge of the table to stay upright.

Her wife’s hand twitched.

Oakley saw it.

Neither of them moved.

“I’m going to shower,” Oakley said.

“Oakley.”

“I have an early shift.”

“You always have an early shift.”

Oakley looked at her then.

Really looked.

The rain kept going behind her, gentle and relentless. The candle burned on the counter. Dinner sat untouched. The apartment they had built together felt suddenly staged, like a room in someone else’s life.

“I know,” Oakley said.

She turned before her wife could answer.

The hallway to the bedroom had never seemed long before. Tonight it stretched.

Cane first.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Breathe.

Don’t wince.

Don’t let the room know it has teeth.

Behind her, in the kitchen, her wife started crying.

Quietly.

Oakley paused outside the bathroom door.

Every instinct in her body turned back.

Every old promise.

Every wedding vow.

Every version of herself who still believed love meant moving toward the sound of pain.

Then her hip spasmed, vicious and bright, and she had to put a hand against the wall.

She waited for her wife to come after her.

One second.

Two.

Three.

The kitchen stayed exactly as it was.

Oakley opened the bathroom door and stepped inside.

She did not lock it.

She told herself that meant something.

Years later, she would remember that part most clearly.

Not the rain.

Not the cold pasta.

Not even the sentence that came after, weeks later, when her wife finally said divorce like it was a mercy.

She would remember standing in the bathroom with the door unlocked, waiting to be chosen.

Psychiatry was ninety percent timing. The other ten percent was convincing people you hadn't manipulated the first ninety.

Oakley Olesky waited just outside Trauma Three, tablet tucked against her side, listening. Raised voices.

One nurse trying to redirect. A patient's father insisting everyone was lying to him. Someone crying. Someone swearing. Someone asking for security. She counted to five before rolling through the doors.

People mirrored energy. If she walked in frantic, they'd stay frantic. If she walked in calm...well sometimes calm was contagious. Sometimes it was just annoying. Either way, it was worth trying.

"Dr. Olesky," one of the nurses sighed in relief. "Thank God."

Oakley smiled, small and practiced.

"That's a lot of pressure to put on a psychiatrist before breakfast."

A couple of nearby nurses snorted. Good. Laughter took the edge off panic.

Inside the room, a man in his late fifties paced between the stretcher and the wall, fists opening and closing.

"They're keeping something from me!" he snapped the second he saw her. "Nobody's telling me where my daughter is."

Oakley didn't answer immediately; instead she rolled her wheelchair fully into the room, stopped a comfortable distance away, and met his eyes.

"My name is Dr. Oakley Olesky," she said evenly. "I'm one of the psychiatrists here."

"I don't need a shrink."

"No," Oakley agreed. "You need information." The man's breathing hitched. Just enough. "But," Oakley continued gently, "the way you're trying to get that information is making it harder for everyone to help you."

Silence. Not agreement. But silence was workable. Behind him, one of the nurses subtly relaxed her shoulders.

Oakley noticed. She noticed everything. The tremor in his left hand. The blood on the cuff of his jeans that wasn't his. The untouched cup of coffee sitting cold on the counter. The way he kept looking toward the hallway every few seconds, like if he watched the doors hard enough his daughter would walk through them. Fear. Not aggression. Fear dressed up as anger because anger was easier to survive.

She spent the next fifteen minutes listening more than talking. By the end, the man was sitting instead of pacing. His breathing had slowed. He accepted the fresh cup of coffee someone quietly placed beside him. When Oakley excused herself, he managed a strained, "Thank you."

She smiled. 

"I'll check back later."

Outside the room, the nurse who'd called her in let out a breath.

"I don't know how you do that."

Oakley shrugged.

"I get paid to ask annoying questions professionally."

The nurse laughed.

"You definitely undersell yourself."

"I have a reputation to maintain."

Another psych consult cleared. She glanced down at the growing list on her tablet. Three more waiting. One overdose needing a capacity evaluation. One adolescent with suicidal ideation. One elderly gentleman convinced the pigeons outside his window were federal agents. Tuesday. Definitely Tuesday.

She wheeled herself toward the nurses' station, the familiar ache in her lower back humming beneath the surface. Present, but manageable. Twelve-hour shifts meant the chair wasn't optional anymore. She'd stopped apologizing for that years ago. Mostly. Dana caught her as she passed.

"Olesky."

Oakley looked up.

"Morning."

"I've got another consult for you."

"You say that like I was running out."

Dana handed over another chart.

"ED resident requested psych specifically."

Oakley raised an eyebrow.

