Chapter 1
BluePeak flew forty-seven employees to Miami for its company retreat.
I was the forty-eighth employee—and the only one not invited.
Then my team lead posted a photo of my empty seat with the caption:
Shame some people just aren’t team players.
So I turned off my phone and went to sleep.
Thirteen hours later, I woke to 164 missed calls and a text from my boss:
I screwed up. Please, for the love of God, call me.
Apparently, while I slept, the company discovered exactly how much of it depended on the employee they had left behind.
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At three thirty on Friday afternoon, the office erupted.
“The tickets are in! Check your email!”
“Oceanfront rooms. Actual oceanfront rooms.”
“They rented a private beach for us. There's a bonfire tomorrow night.”
I sat at my desk with my hands above the keyboard and stared at the final paragraph of the Project Nimbus Phase Four proposal.
Three hundred words. That was all I had left.
“Ethan, did you get your ticket?”
Sophie Carter's head appeared over the cubicle wall. She had pushed her bangs back with a yellow headband, and excitement had turned her whole face bright.
I opened my inbox.
Nothing.
“No.”
“Refresh it. It was a company-wide email.”
I refreshed.
Still nothing.
Sophie disappeared behind the divider. I heard her typing fast, probably messaging HR. Five minutes later, she stood up again. The excitement was gone.
“Fiona says you're not on the list.”
My fingers dropped to the keyboard. I finished the last paragraph, fixed a number in the budget table, and saved the file.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Sophie's voice rose. “There are forty-eight people in this office. Forty-seven tickets went out. You're the only person missing.”
“Maybe somebody made a mistake.”
“You think Fiona accidentally forgot exactly one person?”
No. I didn't.
Fiona Blake worked in HR and spent most lunches with Derek Quinn, our team lead. The month before, she'd put me at the table beside the restroom during a department dinner.
When I'd said it was fine, she'd smiled and told me, “You like quiet, don't you?”
“I'm going to Martin,” Sophie said. Her chair scraped back.
“Don't.”
“Ethan—”
“Everything's booked. Adding someone now will turn into a whole thing.”
“You belong on the trip. Who wrote Project Nimbus Phase Four?”
“The team did.”
“You did.”
I took off my glasses and wiped one lens with my shirt. A fingerprint stayed near the edge.
“Let it go, Sophie.”
She watched me for several seconds. Her mouth tightened, but she sat down.
At four, people began closing laptops and rolling suitcases toward the elevators. The office filled with the sounds of zippers, suitcase wheels, and arguments about sunscreen.
Derek stood and stretched. His jacket was draped over one arm. When he passed my desk, he stopped.
“Not packing, Ethan?”
“I'm not going.”
He widened his eyes with practiced surprise. “You're skipping a free weekend in Miami?”
I looked up at him.
“I'm not on the list.”
“Really?” His smile sat perfectly between friendly and cruel. “Fiona must've messed up. You should talk to her. Maybe she can still fix it.”
He spoke loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear.
A few people glanced over. Nobody said anything.
Derek patted my shoulder. “Well, thanks for holding down the fort.”
Ten minutes later, I was alone.
The fluorescent lights hummed. Cold air from the vent blew against the back of my neck.
I uploaded the final package to the project drive.
Nimbus_Phase4_FINAL_0412.
Then I shut down my computer.
I leaned back and looked at the brown water stain above my cubicle. It had been there for three months. Nobody had bothered to fix it.
My phone buzzed.
The company group chat.
Fiona had posted a selfie from the airport shuttle.
MIAMI, HERE WE COME!
The replies piled up beneath it.
Best team ever.
Beach weekend!
My bag is already overweight lol.
Then Derek posted a picture from inside the plane.
One empty window seat. The shade was half open, and a clean stripe of sunlight cut across the cushion.
Shame some people just aren't team players.
Three laughing reactions appeared immediately. Then five. Then eleven.
Someone added, Guess it wasn't meant to be.
No one asked who the seat had been meant for.
They knew.
My thumb hovered over the screen. I typed three words, deleted them, and held down the power button.
Turn off?
Yes.
I put the phone in my desk drawer, took my jacket, and left.
Mr. Lawson, the evening security guard, looked up from his crossword when I reached the lobby.
“Leaving early, Ethan? Thought your people were flying south.”
“They are.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“Somebody had to stay available.”
He studied me, but he didn't press.
I rode my old bike home through rush-hour traffic. The chain slipped twice before I reached my building.
At the corner store, I bought a half bottle of cheap bourbon and a bag of salted peanuts.
My studio apartment was four hundred square feet if the landlord was feeling generous. Bed, desk, narrow closet, hot plate. Thick brown curtains blocked every bit of daylight when I pulled them shut.
I kicked off my shoes and fell onto the bed without changing.
The mattress springs complained.
I took a swallow of bourbon. It burned all the way down. Then I ate a few peanuts and listened to the crunching fill the room.
That empty seat kept coming back to me.
Shame some people just aren't team players.
I drank again and pulled the blanket over my head.
I had worked until two in the morning every night that week. Phase Four had gone through seventeen drafts. At Thursday's meeting, Derek had read my words from the screen as if they had formed in his mouth.
Martin Grant, our department director, had nodded along.
“Excellent work, Derek.”
Derek had smiled. “It was a team effort.”
Team effort.
Every page, every projection, every line of the attribution model had come from me.
I was too tired to stay angry.
So I slept.
For the next thirteen hours, while I knew nothing at all, BluePeak Media began to come apart.
