There were twenty-four names on the screen. Mine was fourteenth.
I stared at the number for a few seconds, waiting for it to become less irritating. It didn’t.
Fourteenth wasn’t bad, which was almost the problem. In a little over four weeks, Future Leaders would cut twenty-four candidates down to fourteen. Eight of those would eventually receive permanent offers, and the top two would earn positions inside NEXT, the digital arm Aurelia Media Group was betting its future on.
I was technically still above water. Exactly at the surface.
Not low enough to prove I didn’t belong here, but not high enough to stop wondering whether one bad week would be enough to sink me.
Story of my life.
I scrolled upward until I found the name I’d already expected to see.
6. Camila Reyes
Of course.
Camila had climbed two places since the last ranking. I’d dropped one.
Behind me, somebody laughed loudly enough for half the floor to hear. I didn’t bother checking who. Future Leaders had a way of making twenty-four adults behave like students waiting for exam results, except the exams lasted six months and everyone pretended networking drinks were somehow part of the curriculum.
My own assessment was due that afternoon. I’d spent most of Wednesday night rebuilding the forecasting section because the source data Rachel’s team had provided contained two assumptions I couldn’t reproduce.
That was the kind of thing I was good at.
Give me a broken model, inconsistent data or a script that shouldn’t work but somehow did, and I could usually find the problem. Give me a room full of people and ask me to convince them I was the reason the problem had been solved?
Apparently that was worth fourteenth.
"Morning."
I knew the voice before I looked up.
Camila Reyes stood beside my desk with her laptop tucked against one hip and coffee in the other hand. Dark brown hair fell in loose waves over a cream blouse that probably cost more than my entire work wardrobe, and small gold hoops caught the overhead light when she tilted her head.
She looked rested. I disliked her a little for that alone.
"Morning."
She set the laptop beside mine without asking. "I need another pair of eyes."
The screen showed a forty-eight-slide market segmentation deck.
"My assessment is due today."
"I know." Camila smiled as though I’d contributed useful context. "That’s why I’m bringing you the interesting problem first."
There were people who could make exploitation sound like a compliment. Camila was very good at it.
She wasn’t sixth because she was pretty. Pretty helped, along with knowing when to smile, when to push and when to make an idea sound inevitable before anyone had agreed with it. But she was smart too, and that was the annoying part. It would have been easier if she weren’t.
I could have told her to fix it herself. She probably would’ve smiled, said of course, and remembered.
Camila was sixth. I was fourteenth. There were a little over four weeks until the cut.
Telling her no would feel good for thirty seconds. Becoming the guy Camila Reyes described as difficult when people compared notes could last considerably longer.
I pulled her laptop closer. "What isn’t working?"
Her smile widened. "There he is."
The problem took twelve minutes. Someone had combined two survey cohorts without correcting for overlap, which made an older customer segment look more valuable than it actually was.
I rebuilt the calculation and clicked back through her recommendations.
"You can’t use this conclusion anymore."
Camila leaned over my shoulder. Her perfume was subtle enough that I only noticed it because she was suddenly close enough for me to notice everything else too.
"Why?"
"Because once you correct the overlap, the older segment stops being the growth opportunity." I pulled another table onto the screen and pointed to a different group. "This one is."
"Twenty-five to thirty-four."
"Mostly digital subscribers. Higher churn, but acquisition costs are lower and the upgrade rate is almost twice as high."
Camila went quiet.
That was one thing I liked about working with her. When the answer mattered, she listened.
I highlighted three figures. "If Aurelia pushes retention here, you’re solving the wrong problem. Accept the higher churn and optimize the first twelve months of value instead."
She studied the table before looking at me. "That’s better."
"I know."
Her mouth twitched.
Maybe I should have enjoyed that more. Instead, I checked the time.
My own assessment had lost eighteen minutes.
Camila took her laptop back. "You’re a lifesaver."
"I’d settle for coauthor."
She was already walking away. "I’ll put you in the acknowledgments."
I watched her go and briefly imagined telling her that one day she was going to run out of people willing to make her look smarter.
Then I opened my assessment again.
Thinking satisfying things was free. Acting on them tended to cost more.
