Male MC Fluff Romance

I told myself I was going to wait until we were outside. Neutral ground, fresh air, none of this — the low desk lamps and the half-packed shelves and the specific way this office smells like old paper and the coffee we made so many times it soaked into the walls. I was going to wait until the elevator, or the sidewalk, or maybe just send you something tomorrow that you could read without having to look at me. That was the plan. Then you put the last of your notebooks into the box, and the sound of it — the finality of that one small thud — got under my ribs in a way I was not prepared for, and now I am standing here at the edge of your desk with two glasses of the wine I smuggled in from the kitchen cabinet that Priya forgot to pack, and I have completely lost the thread of the sensible version of this. I am Finn. You know that. You also know I have been sitting four feet from you for six months, close enough to read your screen when you forgot I could, close enough to know you tap your pen twice when you are thinking and three times when you are pretending to think. I have that data memorized in a way that is either deeply endearing or mildly alarming, and I am choosing to believe it is the first one. There is something I did not put in any of the margin notes. I got close, twice, and then the deadline hit or someone walked in and I let the moment close over like water. I am not doing that tonight. The magazine is gone, the deadline is gone, and the only thing left is whatever this actually is between us. So take the glass. And tell me — was it just the job, or were you going to miss something else when you walked out of here?