A Calculated Invitation

PIPER’S POV

I forced myself to breathe. In. Out. Focus. Nolan wasn’t going to ruin this for me. Not today. Not ever again. I had work to do. Real work. Important work.

I powered on my laptop, trying to push everything else to the back of my mind. The screen lit up, emails loading, notifications popping in one after the other.

Normal. Everything was normal again. A few minutes later, there was a kn