So’ll Marcus, Brooke said, chin tilted. What’s the grind? Still into computers? He nodded once. Something like that.
Nice, Chase said, voice a notch too loud. We’re all building things. Startups.
Exits coming. You know. Just a matter of timing.
He tugged at his blazer sleeve, hiding a frayed inner seam. Market’s weird. Rent’s weirder, Roman muttered.
A glare shut him up. Across the room, a portable photo printer spit out glossy squares. The headline banner above the stage read Class of 2018, presented by Summit Gatherings in clean San Serif.
Marcus’s gaze rested there for half a beat, then moved on. No one followed the glance. No one ever looked where he looked.
Awards began. Paper certificates with gold borders. Best glow up.
Most international. Biggest boss energy. Jokes built like Jenga, wobbling toward mean.
Tyler’s grin tightened each time the room didn’t laugh fast enough. At the end, he raised a final envelope like a magician. Honorable mention.
Most likely to still be. Different. Paused.
Marcus, you around? Eyes turned. Someone coughed, wow. The thin kind.
The kind that cuts. Marcus let the silence breathe. He felt his heartbeat without hurry.
He slid his chair back with a soft scrape. Stood. And offered a small nod that could have been anything.
Thanks, refusal mercy. Then he sat again. The microphone drifted away, jokes stumbling behind it.
Around him, the gossip rethreaded itself. Why’d he even come? Content, someone joked. We need a villain or a mascot.
Nah, another whispered. Softer now, uncertain. He’s calm.
That’s not nothing. The projector hummed. Air vents whispered.
Glassware chimed as people pretended to toast their own stories. Marcus folded the edge of his napkin to a perfect right angle. Then another, patient hands building a tiny white square and waited, letting the room tell on itself.
The night wore on, and the room pulsed with shallow cheer. Music thumped from the rented speakers, but it couldn’t hide the cracks. Voices too high when they bragged.
Laughter too sharp when it faltered. Marcus stayed in his seat. Still.
The way you stay in the eye of a storm. A waiter passed with shrimp skewers. Brooke snapped one without looking and tossed the tail into a half-empty glass.
Chase was mid-rant about seed funding in Q4 when his phone buzzed. He snatched it up, eyes flickering, then dimmed. Just an investor follow-up, he mumbled, sliding it face down.
The screen had screamed final notice. Whispers moved around Marcus like smoke. Did he overhear? Nah, probably hitchhiked…
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