Ava Reynolds stabbed the elevator button for the fourteenth floor with the kind of targeted aggression usually reserved for reply-all emails and men who try to explain her own marketing strategies to her.
Monday mornings at Summit Strategies were already a special circle of corporate hell—a chaotic symphony of last-minute deck revisions, passive-aggressive Slack messages, and Marcus Kline's inevitable "let's circle back" meetings. But today felt heavier. The air in the lobby of the Chicago high-rise was thick with impending doom.
She blamed the weather, which was currently doing that mid-October Chicago thing where it couldn't decide between a crisp autumn breeze and a torrential, soul-crushing downpour. Or perhaps she blamed the fact that she'd stress-baked four dozen lemon-poppy-seed muffins at 2:00 a.m. Or possibly the rescue beagle currently snoring on her West Elm sofa who had decided that 4:00 a.m. zoomies were a nonnegotiable part of his wellness routine.
"Come on," she muttered to the brushed steel doors, watching her own exhausted reflection. "I have a pitch to save and a caffeine deficit that is bordering on a medical emergency."
The doors slid open with a polite ding, spilling her out into the familiar, buzzing chaos of the agency. Phones were ringing, keyboards were clacking at the speed of panic, and the faint, tragic smell of burnt breakroom coffee hung in the air.
Ava's desk sat in the exact center of the open-plan bullpen. It was less a workspace and more a command center. It boasted three monitors, a color-coded sticky note system that only she understood, and a framed photo of her beagle, Pixel, wearing tiny aviator sunglasses—a birthday gift from her best friend and junior strategist, Sarah Patel.
"Morning, boss lady," Sarah sang from the adjacent pod. She was already halfway through a plastic cup of iced coffee roughly the size of a toddler. She peered over the frosted glass divider, her dark eyes scanning Ava with clinical precision. "You look like you fought a raccoon in a Zara outlet and lost. Are those the 'I'm spiraling' muffins in that Tupperware?"
"Four dozen. And don't judge me," Ava said, dropping her oversized leather tote onto her chair and powering on her screens. "The glaze is perfect. It's the only thing in my life I have absolute control over."
"I'm not judging, I'm rejoicing. Your emotional instability is the only reason I don't have scurvy." Sarah reached over and snatched a muffin from the container. She took a bite and groaned happily. "Oh my god. You were really spiraling. These are your best yet. What's the crisis? Is it the Bean & Leaf account?"
Ava sighed, rubbing her temples. Bean & Leaf was a national coffee chain that had dominated the nineties but was currently hemorrhaging market share to Gen Z matcha pop-ups and places that served coffee in hollowed-out avocados. Summit Strategies had won the pitch to rebrand them, and Marcus Kline had put Ava in charge of the strategy. It was the biggest account of her career. It was the account that would finally secure her the VP promotion she'd been bleeding for.
"Kline is bringing in a freelance creative consultant today," Ava said, pulling up her inbox. "Apparently, my strategy needs 'fresh eyes.' Which is corporate speak for 'we don't trust the thirty-one-year-old woman to close a fifty-million-dollar account without adult supervision.'"
Sarah waved her half-eaten muffin dismissively. "Oh, I heard about this guy. The rumor mill on the ninth floor is working overtime. Apparently, he's some hotshot from Los Angeles. He's the guy who turned around that failing athletic-wear campaign last year. You know, the one with the dancing socks?"
Ava's stomach did a tiny, uncomfortable flip that she immediately blamed on the elevator ride. "Great. Another West Coast ego with a portfolio full of viral gimmicks and a wardrobe consisting entirely of three-hundred-dollar plain white t-shirts. Just what we need. I give it three days before he tries to tell me that Bean & Leaf needs to pivot to the metaverse."
"I heard he's gorgeous," Sarah added helpfully. "Like, 'ruin your life and leave you crying to Taylor Swift in your car' gorgeous."
"I don't care if he looks like a young Paul Newman," Ava snapped, typing a rapid-fire response to a panicked copywriter. "I care if he can understand that Bean & Leaf's core demographic wants nostalgia and comfort, not a TikTok dance challenge. I am not letting some LA hired gun derail my promotion."
She was halfway through answering her seventeenth email when the ambient noise of the bullpen suddenly shifted. It wasn't a silence, exactly, but a collective intake of breath. A ripple of whispers moved through the pods like a wave hitting a shoreline.
Ava looked up just as Marcus Kline, the agency's gruff, silver-haired CEO, strode out of the glass-walled executive conference room. He was clapping his hands, a gesture that usually meant someone was either getting fired or they had just won a Clio.