"Specifically?"

Dana nodded once.

"Said she'd heard you're the one to call when someone needs to actually feel heard."

Oakley made a face.

"That's an unfortunate reputation. People are going to start expecting things."

Dana laughed.

"I'll let her know to lower her standards."

Oakley snorted, bringing up the new chart on top of her tablet before glancing at the name attached to the consult request.

Dr. Trinity Santos.

She didn't know the resident. Just another name. Another doctor. Another consult.

Oakley tapped the tablet against the armrest of her chair and started toward the room, completely unaware that the next hour would quietly split her life into two very different halves.

The emergency department was already moving like it had been wound too tight. Monitors chirped. Phones rang. A child screamed somewhere behind a curtain.

Someone at the desk was arguing about discharge paperwork, someone else was asking for a turkey sandwich with the intensity of a hostage negotiator, and a tech in purple gloves walked by carrying a urine cup at arm’s length like it had personally offended her.

Oakley loved the ED in the same way some people loved storms from inside sturdy houses. It was loud. Unpredictable. Full of pressure systems no one could see until they broke, but there was a rhythm to it. She liked rhythm. She liked knowing where she fit.

Psychiatry was always both central and peripheral in emergency medicine. Everyone needed her until she arrived, and then half the room acted vaguely insulted that emotions had entered the building.

She found Trauma Two by the sound of a resident’s voice. Low. Even. Not syrupy. Not condescending. That caught Oakley’s attention first. She stopped just outside the curtain, close enough to see through the gap without fully intruding.

A young woman sat on the edge of the stretcher with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, one hand bandaged, her knuckles swollen and split. Her eyes were red, but dry now. Her bare feet hovered above the floor, heels knocking lightly against the metal frame.

Beside her, a nurse documented vitals.

In front of her stood a doctor Oakley didn’t recognize.

Dark hair pulled back. Scrubs neat but lived-in. Badge clipped at her chest.

Trinity Santos.

She was younger than Oakley expected. Not young in the way interns looked young, all bright-eyed terror, but young enough that the confidence should have annoyed Oakley. It didn’t. Not yet.

“You’re not in trouble,” Trinity said.

The patient laughed bitterly. “I punched a mirror.”

“Yeah,” Trinity said. “The mirror is choosing not to press charges.”

The patient blinked. Then, despite herself, she huffed a tiny laugh. Oakley’s eyebrow lifted. Interesting. Trinity didn’t smile like she had won. She just waited, letting the patient have the laugh without grabbing credit for it. That was rarer than it should have been.

The patient looked down at her hand. “My boyfriend is going to be so pissed.”

“Is that why you don’t want us calling anyone?”

The patient’s shoulders stiffened. The nurse glanced up. Trinity saw the shift and backed off by exactly half a step. Not enough to retreat. Enough to give the patient room to breathe.

“Sorry,” Trinity said. “Bad question first. Let me try again.”

Oakley stayed still.

Trinity lowered her voice.

“Are you safe if you leave here today?”

The patient stared at the blanket. There it was. The room changed around the question. Not visibly. No alarms went off. No one shouted. But Oakley felt the air tighten. The patient’s mouth pressed into a line.

“I don’t know.”

Trinity nodded once, as if that answer deserved as much respect as any other.

“Okay,” she said. “Then we don’t have to solve your entire life in the next five minutes. We just have to figure out tonight.”

Oakley felt something inside her go still. A small, professional curiosity. Nothing else. Certainly nothing else. She tapped two knuckles gently against the doorframe before rolling in.

“Dr. Santos?”

Trinity turned. Their eyes met and that was annoying. Not because Trinity was beautiful, although she was. Oakley had eyes. She was divorced, not dead. It was annoying because Trinity looked at her and did not do the thing. No flicker to the wheelchair first. No quick adjustment of expression. No visible recalculation. She looked directly at Oakley’s face like that was where the conversation lived.

“Dr. Olesky,” Trinity said.

Her voice changed slightly.

Not softer.

Just more focused.

“I was hoping you’d be available.”

Oakley rolled farther into the room. “I try not to make a habit of being unavailable. It worries administration.”

Trinity’s mouth twitched. Barely. Oakley noticed.

The patient looked between them. “You’re psych?”

“I am,” Oakley said. “Which is less ominous than it sounds.”

“People always say that before something ominous.”

“Fair criticism.”

That got another small laugh from the patient. Trinity stepped aside, giving Oakley space without making a performance of it. Also rare. Most people either forgot the chair existed or overcorrected so hard they nearly rearranged furniture. Oakley parked at an angle beside the stretcher, close enough to speak privately, far enough not to corner her.

