THE SPACE BETWEEN THEM
By Tuesday morning, Damian had convinced himself that Monday had been a minor setback.
He had asked Chisimdi about her weekend, she had answered, and that was it.
It should have been easy to leave it there.
Yet when he arrived at the office, his eyes immediately found her.
She was already at her desk, head bent over a stack of documents.
Right beside her keyboard sat a small ceramic cup.
Tea again.
His gaze lingered on the steam rising from the mug before he forced himself to look away.
He had no business noticing her habits.
Wrapping his fingers tighter around his briefcase, he walked into his office and shut the door.
The resolve lasted until exactly ten fifteen.
“Mr.
Adetola?”
Chisimdi’s voice leaked through the partially opened door.
Damian looked up from his laptop just as she stepped into view, a tablet tucked securely against her ribs.
“The Lagos expansion team moved the presentation to Thursday,” she said, stepping inside.
“They want the executive review completed tomorrow.”
Damian leaned back, his chair creaking slightly.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.
They sent the revised figures this morning.” She slipped the tablet onto the edge of his mahogany desk, spinning the screen toward him.
“There are a few sections that don’t match the previous projections.”
Damian studied the spreadsheet, tracing a row of mismatched numbers with his thumb.
Chisimdi stood quietly, her posture straight, waiting without an ounce of impatience.
After a beat, he looked up.
“Who prepared this version?”
“The strategy team.”
“Get them back here.”
“They’re already scheduled to meet with you at two.”
His eyes narrowed, a sudden sharpness entering his gaze.
“You knew?”
“I checked your calendar before I came in.”
The quiet certainty in her voice caught him off guard.
A rare, genuine warmth tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“You really do remember everything.”
A faint smile touched her lips, her eyes softening as she held his gaze.
“I was beginning to think you’d finally noticed.”
The words were light—harmless, even—but Damian felt a sudden, distinct shift in his chest.
To hide his reaction, he abruptly lowered his eyes back to the glowing tablet.
“We’ll review it together before the meeting.”
“All right.”
She reached for the device at the exact moment he pulled his hand back.
Their fingers didn’t brush.
Neither acknowledged the deliberate, careful precision with which they had both avoided the contact.
Chisimdi turned toward the exit.
“Chisimdi.”
She paused, glancing over her shoulder.
“Bring the previous projections too.”
“I already have them.” She lifted an eyebrow, a playful spark in her eyes.
“I checked those as well.”
For the first time that morning, the tension left his shoulders and his mouth curved into a real smile.
“Of course you did.”
She offered a parting smile and left, the door clicking shut behind her.
Damian stared at the frosted glass for several seconds.
He had spent two days convincing himself that distance would make things simpler.
Now, he was sitting alone, smiling simply because she had anticipated a need he hadn’t even voiced.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, the rough stubble scraping against his palm.
This was exactly the slippery slope he was trying to avoid.
The review lasted nearly two hours.
They relocated to the smaller executive conference room, spreading several heavy reports across the dark wood table.
The blinds were half-drawn against the harsh afternoon sun, cutting the room into sharp angles of light and shadow.
It was quiet, save for the rhythmic rustle of turning pages.
Chisimdi moved through the data seamlessly, pointing out discrepancies and typing notes whenever he flagged a discrepancy.
There was no awkwardness.
No mention of the weekend, and certainly no reference to the strange, invisible wall that had settled between them over the past forty-eight hours.
It should have made things easier.
Instead, Damian found his defenses slipping.
He was relaxing too much.
“That’s the third time you’ve changed that figure,” Chisimdi noted, her eyes darting from her laptop screen to him.
“Because it’s wrong.”
“It was wrong the first time.” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
He looked across the table.
Her lips were pressed together, fighting a smile.
“You’re enjoying this,” he accused softly.
“A little.”
He leaned back, folding his arms.
“Careful.”
Her restraint broke, and a bright smile flashed across her face.
“Is that a threat?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She dipped her head back toward the screen, but the playful energy remained in the air.
Damian watched the slope of her neck for a moment before forcing his eyes back to the paper.
This was exactly how it had started.
Not with drama or grand declarations, but with simple conversations that became far easier than they had any right to be.
Memories flashed unbidden—the dim lighting of the records room, the quiet walk down the corridor, her teasing him about carrying files, and the way he had lingered long after his work was done.
His expression hardened.
He locked those thoughts away and focused on the black ink.
“Let’s move on.”
Chisimdi caught the sudden drop in temperature.
She didn’t press him.
“All right.”
For another forty minutes, the room returned to professional efficiency.
By the time they finished, the afternoon sunlight had shifted entirely across the table.
Chisimdi closed her laptop with a soft thud.
“I’ll send the corrected version to your email.”
“Thank you.”
She began gathering the scattered documents, stacking them into a neat pile.
“You don’t have to do that,” Damian said, watching her hands.
She paused, looking up.
“What?”
“Stay late to finish it.”
