The timer pretended to matter more than the person at the door.
"Sixty," Comms said through the small speaker. "Fifty-nine."
The donor with the knit cap looked from her phone to Ava like a student waiting for permission to be brave. The seller kept her voice steady. "It says C-Donor-Flow-202," she said. "Soft path."
"Edge smoothing," Elias said. "No hold. Keep her on channel. Do not apologize for phones."
"On count," Ava said, still and close enough to be a tool. "We wait together."
The circle on the wall wanted to be a god. It found a number instead.
"Three," Sofia said into the mic, soft as a hinge.
"Two," the donor said, and smiled because counting had become a civic act.
"One," Ava said.
Elias's voice cut through the air like a man fixing a door with his hands. "Shim applied," he said. "Proceed."
The reader remembered what doors are for.
"Approved," the seller said, relief refusing to be dramatic. "Token 3125."
Sofia mirrored the token under the Ivy block and passed a slip to the aide. The aide set it at the seam in a square that made the room behave.
Comms: "Harbor stands by if you want the five-minute proof."
"Harbor," Vivian said without turning her head.
"Consent on record," the Harbor lead said. "Five by phone. No names."
"Three," Sofia said.
"Two," the donor said, you could hear her mittens.
"One," Ava said.
Approval landed like a lesson you can teach to strangers. "Token 8276," the Harbor lead read.
"Posted," Sofia said. "Footer eight thirty-four."
Counsel looked up from his tablet without adding drama. "Nearlight handshake scope logged," he said. "Vendor portal attempted to rename it; we did not echo."
"Pin stays live," Vivian said. "Record the cadence."
The map tried a new shade of red and lost interest when nobody fed it adjectives. Elias cut the paint at bezel and source, posted small, named names.
Sofia wrote the small line beneath the ledger where reasonable words go to live. "Paint is cosmetic; money is tokens," she read. "Work continues."
Security tipped his chin toward the door. "Car ready," he said. "Riverside on time if we leave by sixteen forty."
Vivian glanced at the pad, then at Ava. "Field discretion," she said. "Prep the 17:00 donor briefing. Keep the cadence. The room will hold the clock; we will call if we need hands."
Ava looked to Sofia.
"Harbor steady," Sofia said. "Ivy clean. I've got the seam."
Elias added the alphabet people trust. "No holds armed. Soft rate, not failure. I'll watch the edges."
Ava nodded and set two fingers to the pad's corner, a press that makes rituals into handles. She lifted her hand and the hour agreed to move.
They walked the corridor that had learned to carry sentences without spilling them. Security opened space with open hands. The elevator behaved. The lobby turned back into a lobby.
Outside, winter negotiated with their breath and lost politely. The car slid to the curb where cars learn to be useful. Noah took the right-behind step and the left-shoulder cue fell into place without rehearsal.
"Comms," Sofia said in Ava's ear as the door shut. "Media car is orbiting Ivy; off pin."
"Keep it off pin," Ava said. "Air only."
They moved through the city that had been trying to rename itself all afternoon. The driver kept the next green. Street panels held the contact slide and the Orchard inset like rules they liked. At an intersection a deli kiosk blinked once and then remembered it had no business blinking. Elias posted the cut in small and spared it adjectives.
Noah watched the map with the attention of a man memorizing a person. He did not speak. His open collar did not apologize. His hand found the edge of the seat and stayed there, ready for work that would not involve keyboards.
"Riverside has your suite," security said from the front. "Key at desk. Donor room holds at seventeen hundred."
"Ten minutes to brief," Comms said. "Investors quiet. CFO drafting something about prudence that will not make it to the pin."
They took the hotel drive like a sentence finding its period. The lobby had marble that remembered the last time someone tried to turn finance into theatre and the way marble had declined the lead role. A liaison at the desk smiled the kind of smile that looks like competence instead of hospitality.
"Suite key," she said. "And a small apology about the slow elevator. Everyone else is here."
"We like stairs," Noah said, eyes on Ava.
They rode anyway because elevators tell you things stairs do not. On the way up the small speaker said what speakers say when they have learned restraint. "Harbor proof at forty-five queued," Comms said. "Do you want it in your ear."
"Yes," Ava said.
The corridor smelled like carpets that have made peace with salt. Security checked the long angles and posted by the emergency door the way posts are supposed to be. Ava slid the key. The suite opened with the relieved sigh of a room that had expected them sooner.
She stepped in. Noah followed. The city's hum got quieter without becoming a lie. She set the pad on the table by the window; the light put a thin line across the word LEDGER like a man signing his name.
"Consent," he said, because a good habit lives even when you are already halfway to yes.
"Yes," she said.
