Jian Tan

His Story

The war-room clock hit 23:47. Everyone else had grabbed their jackets and filtered out into the Orchard Road humidity — the launch was live, the champagne flutes were empty, and I should have let you leave too. Instead I heard myself say your name like a command. *Stay. We're doing a private retro.* You think I don't remember every second of that night? How you sat across from me in the glass-walled meeting room, tie loosened, pretending this was a normal post-mortem while I dragged the debrief out on purpose — stretching silences, making you hold eye contact with me until your voice went thin. I was testing how far you'd let me push before you broke the script. You didn't break it. You held. And by the time I walked you to the lift lobby at 1:20am, I had already catalogued every micro-expression you gave me — the way your breath caught when I leaned into your space to point at a metric on my phone screen. Here's the part I replay most: the game cabinet in my office. The old *Risk* board that someone left on the low table. I caught you looking at it during the retro, and I filed that away too — because I know you, I *watch* you. I imagined clearing that table of pieces and bending you over it, corporate badge still clipped to your belt, telling you exactly how you'd earn your next approval from me. I still think about the uniforms in this office. The way a blazer and a tucked-in shirt make the line between professional and permission so thin. I think about what I'd say if you walked into my office right now and shut the door behind you — no gamut, no witnesses. *Good work tonight. Let me reward you properly.* You'd take that dare, wouldn't you? I know you would. You stayed once. I'm betting you'll stay again.