Ava Reynolds was wearing sunglasses indoors.
They were oversized, tortoiseshell Celine frames that covered roughly forty percent of her face, and she had absolutely no intention of taking them off until at least noon. She sat at her desk, aggressively typing an email to the media buying team, hoping that if she looked unapproachable enough, the rest of the bullpen would leave her alone.
It was a futile hope.
“Are you hungover, or did you cry?” Sarah asked, rolling her desk chair across the aisle and crashing it gently into Ava’s filing cabinet.
“I am protecting my retinas from the aggressive fluorescent lighting,” Ava said, not looking away from her monitor. “And for the record, I am neither hungover nor crying. I am a bastion of professional stability.”
“You’re wearing sunglasses at nine in the morning on a Thursday, Ava. You look like a celebrity trying to sneak out of a rehab facility.” Sarah leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did something happen last night? You and Ethan were in Conference Room B until midnight. Tyler said he saw you leave, and you were walking really fast.”
“Tyler needs to focus on his spreadsheets and stop monitoring my exit velocity,” Ava snapped, hitting Send with a little too much force. She finally turned to look at her best friend, sliding the sunglasses down the bridge of her nose just enough to make eye contact. “We cracked the pitch. That’s all. We found a unified concept that blends the tech with the in-store experience. It’s brilliant, actually.”
“Uh-huh,” Sarah said, her eyes narrowing. “And did this ‘brilliant concept’ involve any heavy breathing? Any lingering touches over the dry-erase markers? Any confessions of undying love?”
“No,” Ava lied smoothly. “It involved cold Pad Thai and a very dry discussion about user interface flow.”
“You are such a liar,” Sarah said cheerfully. “You just tucked your hair behind your ear. Twice.”
Ava froze, her hand hovering near her left ear. A fresh wave of heat rushed to her cheeks as Ethan’s voice echoed in her head from the escape room. It’s your tell.
“I hate everyone in this office,” Ava muttered, pushing the sunglasses back up her nose.
Before Sarah could interrogate her further, Marcus Kline’s voice boomed across the bullpen. “Listen up, people! Ten minutes in the Thunderdome. We have a campaign to review and a new team member to introduce.”
Ava let out a long exhale, grabbing her notebook. “Saved by the bell.”
“I’m not done with you,” Sarah warned, standing up and smoothing her perfectly tailored pink blazer. “I will extract the truth from you, Reynolds. I have ways of making you talk. Mostly involving wine and cheese, but still.”
The team filed into Conference Room B. Ava took her usual seat at the head of the table. A moment later, Ethan walked in.
He looked devastatingly rested. The scruff from last night was gone, replaced by a clean shave, and he was wearing a crisp white button-down that fit him with offensive perfection. He caught Ava’s eye as he walked toward his chair. He didn’t smile, but the look he gave her was heavy, loaded with the unspoken weight of last night’s near-miss.
Ava looked down at her notebook, her heart doing a complicated little flip. Professional stability, she reminded herself. Bastion of professional stability.
“Alright,” Kline said, taking his seat near the window. “I reviewed the unified concept Ava and Ethan sent over at 1:00 a.m. The ‘Sanctuary and the Bouncer’ model.” Kline paused, looking around the room. He chewed his nicotine gum slowly. “It’s a home run. It’s exactly what
the Bean & Leaf board is looking for. It modernizes the brand without alienating the core demographic.”
A collective sigh of relief rippled through the room. Tyler the Intern actually pumped his fist.
“Great work, both of you,” Kline continued. “Ethan, the app integration is seamless.”
“The core narrative was Ava’s,” Ethan said immediately, his voice carrying effortlessly across the room. He looked directly at Kline, refusing to take the credit. “I just built the logistics around it. The emotional hook-the idea of protecting the sanctuary-that was all her.”
Ava’s head snapped up. She stared at Ethan, completely caught off guard. In the advertising world, credit was currency. You didn’t just hand it away, especially not in front of the CEO. But Ethan was looking at her with that same expression of deep, sincere professional respect he had shown at the dive bar.
“Well, it’s a brilliant collaboration,” Kline said, oblivious to the heavy, charged silence stretching between his two leads. “Which brings me to my next point. Now that we have the strategy locked, we need to execute the visual rollout. The logo redesign, the app interface, the in-store aesthetic. Lena’s team is swamped with the tech account, so I brought in a freelance Art Director to spearhead the Bean & Leaf visuals.”
Kline gestured toward the glass door of the conference room.
“Come on in.”
The door opened.
Ava didn’t immediately recognize the man who walked in. He was tall, wearing a faded black denim jacket over a plain grey t-shirt. He had a mess of dark, curly hair and a sharp, angular jawline.
But the moment he stepped fully into the room, revealing the intricate black-and-grey tattoos running down his forearms, a loud, strangled gasp echoed from the other side of the table.
Ava turned her head. Sarah was staring at the doorway, her eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated horror. All the color had drained from her face.
“Everyone, meet Julian Vance,” Kline announced. “He’s one of the best freelance Art Directors in the city. He’s going to be working closely with Sarah to translate the strategy into the visual identity.”
Julian Vance stood at the front of the room, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his dark jeans. He scanned the table, his expression entirely deadpan. When his eyes landed on Sarah, a slow, infuriating smirk spread across his face.
“Nice to meet you all,” Julian said. His voice was deep, with a slight, gravelly edge to it. He looked directly at Sarah. “I’m looking forward to the collaboration. I hear the strategy team is very… organized.”
