Page 1 of Arrivals & Assets

Chapter 1 - Dylan

~April~

“Ahhhh,” I sighed as I dropped into my chair, then took a long drink of my iced coffee. “Caffeine.”

Adam, an omega who worked at the desk across from mine, chuckled. “What is that? Your third cup of the day? Fourth? You’ll be bouncing off the walls before long.”

I snorted and held up my company-branded tumbler—bearing the Techspeed Consulting logo. “Only my second.”

He made a show of rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “Full? In that thing? What is that, thirty ounces?”

“Forty,” I replied with a smirk.

“You do know that—combined—it’s over half a gallon of coffee, right?”

I grinned and took another long drink. “Yep.”

“Did you leave any for the rest of us?”

I mock gasped and held my hand to my chest. “Are you accusing me of depriving my coworkers?”

He started laughing.

I joined him for a minute before I could speak again. “Fresh pot is brewing,” I replied as we gave up the bit.

“Are you guys doing that thing again?” asked another of the delivery leads on the floor, an alpha named Taal.

“Naw,” I replied, swiveling in my chair. “Only half. Adam’s teased me about my coffee, but I think I’ll wait until this afternoon to give him shit about his grass water.”

“It’s called matcha, thank you very much.”

That made me laugh again. “I know what it’s called. Still don’t know how you can drink it. I tried it from a few different places, and all I ever get is lawn clippings. Vanilla lawn clippings, caramel lawn clippings…” I shuddered. “Chocolate lawn clippings. Eventually, I decided to stop wasting my money. No amount of added sugar, flavor, or milk variety was ever going to mask the lawn clippings.”

Adam waved a finger at me. “And that’s where you went wrong. You’re not supposed to add sweeteners to green teas.”

“Tried that too. Unsweetened lawn clippings.”

Taal made a noise, shook his head, and wandered back to his desk.

Banter over with, I made sure that no emergencies had landed in my inbox, then pulled up the first status update of the day.

Everything was on track with no reported problems from the first team I oversaw, which was a relief. The client had been notorious for scope creep, and I’d had to call down to the account manager several times to rein them in. Seeing that they understood—even if temporarily—that it would cost extra for extra work was a win that I would take.

The second report was from a team that had been running smoothly and was maintaining that status. Everything was not only on track, but potentially slightly ahead of schedule. There was also a note in the account file that the client had called the account manager to thank the team, even though the project wasn’t complete yet.

I made it through two more status updates before my work chat channel chimed with a message. I opened it to see a meeting request from the executive receptionist, Micah.

I ensured that nothing would take priority over a meeting with the executive team, then confirmed the request.

“Hey, you ok?” Adam asked.

I blinked as I looked up at him. “Huh?”

“You got a bit pale, and I can smell your stress. Are you feeling ok?”

I let out a single chuckle. “Got a message from Micah upstairs.”

“Micah?” Adam asked. “What happened to Ryan?”