“What’s your name?” Oakley asked.

“Maya.”

“Okay, Maya. Dr. Santos asked me to come talk with you because she’s concerned about what happens after we fix your hand.”

Maya looked down. “I already told her I’m not crazy.”

Oakley nodded. “Good. I don’t diagnose people as crazy. It’s bad medicine and worse manners.”

Trinity made a sound behind her that might have been a laugh disguised as a cough. Oakley ignored it. Mostly.

“I’m here because punching a mirror usually means the mirror was not the actual problem,” Oakley continued. “And because you told Dr. Santos you might not be safe leaving here.”

Maya swallowed.

Her eyes glistened again.

“I didn’t say he hit me.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t.”

“Okay.”

“He just gets mad.”

Oakley rested her tablet lightly against her lap. “What does mad look like?”

Maya didn’t answer for a long moment. Trinity leaned against the counter, arms folded loosely, silent now. Watching. Not interrupting. Oakley could feel her attention in the room, bright and controlled. She had expected impatience from a young ED doctor. A glance at the clock. A subtle shift toward the next task. Instead, Trinity stayed present. Maya picked at the blanket with her uninjured hand.

“He throws things,” she whispered. “Not at me.”

Oakley nodded. “Near you?”

Maya’s jaw trembled.

“Sometimes.”

The nurse’s expression changed. Trinity’s did not, but Oakley saw the muscle tick once in her cheek. Anger. Controlled, but there. Oakley filed that away. For the next twenty minutes, they worked carefully. Questions without pushing. Options without ultimatums. Safety planning. Social work. A forensic nurse consult, if Maya wanted it. A domestic violence advocate. A way to call her sister without the boyfriend seeing the number in her phone. Oakley watched Trinity throughout. Not obviously. Obviously would be unprofessional.

She noticed how Trinity offered Maya choices, not commands. How she explained the hand injury without making Maya feel stupid. How she spoke to the nurse with respect, not that clipped resident impatience Oakley had seen too many times.

And when Maya finally agreed to speak with social work, Trinity said, “Good,” so quietly it sounded like relief.

Outside the room, Oakley rolled to a stop near the desk and glanced over the chart. Trinity followed her out.

“Thank you,” Trinity said as she caught up.

Oakley did not look up yet. “For doing my job?”

“For doing it well.”

That made Oakley look up.

Trinity’s face was open in a way Oakley didn’t entirely trust. Not naive. Not falsely sweet. Just direct. Oakley preferred people to be more avoidant. It gave her somewhere to stand.

“She trusted you before I got there,” Oakley said.

Trinity blinked, like she hadn’t expected that.

Then she shrugged. “She was scared.”

“Most people are.”

“Yeah, but not everyone listens like they know fear has a point.”

Oakley tilted her head. There it was again. Interesting.

“You always talk like that?” Oakley asked.

Trinity’s brow lifted. “Like what?”

“Like you’re trying very hard not to sound thoughtful.”

Trinity stared at her for half a second. Then she smiled. Slowly. Dangerously, maybe. Oakley decided that was too dramatic a word and immediately disliked that her brain had supplied it.

“I don’t usually get accused of hiding thoughtfulness,” Trinity said.

“I’m sure you hide many things.”

The smile stayed.

“Are you analyzing me, Dr. Olesky?”

“I try not to do unpaid labor.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“For who?”

“For me. I was curious.”

Oakley closed the chart with one hand. Trinity’s eyes dropped, not to the chair, but to Oakley’s hand. The compression gloves. The careful way her fingers flexed before settling again. Then Trinity looked back at her face. Quickly. Not pitying. Not lingering. Just noticing. Oakley did not like that or did. No. No, she didn’t.

“You requested psych appropriately,” Oakley said, returning to safer ground.

“How generous.”

“Don’t get used to it. I rarely compliment residents this early in the day.”

“It’s almost noon.”

“Exactly.”

Trinity laughed then. A real one. Small, surprised, a little unwilling. Oakley felt the sound land somewhere it had no business landing.

She checked the time on her tablet because that was what professionals did when an attractive younger doctor laughed at something they said. They checked the time. They remembered they were adults. They remembered they were attendings. They remembered that being interested in someone did not mean anything needed to be done about it.

“I’ll document my recommendations,” Oakley said. “Social work should be here soon.”

Trinity nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on her until then.”

“Good.”

Oakley started to turn.

“Dr. Olesky?”

She stopped.