She turned the latch and pressed the little chain that is mostly a suggestion. She faced him in a square of winter sun and found his mouth. The kiss did not apologize for arriving early. He answered with a hand at her jaw and a second at her waist, careful over fabric, certain in intention. She took the tie in her fist and loosened it one stop, then a second. He made that small sound he had made in a stairwell an hour ago and this time did not pretend he hadn't.
"Door locked," he said, checking he was the man he liked to be.
"Door locked," she said. "Schedule aware."
He smiled into the kiss. The jacket found the back of a chair because furniture wants purpose. The tie slid and stayed in her hand, a line you could trace back to the minutes and forward to the next proof. He pinned her wrist to the wall by the window with fingers curved to hold, not hurt. She rose onto her toes because that's how some decisions are the right height.
Do not flinch.
He kissed lower, the place where her pulse carries brave ideas to the rest of her. She breathed his name like a word she had been careful not to waste. His hand learned the seam of her blouse, the hem that lets a palm belong without indecency. She cupped the back of his neck and dragged him closer by the tie because consent can tease and still be consent.
"Tell me to stop," he said.
"I'll say it," she said. "I'm not saying it."
He lifted her onto the low bench by the window as if lifting a receipt from a tray to a ledger—precise, a little reverent. Her skirt obeyed gravity and then a better idea. He stepped between her knees and let weight and intention write the same sentence. She made the undignified sound dignity secretly wants to make when it is in private with someone competent.
"Fifteen forty-five," Comms said in the smallest voice a device can manage. "Harbor ready."
Ava managed a laugh into his mouth. "Multitasking," she said.
He kissed the corner of her smile. "Work first," he said, and he meant it, and she loved him for saying it.
She touched the pad with the back of her knuckles so she didn't have to let go of him. "Harbor," she said.
"Consent on record," the lead answered from a city and a floor away. "Five by phone."
"Three," Sofia said faintly across distance.
"Two," the donor said.
"One," Ava said, eyes on his, not on the wall.
Click. A strip of approval printed in another place and still felt like their air.
"Token 8277," the lead said.
"Posted," Sofia said. "Footer eight thirty-nine. Ivy steady. Panels clean."
Ava let the pad lie. She tightened the tie around her fist until it told the truth. He took her mouth again with a hunger that had learned patience and now refused to pretend it didn't know how to eat. His hand mapped her spine through cotton and stopped exactly where a public woman lets a private man stop if he has earned it. She rocked once, swallowing a sound because time is a citizen too.
He kissed the small hollow above her collarbone and said nothing because some nouns do the job without union wages.
We sign the hotel clause—do the work, then us, and we count both.
She smiled like a woman who had found the right lawyer and the right sin. "Say it again."
"Do the work," he said. "Then us."
She pulled him with the tie and made a new sound that will never live in minutes. His breath changed. He pinned her wrist more firmly, and she let him, because trust can be a body part if you train it. He learned the edge of a strap through fabric and abandoned it for the safer topography of ribs and waist. She approved the decision with teeth on his lower lip and a laugh that sounded like a verdict.
He set her back onto her feet with a care that did not kill heat. She turned, found the table with her hip, put her palms on either side of the pad like a woman filing a particularly satisfying line. He stood behind her and let his mouth learn the back of her neck while his hands decided to be polite and still useful. The city outside rearranged a cloud because even weather likes accuracy.
"Sixteen thirty-five," Comms said, equally small. "Media blog says handshake equals capitulation. Off pin."
"Keep it off pin," she said into the glass. "Air only."
He made that sound again, and she RSVP'd. Time sped up the way it does when you stop supervising it. When the knock came it sounded like good manners pretending to be emergency.
"Sixteen forty depart," security called through the door. "Ten minutes to brief."
Ava exhaled a laugh that had nothing left to prove. She turned to Noah. He fixed the hem of her blouse where his competence had confessed itself. She smoothed his shirt where her greed had taken notes. She left the tie in her hand.
"Clause," he said quietly, forehead to hers.
"Hotel clause," she said. "Do the work, then us, and we count both."
He kissed her once more, oxygen and agreement. She wiped the graphite mark from her thumb onto a napkin because ritual is a way to tell nerves to sit. He watched her with a face that knew how to run a ledger and a minute and a room, and also a window.
"Comms," Sofia said in her ear. "A Riverside kiosk is flickering in the lobby. It's paint, not payment. But Media is calling your 17:00 'optics' again."
Ava rolled her shoulders like a person putting on armor she liked. "Put them on speaker," she said, reaching for the door. "Numbers learn faster when they're heard."
Noah took his step to her right and behind. The left-shoulder cue clicked into place like a key. She opened the door to a corridor that had decided not to interfere.
The phone on the table vibrated once more with a severity that belonged to harmless things. The city adjusted its coat. The lobby waited below with a flickering kiosk and a microphone that thought it was important.
Ava walked toward both.