Leadership Material

Sal's office sat just off the main floor, elevated slightly, like it needed the extra few feet to justify its authority.

From the outside, it looked exactly the way Craig remembered: glass panels on three sides, offering a full view of the warehouse. A command post, in theory. In practice, more like a fishbowl filled with paperwork and bad habits.

The door opened with a soft push.

The smell hit first.

Old coffee. Not fresh, not even recently brewed. The kind that had been poured, forgotten, reheated, abandoned again. It lingered in the air, thick and stale, clinging to everything. Four mugs... no, five... sat scattered across the desk, each in a different stage of neglect.

Sal sat behind it all like part of the furniture.

Older. Heavyset. Shirt pulled a little too tight across his stomach. A pair of reading glasses perched low on his nose as he squinted down at something on his desk. The man had been here forever, longer than anyone else, and carried that fact like a badge of honour.

He didn't look up right away.

"Close the door."

The words came out flat, automatic.

Craig stepped inside, the sharp click of his heels echoing louder than it had any right to in the small space. The sound bounced off the glass, off the metal shelving, off the desk piled with papers and half-finished thoughts.

Too loud.

Too noticeable.

Except it wasn't. Not to Sal. Not to anyone.

The door shut behind him with a soft thud.

"Sit."

A folding chair waited in front of the desk, already opened, already positioned. Craig crossed the short distance toward it, each step marked by that same deliberate rhythm of heel against floor. Awareness crept in with every movement, of the skirt, of the way it shifted, of how little it actually covered when he turned.

The chair creaked faintly as he sat. Cool air brushed against skin that shouldn't have been exposed in a place like this. The hem of the denim skirt rode just high enough to make him adjust it automatically, tugging it down in a gesture that accomplished absolutely nothing.

Normal. This was normal. Craig had to remind himself over and over again that to everyone around him, how he looked, how he dressed, was normal. There was no need to panic.

Sal finally looked up.

Eyes scanned over Craig once, quick, assessing, and moved on just as quickly. Nothing out of place to linger on.

"Craig."

"Yes?"

A grunt of acknowledgement.

"Been hearing your name upstairs."

That got his attention.

Sal leaned back in his chair, the old thing protesting under the shift in weight. One hand gestured vaguely upward, toward the offices Craig had only ever visited once.

"They've got you flagged."

A pause.

"For bigger things."

Memory flickered: last week, a conversation that had felt like a one-off at the time. Daniel Mercer standing just outside the warehouse floor, talking about potential, about opportunity. About maybe moving upstairs someday.

Craig had nodded. Said the right things. Filed it away as a maybe. Apparently, it hadn't been a maybe.

"They want to move you off the floor," Sal continued, matter-of-fact. "Office work. Management track. Soon."

Something shifted in Craig's chest. Excitement. Real, immediate, undeniable. Despite everything, despite the clothes, the confusion, the constant sense that his life was slipping sideways, this was what he wanted. A step up. Less physical strain. More stability. A future that didn't end with his back giving out before forty.

"That's good," Craig said carefully.

Sal snorted.

"It's more than good. It's opportunity. Don't screw it up."

Fair.

"I won't."

"I know you won't." A beat. "That's why they picked you. That's why I recommended you."

The words came easily. Sal leaned forward now, forearms resting on the cluttered desk, gaze settling more deliberately this time.

"You've done good work down here. Consistent. Reliable. You don't complain, you don't slack off. Guys notice that."

A small nod.

"When I look at you, it's obvious that you're different from the rest of the floor guys. You've got something a lot of people don't."

Craig waited.

"Presence."

The word hung there.

"The kind of man other men look at and think, yeah, that's how it's done. That's how I want to be."

Silence. A strange, hollow silence. Because Craig sat there in a miniskirt. In stockings. In high-heeled boots. A crop top that barely qualified as workwear in any version of reality he still recognized. And somehow...

That translated to presence. To leadership. To something worth looking up to.

A flicker of something, amusement, disbelief, maybe both, pressed at the edges of his thoughts before he **** it back down: Eros. This had to be Eros. Rewriting perception. Adjusting context. Filling in the gaps until everything made sense to everyone except him.

"Thank you," Craig said, pushing away thoughts of his circumstance, focusing on the present.

Sal nodded, satisfied. A hand reached off to the side, grabbing a clipboard from somewhere in the chaos. Papers shifted. One slid free.

"Now," Sal said, tone shifting slightly. "If they're going to move you up, we've got to start getting you ready."

Craig straightened a fraction.

"Ready?"

"Different skill set upstairs. Less lifting. More thinking. More organizing. More leading." A finger tapped the paper. "You don't just do the work, you make sure everyone else can do theirs."

That made sense. Craig nodded.

"Okay."

"Good attitude." Sal slid the clipboard across the desk toward him. "So we're starting you off light. Ease you into it."

Craig reached out, taking the clipboard. Eyes dropped to the page. A list. Simple. Straightforward. At least at first glance.

• Collect and deliver coffee orders from floor staff for morning coffee break.
• Clean Sal's office.
• Tidy up break room.
• Make cookies for senior management meeting.
• Collect and deliver coffee orders from floor staff for afternoon coffee break.

Silence stretched.

Craig read it again. Then a third time. The words didn't change. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something tried to reconcile this with what he'd just been told. Leadership. Management track. Presence.

Cookies.

Coffee runs.

Cleaning.

"That's..." Craig started, then stopped.

What, exactly, was that? Sal nodded like everything made perfect sense.

"Bit of everything," he said. "You want to lead, you've got to understand how things run. That means getting your hands into all of it. Supporting the team. Keeping things moving."

No irony. Not a shred. This wasn't a joke. Not to Sal.

"It's a lot," Sal added, "but I know you can handle it."

Craig's grip tightened slightly on the clipboard. Of course he could handle it. He'd hauled pallets. Loaded trucks. Worked twelve-hour shifts without complaint.

He could... make cookies.

Probably.

"Yeah," Craig said slowly. "I can do that."

"Good." Sal leaned back again. "Cleaning supplies are in here and in the break room. Upstairs kitchen's got everything you'll need for the baking. Don't overthink it."

Of course there was an upstairs kitchen. Of course there was.

"And Craig?"

He looked up.

"Wear an apron."

Craig blinked.

"You don't want to mess up your outfit."

Right. Of course. Sal's hand dipped down beside the desk. Something came up in it: fabric, soft and unmistakably pink, trimmed with a thin edge of white lace. Sal tossed it across without ceremony. Craig caught it automatically.

"Thanks," he said.

The word was out before his brain had a chance to intercept it. Sal nodded once, already looking back down at whatever had occupied him before.

"Get to it."

Dismissed.

Craig stood, the chair creaking softly behind him as he stepped away from the desk. Clipboard in one hand. Apron draped over the other.

The heels sounded louder on the way out. Or maybe he was just noticing it more.

The door opened. Closed. The noise of the warehouse rushed back in, filling the space where the office's stale quiet had been. Craig stopped just outside, standing there for a second longer than necessary.

Clipboard.

Apron.

A list of tasks that made absolutely no sense in the context of everything he'd just been told. A promotion. A step forward. A chance at something better. All tied to coffee orders and baking.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered under his breath.

And yet...

He needed the job. Needed the money. Needed the future that came with moving up. A glance out over the warehouse floor revealed the problem immediately.

People. A lot of them. Each one a coffee order waiting to happen. Craig exhaled slowly, adjusted his grip on the clipboard, and squared his shoulders.

Fine.

If this was what it took to get ahead in the company...

He'd do it.

One coffee at a time.