Iris had learned quickly that campaign work was mostly waiting.
Waiting outside doors she was not allowed to enter. Waiting for instructions from people who never looked at her long enough to remember her name. Waiting with folders pressed against her chest, with coffee growing cold in one hand, with her phone clutched in the other in case someone upstairs decided she was useful again.
That morning, the building looked less like an office and more like a fortress.
Black vehicles lined the driveway. Men in barongs and dark suits passed through security with badges clipped to their chests. Reporters waited behind metal barricades. Somewhere inside, the machines that would count the country's choices were being tested by people important enough to be invited into the room.
Iris stood outside with the rest of the people who carried things.
Folders. Cables. Lunch packs. Names that did not matter.
Her supervisor had told her to stay near the entrance in case Councilor Evelyn's team needed additional documents. So Iris stayed. She had always been good at staying where she was told.
A sharp sound made her turn.
A crutch had fallen against the pavement.
The boy sitting on the low concrete ledge glared at it as if it had personally betrayed him. His right leg was wrapped in a cast from below the knee down to his foot, elevated awkwardly in front of him. He looked expensive even while injured—white shirt, watch, shoes too clean for someone forced to sit outside under the heat.
But what Iris noticed first was not the watch or the shoes.
It was the expression on his face.
He looked like someone who had been brought to a place he hated and abandoned there as punishment.
Iris hesitated for only a second before walking toward him.
"You dropped this," she said, picking up the crutch.
"I noticed."
She paused.
Most people said thank you.
He looked at the crutch, then at her, then away toward the glass doors where security personnel stood like a wall.
Iris held it out anyway. "Do you want it back or do you plan to intimidate it until it stands by itself?"
For the first time, his expression changed.
Not a smile exactly. Something smaller. More unwilling.
"You always talk like that to strangers?"
"Only to injured ones who are rude."
This time, he almost laughed.
Almost.
He took the crutch from her. Their fingers did not touch, but Iris still became strangely aware of how close she was standing. Close enough to see the faint bruise near his jaw. Close enough to notice that he looked tired beneath all that arrogance.
"You work for one of them?" he asked.
"One of who?"
He nodded toward the entrance. "The people pretending today is about transparency."
Iris followed his gaze.
Inside the building, beyond the glass, men and women moved around the machines with practiced smiles. Camera flashes lit up the lobby every few seconds.
"I work for Councilor Evelyn's campaign," she said. "Not important work."
"Lucky you."
Iris frowned. "That's not usually what people say."
"That's because people usually want to be important."
"And you don't?"
He looked at her then, really looked, as if she had asked him something no one in that building had ever thought to ask.
Before he could answer, a man in a dark suit approached them.
"Sir Liam," the man said, slightly breathless. "Your grandmother is asking if you're ready to come inside. Doña Celestina wants you present for the photos before the demonstration starts."
Sir Liam.
The name settled between them like a door closing.
Iris stepped back before she could stop herself.
Liam saw it.
Of course he saw it.
The bodyguard continued, "Your grandfather is already with the commissioners and the board. They're only waiting for—"
"I said I'm not going in," Liam cut him off.
"Sir, Doña Celestina specifically said—"
"Then tell her my leg is broken."
"She said your leg is not your face."
For a second, Iris forgot herself.
She laughed.
It was small. Barely more than a breath. But Liam heard it, and the irritation in his face shifted into something dangerously close to amusement.
The man in the suit did not laugh.
Neither did the guard by the door.
Iris lowered her eyes immediately. "Sorry."
Liam leaned back against the ledge. "Don't be."
The man cleared his throat. "Sir Liam—"
"I'm not going inside."
"Your family—"
"My family is inside. That seems enough representation."
The answer was quiet, but something in it made the man stop arguing.
Iris should have walked away. She knew that. People like her did not stand beside people like him unless they were carrying something, serving something, or being instructed to move elsewhere.
But Liam looked at her again.
And maybe it was the heat, or the waiting, or the strange way the day had turned into something she could not name, but Iris did not move.
"You know who I am now," he said.
She tightened her hold on the folders. "Apparently."
"You're doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Looking at me differently."
Iris swallowed.
Behind him, the glass doors opened. Applause rose briefly from inside, polished and practiced, like even approval had been rehearsed.
"I should," she said softly. "You are different."
Something hardened in his face, but it did not look like anger.
It looked like disappointment.
"No," Liam said. "They are."
Iris did not know what to say to that.
A message buzzed on her phone.
WHERE ARE YOU? BRING THE BLUE FOLDER TO SIDE ENTRANCE NOW.
Just like that, the world remembered her place.
"I have to go," she said.
Liam's eyes dropped to the folders in her arms. "Runner?"
The word should not have stung. It was true.
"Yes."
He nodded, but not the way others did. Not dismissively. Not with pity.
As if he was remembering it.
"Iris," she added, before she could decide not to.
His gaze returned to her face.
"I know," he said.
Her fingers tightened around the folders.
Of course he did. Maybe someone had told him. Maybe he had heard her name from the campaign staff. Maybe people like him always knew more than they should.
But before she could ask, someone called her from across the driveway.
"Iris! Hurry up!"
She turned.
When she looked back, Liam was still there, one hand gripping the crutch, his broken leg stretched in front of him, refusing to enter the building that had been built for people like him.
And for one brief, foolish second, Iris thought they were both standing outside the same door.
Then she remembered.
He could choose not to enter.
She had never been invited in.