Chapter Text
The office was quiet in the way places only became after six in the evening.
Not empty — the lights were still on, the hum of computers still present somewhere behind the glass partitions — but subdued. Conversations had faded into occasional murmurs. Chairs rolled less frequently across the floor.
Julia liked it better this way. She leaned back in her chair and studied the screen again. The logo in front of her had already gone through twelve versions. Thirteen, technically, if she counted the one she’d deleted immediately after creating it.
The café owner wanted something “modern but warm.” Something “clean but artistic.” Something that would feel “handmade but premium.”
Julia had translated that into a palette of muted greens and soft beige, a rounded serif typeface, and a small illustrated branch curling beneath the name.
Now she stared at it the way she always did toward the end of a project. Trying to decide whether it was finished or whether she was simply tired of looking at it.
Outside the windows the sky had already turned the dull gray of early evening. The buildings across the street reflected faint light back into the room.
She tapped her pen once against the desk. Then once more. Something still bothered her. Not the typography. That was balanced.
The spacing between letters? She leaned closer to the screen, narrowing her eyes. Probably half a millimeter.
Graphic design had ruined her ability to look at anything normally. Restaurant menus, shop signs, packaging — everything turned into spacing problems and color hierarchies.
She nudged the kerning slightly and leaned back again.
Better.
Her phone buzzed on the desk. Julia glanced at the screen.
Daniel.
She picked it up.
“Hey.”
“Are you still at work?” her husband asked.
His voice carried the faint background noise of a street — passing cars, footsteps, the muffled sound of people talking.
“Just finishing something.”
“You said that two hours ago.”
She smiled faintly, though he couldn’t see it. “I was almost finished two hours ago.”
There was a small pause. “You should’ve wrapped it up earlier,” Daniel said. “We’re meeting the guys in an hour.”
Julia glanced back at the screen. The branch under the café’s name still felt slightly wrong, but she knew if she stayed she’d keep adjusting it until midnight.
“Right,” she said. “Dinner.”
“You forgot.”
“I didn’t forget.”
“You sound like you forgot.”
She didn’t answer that. On the other end of the line he exhaled, not irritated exactly, but carrying the mild impatience that had crept into his tone more often in recent years.
“It’s at that place Marco recommended,” he said. “The one with the terrace.”
“The expensive one.”
“They’re all expensive,” Daniel replied easily.
Which was true. Most of the places his friends liked were the kind where the lighting was dim, the plates were small, and the prices made Julia mentally convert everything into hours of design work.
She glanced at the clock in the corner of her monitor.
6:18.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave soon.”
“Good. Damiano’s actually coming tonight.”
Julia frowned slightly. She rolled her chair slowly away from the desk, thinking.
“The IT guy?” she asked.
Daniel laughed. “Yeah. That one.”
She had heard the name before, she realized. In passing conversations. At other dinners. Usually in the context of judo stories she only half followed.
Apparently he was good.
Apparently he barely talked.
Apparently he once dislocated Leo’s shoulder during practice and then drove him to the hospital afterward.
Julia had formed a vague mental image of someone large, quiet, and probably slightly intimidating.
“Is he the one who never comes to anything?” she asked.
“Exactly,” Daniel said. “Meaning tonight you’ll finally meet the mysterious man.”
She smiled faintly at that. “Mysterious,” she repeated.
“Well,” Daniel said, “for someone who’s been part of the group for such a long time and somehow never shows up to dinner, it’s a fair description.”
Julia closed the design program and shut the laptop. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
The line clicked off a moment later. For a second the office was quiet again. Julia slid the laptop into her bag and stood, stretching the stiffness from her shoulders. Across the room someone laughed softly at something she couldn’t hear.
She switched off the desk lamp. The logo would still be there tomorrow. On her way out she paused briefly near the glass doors, adjusting the strap of her bag. Daniel’s voice echoed faintly in her mind.
Damiano’s actually coming tonight.
She wasn’t sure why the name stuck with her for a moment longer than it should have. Probably because she had heard it often enough without ever attaching a face to it.
Tonight, apparently, that would change.
Julia pushed the door open and stepped out into the evening.