"Can we paint it?"
"What color?"
"I don't know yet."
"Then when you know."
She nodded.
The door closed.
Cole stood in the hallway alone.
It was one of the happiest moments of his life.
He told nobody.
Ruby joined the engineering elective at school.
Tuesday afternoons.
The classroom smelled of wood glue, sawdust and adolescent ambition.
Their assignment was to build model bridges from balsa wood and craft wire.
The bridge would eventually be load-tested.
Ruby approached the project like an engineer.
Not because Cole coached her.
He deliberately didn't.
She drew three versions.
Destroyed two.
Changed the truss pattern after watching a twenty-minute video about load paths.
Her teacher noticed.
"You've done this before?"
"No."
"Your dad an engineer?"
"Sort of."
"What does that mean?"
Ruby shrugged.
"He builds things."
She came in early twice to reinforce the lower chords.
On the third week, the teacher asked everyone to name their bridges.
Phoenix.
Titan.
Thunder.
One student named his Steve.
Ruby wrote two words on the project sheet.
Bridge Corridor.
Her teacher looked at it.
"Why that?"
Ruby considered the question.
"My dad built that."
"The bridge downtown?"
"The real project."
She adjusted one of the wire supports.
"People took it from him."
Her teacher waited.
Ruby looked up.
"But then he built it back."
Tuesday afternoon in April, Cole came to pick her up.
Nadia was with him.
She had accepted the general counsel position three months earlier after the board approved an independent ethics review and conflict structure.
Her first condition had been direct reporting access to the board's audit committee.
Her second had been protection for internal whistleblowers.
Cole accepted both without negotiation.
They had spent the afternoon reviewing a vendor contract.
Going to Ruby's school was on the way.
That was what they told themselves.
Ruby emerged carrying her bridge model in both hands.
She saw Cole.
Then Nadia.
Her eyes moved between them.
She said nothing.
Teenagers did not need questions to make observations uncomfortable.
"How'd it go?" Cole asked.
"Didn't collapse."
"Strong endorsement."
Ruby held it toward him.
"Look."
Cole took the bridge carefully.
One diagonal support on the left side was missing.
He frowned.
"Where's the brace?"
"Ran out of sticks."
"And?"
"It still holds."
Cole turned the model over.
The load had redistributed through the remaining members.
Not ideal.
But stable.
Ruby watched him.
Cole touched the missing section.
"Yeah."
He looked at her.
"Sometimes missing something doesn't make the whole thing fall."
Ruby's expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
"I know."
Cole understood she wasn't talking about balsa wood anymore.