Take his lunch mone...his lunch

They sat on opposite walls of the elevator now, knees bent, backs pressed to the cool metal, Jason Davenport’s lunch unpacked between them on the floor like a bizarre picnic at rock bottom.

The wrap was halved. One half in Emily’s lap, the other resting on a stack of manila folders that had toppled from the man’s box when he sat down. The green juice bottle rolled lazily between them after a shared sip. The brownie had been broken in two, unevenly—he insisted she take the bigger piece.

He’d introduced himself somewhere between her offering the bag and him letting out another full-body, exhausted laugh.

“Mark,” he’d said, reaching out with sauce-stained fingers like it didn’t matter anymore. “Mark Ellison. Former team lead of the R&D unit Jason just took credit for gutting.”

Emily shook his hand, warmth still radiating in her cheeks, her nerves wound too tight to blush but too raw not to react to the contact. Her name came out like an apology. “Emily.”

They chewed in silence for a moment, the elevator eerily still, as if giving them room to speak.

“So, what else has he done?” she asked, licking a dab of avocado from her thumb.

Mark snorted. “Where do I start? He stalled my promotion by feeding our director half-finished numbers and saying it was my final draft. Sabotaged my presentation last month by locking me out of the server. Got some poor kid in the dev team fired for pushing a patch Jason greenlit himself. Oh—and the intern? He had HR rewrite her contract so she reports directly to him. Bypassed three other levels of oversight. That’s not just fucking unethical, that’s—” he broke off, chewing hard, jaw tight.

Emily blinked, her appetite wilting.

“He’s been cold for months,” she said quietly, more to herself than to him. “He doesn’t even touch me anymore. Doesn’t notice when I get dressed up. Doesn’t care if I sleep beside him or across the hall.”

Her voice cracked as she picked at the crust of the wrap, her fingers suddenly too clumsy to peel it properly.

Mark glanced over. His anger dimmed just enough to make room for something else.

She set the food aside, looked down at her knees, and whispered:

“I just had his baby.”

The words hung in the air like smoke. Real. Final. Heavy.

Mark didn’t answer right away. He just breathed slowly, once, and let the silence settle around them.

Then, softly, with no mockery—only steel behind it—he said:

“We should ruin him.”

Emily looked up.

The atmosphere between them shifted. The strange, charged air of the elevator condensed into something darker—tighter. Less like mourning and more like ignition.

Mark leaned forward slowly, studying her.

“He doesn’t deserve this,” he said. His eyes held hers, no longer distant or impersonal. Something else moved behind them now. Recognition. Appetite. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Emily felt heat rise in her chest—not from shame, not embarrassment. Something else.

Adrenaline. Hunger. Vindication.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t move, except for her thighs squeezing slightly beneath the hem of her skirt.

Mark’s voice dropped to a murmur, steady and close.

“You’re angry.” He shifted, crawling half the distance between them on his knees. “So am I.”

His hand reached out slowly. Gave her time to stop him.

She didn’t.

His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear with more tenderness than Jason had shown her in months. His touch lingered—calloused fingertips tracing the line of her jaw, his gaze locked to the flicker in hers.

Emily inhaled softly, lips parting just an inch.

“We could start taking something back,” he said, voice low, hot against her throat.

“Right here.”