Rachel Whitmore’s review meeting started at eleven. Rachel had gone through Future Leaders herself a few years earlier and now supervised our rotation. At thirty-one, she’d already reached the level where people listened when she paused before answering.
Camila presented first.
She was good. Of course she was.
The revised recommendation landed almost exactly the way I’d expected. Rachel interrupted twice, both times with questions Camila handled cleanly. By the final slide, the discussion had shifted from whether the strategy worked to how quickly Aurelia could test it.
That was what Camila did better than almost anyone in the program.
I solved problems. She made people want to own the solution.
Rachel glanced at her notes. "The younger-segment recommendation is a significant improvement from the earlier version."
"Agreed." Camila crossed one leg over the other. "Evan helped me pressure-test the analysis this morning. Once we cleaned that up, I reworked the recommendation around the younger segment."
Technically, every word was defensible.
That was almost impressive.
Rachel looked at me. "Anything to add, Evan?"
The answer arrived immediately.
Actually, the recommendation was mine.
I could say it. Then Camila would explain that we’d worked through it together, Rachel would wonder why I was turning a review into a fight over credit, and Camila would remain sixth—polished, calm and completely reasonable.
I’d still be fourteenth and defensive.
I knew how that calculation ended.
For one ugly second, I wanted Rachel to ask Camila something she couldn’t answer without me. Something buried deep enough in the model that she’d have to turn and look.
Just once.
Instead, I shook my head. "No."
Rachel nodded and moved on.
Camila caught up with me outside the conference room after the meeting.
"You’re sulking."
"I don’t sulk." I kept walking.
"You absolutely sulk. You just do it quietly so you can pretend it’s professionalism."
"The recommendation was mine."
"I know."
That stopped me.
Camila stopped too, looking more curious than guilty.
"Then why didn’t you say that in there?"
"You presented it like you’d come up with it."
"No. I said you helped with the analysis and I reworked the recommendation."
I stared at her. "Which isn’t what happened."
"Then you should’ve said that." Her sigh wasn’t apologetic so much as impatient. "You keep waiting for people to give you credit because you earned it."
The irritating part wasn’t that she was wrong. It was that being right seemed to work considerably better when you looked like Camila saying it.
"Some of us think the work should matter."
"It does." She stepped closer. "That’s why I bring mine to you."
"That isn’t the compliment you think it is."
"I know exactly what kind of compliment it is."
For a moment, neither of us said anything. Then her attention dropped to my shirt.
"What?"
"Your collar."
Before I could react, she reached up and straightened it.
I went still.
She was close enough that irritation did nothing to stop me noticing the curve of her mouth or how good she looked from six inches away. Apparently resentment and attraction were perfectly capable of sharing office space.
"There." Camila studied me for another second, then frowned.
"What now?"
"Your hair."
"Camila."
She ignored me and ran her fingers through the front of it, pushing it back and slightly to the side.
I could have moved. The thought became useful about half a second after she’d finished.
She touched me like she’d already decided I wouldn’t object.
Maybe that was what bothered me most.
She wasn’t wrong.
"You could actually look good if you tried."
"I’ll add that to my development plan."
"You should." Her smile returned. "If I make the top two, maybe I’ll take you upstairs with me."
"To NEXT?"
"Obviously."
I raised an eyebrow. "Doing what?"
Camila considered me for exactly long enough to make the answer worse.
"Secretary."
She laughed at my expression.
"You’d be amazing at it. You already fix everything I forget."
I wondered how funny she’d find the word if the positions were reversed. Probably less.
Camila started walking backward. "Send me the clean file when you’re done?"
"My assessment is still due."
"After that."
She turned away.
At 4:38, my phone vibrated.
Camila: clean file pls
A second message followed.
Camila: secretary 😘
Then a GIF of a woman dropping a stack of folders onto somebody else’s desk.
I looked at the messages, then at my assessment.
Everything Camila had said about claiming credit was still fresh enough to irritate me.
I cleaned the file anyway.
At 6:12, the rankings were still open on my second monitor.
6. Camila Reyes
I scrolled.
14. Evan Cole
My assessment waited underneath it.