Trinity leaned one hip against the counter. “Do you prefer Dr. Olesky, or does anyone call you Oakley?”

Oakley looked at her. A beat passed. Two.

Behind Trinity, the ED carried on, indifferent and bright. Somewhere nearby, someone shouted for an ultrasound. A monitor started alarming because a patient had decided cardiac leads were optional. The intercom crackled overhead.

Oakley’s expression remained perfectly pleasant.

“People who want something usually call me Dr. Olesky.”

Trinity’s smile curved.

“And people who don’t?”

“They usually still want something.”

“Good to know.”

Oakley let her eyes narrow slightly. “Do you want something, Dr. Santos?”

The question should have been neutral. It mostly was. Trinity’s gaze held hers for just long enough that the air between them shifted. Not much. Enough.

“Not at the moment,” Trinity said.

Oakley hummed.

“Good.”

Oakley turned away before her own mouth could betray her. She made it ten feet before Dana appeared beside the desk with a coffee in hand and the expression of a woman who had seen enough nonsense in one lifetime to recognize it early.

“Olesky.”

Oakley did not stop. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

Dana fell into step beside her. “I was going to ask how the consult went.”

“It went fine.”

“And?”

“And I’ll document recommendations.”

Dana hummed.

Oakley looked at her. “Why are you humming?”

“No reason.”

“That was a reasoned hum.”

“I don’t have reasoned hums.”

“You run this place entirely on reasoned hums and controlled disappointment.”

Dana smiled into her coffee. Oakley regretted every friendly interaction she had ever had with her. Dana glanced back toward the desk where Trinity had returned to Maya’s room.

“Dr. Santos is sharp.”

Oakley looked at her tablet. “She seems competent.”

“Competent,” Dana repeated.

“Yes.”

“Very attending of you.”

“I am an attending.”

“Tragically so.”

Oakley sighed. “Do you need something from me?”

“Always.”

“Then lead with that next time.”

Dana handed her another tablet with a chart pulled up. “Capacity eval in Seven. The patient wants to leave against medical advice after taking half a bottle of oxy.”

Oakley accepted it.

“Perfect. I was worried I’d have time to hydrate.”

Dana’s eyes flicked to the water bottle clipped to Oakley’s chair. “You could drink that.”

Oakley looked at the bottle.

Then at Dana.

“Interesting theory.”

“Ley.”

“I’ll consider it academically.”

“Oakley.”

“I’m going to work now.”

Dana let out a sigh that sounded painfully familiar and yet, from Dana, did not cut the same way. It was not resentment. It was exasperated concern with no hooks in it. Oakley could tolerate that. Mostly. She wheeled toward Room Seven, the new consult open on her tablet, and tried very hard not to think about Trinity Santos.

Which would have been easier if Trinity had not appeared again two hours later, just as Oakley was outside the physician workroom trying to stretch her fingers without looking like she needed to.

“Dr. Olesky.”

Oakley glanced up. Trinity held out a paper cup. Oakley stared at it.

“What is that?”

“Coffee.”

“I recognize the species. I mean why are you giving it to me?”

“You looked like you were about to murder the vending machine.”

Oakley accepted the cup on instinct, then immediately regretted giving Trinity the satisfaction.

“I always look like that.”

“Good to know.”

Oakley lifted the cup, smelled it, and frowned.

“Black?”

“You seem like the kind of person who would resent cream.”

Oakley stared at her. Trinity stared back. A laugh threatened somewhere at the base of Oakley’s throat. She killed it. Barely.

“That is oddly specific.”

“Am I wrong?”

Oakley took a sip. It was terrible hospital coffee. Burnt. Bitter. Aggressively mediocre. Exactly what she would have gotten herself.

“No,” Oakley said.

Trinity looked pleased.

That was irritating too.

“You should know,” Oakley added, “that bringing an attending coffee can be interpreted as ambition.”

“I’m comfortable with that risk.”

“Or bribery.”

“I’m also comfortable with that risk.”

“Or flirting.”

Trinity’s smile did not move much. Her eyes did.

“Would that be a problem?”

Oakley held the coffee cup in both hands, letting the heat settle into her fingers through the cardboard. She could have answered several ways. 

Yes.

No.

Inappropriate.

Unwise.

Not at work.

Not with me.

Instead, she took another sip and made a face.

“This coffee is too bad to be effective flirting.”

Trinity laughed.

Oakley turned toward the workroom, letting the smallest possible smile escape only when Trinity could no longer see it.

Behind her, Trinity said, “I’ll do better next time.”

Oakley did not turn around.

“Presumptuous.”

“Accurate.”