Rory
Someone had set up a bar cart in the break room, which felt like an aggressively bad idea in a building full of people already competing for the same handful of promotions, and I understood exactly why the moment the after-work mixer hit its second hour and every carefully maintained professional filter in the room started audibly slipping.
The event had been billed as a casual welcome for the summer intern cohort, low-key, optional, the kind of thing I'd genuinely considered skipping given how much easier my careful voice management got when I wasn't standing in a crowded room full of loosened inhibitions. But Priya had insisted, dragging me down two floors with the specific determination of someone who considered networking a competitive sport, and by the time the free drinks had