“I wasn’t planning to stay late.”
He nodded, the tension easing slightly.
“Good.”
She studied his face for a beat, an amused glint returning to her eyes.
“You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”
His eyes locked onto hers.
“Saying what?”
“Good.” A small, breathless laugh escaped her.
“Every time I tell you something, you say good.”
Damian’s mouth twitched.
“Would you prefer something else?”
She tilted her head, pretending to weigh her options.
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“I haven’t decided.”
A smile broke through his stoic expression before he could stop it.
Chisimdi’s gaze softened in response.
For a brief, suspended moment, neither of them moved.
The room grew entirely still, the air thick with everything left unsaid.
Then, Chisimdi looked away first, breaking the spell.
“I should send those figures before the strategy team arrives.”
“Yes.”
She stood up and gathered her things.
Damian remained anchored to his chair, watching her reach the door.
She turned back, her hand on the knob.
“Have a good evening, Mr.
Adetola.”
“You too.”
The door closed, but this time Damian didn’t stare after her.
He forced his eyes down to the report, though the faint smile lingered on his lips.
Chisimdi returned to her cubicle and cleared the revised figures before five o’clock.
After shooting the file over to Damian, she shut down her computer and packed her bag.
Her phone buzzed against the desk.
Chinny: Are you alive?
Chisimdi let out a quiet laugh, her thumbs flying across the glass.
Chis: Barely.
Another text popped up instantly.
Chinny: Then come out this weekend.
She hesitated, her thumb hovering above the keyboard.
Before she could type a response, Tunde from the strategy team stopped beside her desk.
“Chis, you’re leaving?”
She dropped the phone into her lap and looked up.
“I wanted to thank you for catching those figures,” he said, leaning a hand briefly against the back of her empty office chair.
“We would have walked straight into that review tomorrow with the entirely wrong projections.”
She flashed a polite smile.
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing.” Tunde grinned, shifting his weight.
“You saved us from a very unpleasant bloodbath.
I owe you.
Let me buy you lunch sometime.”
Chisimdi shook her head, her tone light but boundary-setting.
“Let’s not make it dramatic.”
“Lunch isn’t dramatic.”
“We’ll see.”
He laughed, waving a hand as he turned toward the elevators.
“Think about it!”
Chisimdi slipped her phone into her handbag, completely unaware of the shadow standing near the executive office door.
Damian had heard every word.
Lunch.
Again.
A sharp, hot spike of irritation flared in his chest.
This time, he didn’t try to rationalize it away.
It was jealousy, pure and heavy.
He loathed the feeling.
Not because Tunde had done anything wrong, and not because Chisimdi had encouraged him—she hadn’t.
He hated it because he knew he had absolutely no right to feel it.
He was the one who had demanded distance.
He was the one who kept reminding himself she was an employee.
He had decided that whatever was spark between them had to be choked out before it became uncontrollable.
So why did the thought of another man sitting across a lunch table from her make his fists clench?
He looked through the glass.
She was swinging her handbag over her shoulder, completely oblivious to his stare, and stepping toward the elevator bank.
Damian immediately stepped back into the shadows of his office, hiding before she could catch him watching.
Minutes later, he found himself standing blindly behind his desk, staring at the screen of his phone as it vibrated in his palm.
He answered on the third ring.
“Damian.”
“Good evening, Mum,” he said, straightening his posture out of habit.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I’ve been working.”
“You’re always working.”
Damian stayed silent, letting the familiar critique hang in the air.
His mother sighed softly on the other end.
“Are you coming for dinner on Sunday?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You should come.
Your father wants to discuss something with you.”
Damian’s grip tightened on the phone, his gaze drifting toward the window overlooking the Lagos skyline.
“What about?”
“I’d rather he tells you himself.”
He stared out at the sprawling city.
For some reason, the mention of his father immediately brought another face to mind…
Nwankwo.
His fingers tightened around the phone, the plastic casing groaning under the pressure.
“I’ll come,” he said, his voice flat.
“Good.
Seven o’clock.”
“All right.”
The line went dead.
Damian slowly lowered the phone but remained perfectly still, the silence of his office pressing in on him.
The timing was almost cruel.
Just when he had begun allowing his defenses to slip—allowing himself to forget exactly why he needed to stay away from Chisimdi—his family had found a way to drag him back to reality.
He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, resting one hand against the cool glass as he looked down at the gridlocked traffic below.
Headlights cut through the deepening twilight, a sea of red and white moving as though nothing had changed.
But something had changed.
The air in the room felt different.
He felt different.
Staring out at the sprawling city, a harsh truth finally settled over him.
Keeping his distance from Chisimdi would never be as simple as refusing to touch her hand.
It meant forcing himself not to notice her.
It meant refusing to look for her when he entered a room.
It meant training his heart to stop caring about whose jokes made her laugh.
He closed his eyes, his forehead leaning against the glass.
He was already failing at all three.