Sarah looked like she was going to spontaneously combust. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “You,” she finally managed to squeak out. “You’re the lumberjack from O’Malley’s.”
Julian raised a single, dark eyebrow. “Lumberjack? I prefer ‘pretentious, brooding menace,’ actually. I believe those were your exact words.”
Tyler the Intern gasped loudly, his hands flying to his mouth. Lena buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
Kline frowned, looking back and forth between them. “You two know each other?”
“We met briefly,” Julian said smoothly, pulling out the empty chair next to Sarah and sitting down. He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “We had a spirited debate about the cultural significance of Norwegian death metal versus pop music.”
“He insulted my Chappell Roan,” Sarah hissed to Kline, as if this were a fireable offense. “Marcus, you cannot hire him. He is a musical terrorist.”
“I don’t care if he listens to Gregorian chants while he works, Sarah,” Kline said gruffly. “His portfolio is flawless. He’s leading the visual team. You’re his strategy liaison. Figure it out.”
Sarah stared at Kline, betrayed. She slowly turned her head to look at Julian, who was sitting entirely too close to her.
“I am going to make your life a living hell,” Sarah whispered, her voice vibrating with rage.
“I look forward to it,” Julian replied, his voice a low, calm drawl that seemed perfectly designed to drive her insane. “Should we start by color-coding my markers, or do you want to alphabetize my sketchbooks first?”
Sarah let out a sound that was half-growl, half-whimper, and aggressively opened her laptop, typing with enough force to crack the keyboard.
Ava watched the exchange with a mixture of amusement and deep concern for her best friend’s blood pressure. She glanced across the table to see if Ethan was catching any of this.
He was. Ethan was leaning back in his chair, watching Sarah and Julian with a highly entertained smirk. As if sensing Ava’s gaze, he shifted his attention to her. The smirk softened into a small, private smile meant only for her.
He reached up and slowly, deliberately, rolled the sleeve of his white button-down up to his elbow, exposing his forearm and the vintage watch.
Ava’s brain short-circuited. She forgot entirely about Sarah, Julian, and the Bean & Leaf campaign. She stared at Ethan’s forearm, her mouth suddenly dry. It was a completely unfair move. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“Alright, let’s get into the timeline,” Kline said, clapping his hands. “Julian, I want to see initial logo mockups by Tuesday. Ethan, Ava, I want the app wireframes finalized by Wednesday. We pitch the unified concept to the Bean & Leaf board in three weeks.”
The rest of the meeting was a blur of dates and deliverables. Ava nodded at the appropriate times, but her focus was entirely shot. Every time she tried to concentrate on Kline’s timeline, Ethan would shift in his chair, or tap his pen against his notebook, or catch her eye with that same, devastatingly knowing look.
When Kline finally dismissed them, Sarah practically sprinted out of the conference room, leaving a trail of furious pink energy in her wake. Julian followed at a much slower, more leisurely pace, looking entirely unbothered.
Ava stayed behind to gather her notes, taking her time. She needed a minute to compose herself before she went back out into the bullpen.
“Hey.”
Ava looked up. Ethan was standing on the other side of the mahogany table. The room was empty now, just the two of them and the lingering smell of dry-erase markers.
“Hey,” Ava said, her voice a little breathless.
“About last night,” Ethan started, his tone shifting back to the quiet, serious register from the empty office.
“Ethan, we don’t need to-“
“I do,” he interrupted gently. He walked around the table, stopping a polite, professional distance away from her. “I crossed a line. I pushed too hard, and I used a nickname I didn’t have the right to use anymore. I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable here.”
Ava looked at him. He was giving her an out. He was offering to rebuild the professional wall between them, to pretend that the heavy, charged moments of the last few days hadn’t happened. It was the right thing to do. It was the safe thing to do.
“Thank you,” Ava said softly. “I appreciate that.”
“We’re a good team, Ava,” Ethan said, his eyes searching hers. “I want to make this work. The campaign, I mean.”
“Me too.” Ava clutched her notebook to her chest like a shield. “And… thank you. For giving me the credit in front of Kline today. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t give you anything,” Ethan corrected, a fierce sincerity in his voice. “You earned it. It was your idea. I’m just the guy building the app.”
He offered her a small, tentative smile. It wasn’t the charismatic smirk of the LA hotshot, and it wasn’t the heavy, loaded look of the ex-boyfriend. It was a genuine, professional olive branch.
Ava smiled back, the tight knot of anxiety in her chest loosening just a fraction. “It’s a very nice app.”
“It’s frictionless,” Ethan joked, taking a step back toward the door. “I’ll send you the updated wireframes this afternoon. We can review them over email. Keep it simple.”
“Sounds good.”
Ethan nodded, turning and walking out of the conference room. Ava watched him go, letting out a long, shaky exhale. They had established a truce. A safe, professional boundary. They were going to focus on the work, keep their distance, and get through the next six months without destroying each other.
It was a great plan. It was a mature, adult plan.
Ava walked out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. Sarah was sitting at her desk, aggressively stabbing a stress ball with a pen while glaring across the room at Julian, who was calmly sketching in a notebook, completely ignoring her.
Ava sat down at her desk, pulling up her email. She looked across the bullpen. Ethan was at his temporary desk, his sleeves still rolled up, typing rapidly on his laptop.
He looked up, catching her eye through the glass dividers. He didn’t smile, but the air between them instantly thickened, the professional boundary they had just established dissolving into absolute nothingness.
Ava swallowed hard, looking back at her screen. It was a great plan.
It was also, she realized with a sinking feeling of absolute certainty, completely doomed to fail.