Easier

Traffic on the Dallas North Tollway moved at the speed of business. Cement barriers cradled the cars as the Monday morning traffic moved with purpose if not speed. A radio station that only plays what they want threw together a set of Los Lonely Boys, Dua Lipa, and Bruno Mars. The Client's car was full of music, with a triple play that easily coaxed a musical response out of him. Absent of much thought, the songs – each super-catchy – landed on his ears in a new way. He noticed that he was really enjoying the music. Sending in the report last night had given him a new lease on life. However, that lease – in terms of his career – would be up in 32 minutes. Renewal would not be an option. Dripping in “Finesse,” the Client gripped the wheel at ten and two.

His office was an enormous metallic glass skyscraper. The building was a supermodel, looking down on the nearby retail shops as if they were junior high cheerleaders. The Legacy West area in Plano always seemed like a coloring book to him. Something in the mixed-used development felt incomplete. He wasn't an architect, and they weren't paying him to fix the landscaping, but the whole picture hadn't really come together yet. Like most of North Dallas, this manufactured patch of the world was covered in the fingerprints of man, ...