Aurora looked at the time. Twenty minutes past five.
Five was the standard closing hour for everyone else—the point at which the building began its gradual exhale, the corridors thinning, the elevator traffic reversing direction. She rarely left at five. There was almost always something that required another hour, another clause reviewed, another decision that couldn't wait until morning. Staying late had become so habitual that leaving on time felt vaguely transgressive, like she was getting away with something.
Today she was getting away with something.
She closed her laptop. Packed her bag with the quiet efficiency of someone who had made a decision and wasn't going to revisit it. She turned off her desk lamp, picked up her bag, and walked out.
***
She saw him before she had fully cleared the building's entrance.