"Team! Gather up, gather up," Kline boomed, his voice carrying over the low hum of the HVAC system. "I want you all to meet the secret weapon who's going to help us crush the Bean & Leaf rebrand. He's only here for six months, but trust me—he's worth every penny."
Ava stood up, smoothing the front of her oversized blazer, ready to plaster on her most convincing, professional "I am thrilled to collaborate" smile.
Then the new consultant stepped out from behind Kline.
Time did that stupid, cliché, slow-motion thing that Ava had previously assumed was just lazy screenwriting. The ambient noise of the office faded into a dull, underwater roar. The air in her lungs simply vanished.
Ethan Hayes.
Six years had changed him, but not enough. He still had the same messy, dark hair that looked like he'd just run his hands through it in frustration. He still had the same easy, broad-shouldered posture. He was wearing a rumpled, perfectly tailored navy button-down, and as he shifted his weight, the fluorescent office lights caught the glint of silver on his left wrist.
It was a vintage 1970s Omega watch. The exact watch she had bought him at an estate sale when they were twenty-four, broke, and eating ramen on the floor of his terrible studio apartment—the watch she had finally given him a year later, the night he told her he was taking the LA job. The night everything ended.
He scanned the room with that familiar, devastating half-smile—the one that used to make her forget her own name, the one that had charmed his way out of parking tickets and into her bed.
When his gaze finally landed on her, the smile faltered. It was a microscopic break in his composure, a fraction of a second where the charismatic LA hotshot vanished and the boy who had broken her heart stared back at her. Then, just as quickly, he recovered. The professional mask snapped flawlessly into place.
Kline was still talking, oblivious to the fact that the air pressure in the room had just fundamentally altered. "Ethan Hayes, everyone. He'll be co-leading the Bean & Leaf campaign with Ava Reynolds. They'll be attached at the hip for the next six months, so play nice."
Attached at the hip.
Ava felt Sarah's elbow dig sharply into her ribs. "Ava," Sarah whispered, her voice tight with sudden alarm. "You okay? You just went the exact color of a peeled hard-boiled egg."
"I'm fine," Ava lied through gritted teeth. Her hands were shaking. She shoved them deep into the pockets of her trousers. She hated that they were shaking. She was thirty-one years old. She was a lead strategist. She did not shake over men who had chosen corner offices over her.
Ethan was already moving through the bullpen, shaking hands, exchanging the usual slick pleasantries with the creative team. He was saving her for last. Of course he was.
When he finally reached her desk, the space between them felt charged, the kind of quiet that comes right before something breaks. Up close, she could see the faint, new lines at the corners of his eyes. He smelled exactly the same—a maddening mix of clean laundry, coffee, and that stupidly expensive sandalwood cologne he'd worn since college.
"Ava," he said quietly. His voice was exactly as she remembered it—warm, a little rough around the edges, and entirely too intimate for a brightly lit office. "It's… really good to see you."
She managed a stiff, jerky nod. "Ethan. Welcome back to Chicago."
He looked at her, really looked at her, his eyes dropping for a fraction of a second to her mouth before snapping back up to her eyes. "You look exactly the same."
"And you look like you're about to tell me about your cryptocurrency portfolio," she shot back, the defense mechanism kicking in before she could stop it.
A genuine, surprised laugh escaped him. "God, I missed that."
"Don't," she warned, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
Kline clapped Ethan on the back, nearly knocking him forward. "Ava's our best, Ethan. You two are going to make magic. First brainstorm in fifteen minutes—Conference Room B. Don't be late."
The second Kline walked away, Sarah materialized beside Ava like a highly caffeinated ninja. "Okay, what the actual hell? That's the Ethan? The Ethan who—"
"Not here," Ava hissed, grabbing her battered leather notebook and a pen. "I cannot do this here."
Ethan lingered for half a second, the rest of the office already returning to their desks. "Ava, can we… talk? Before the meeting? Just five minutes."
She met his eyes and saw the same heavy, complicated regret she'd spent six years trying to bury under pitch decks and promotion tracks.
"We have a fifty-million-dollar campaign to save, Ethan. Let's keep it professional."
He nodded once, his jaw tightening. "Understood."
The next fifteen minutes were a blur of panic. Ava hid in a bathroom stall, taking deep, shuddering breaths and giving herself a pep talk that consisted mostly of calling herself an idiot. By the time she walked into Conference Room B, it was already full.
She took her usual seat at the head of the long oak table. Ethan slid into the chair directly across from her, because of course he did. Tyler the Intern, a twenty-four-year-old golden retriever of a human being, immediately spilled his aluminum water bottle all over the table, creating a slapstick distraction that Ava was secretly, profoundly grateful for.
Once the water was mopped up, Ethan launched into his vision for the campaign. He was brilliant. Damn him, he was so brilliant. He pitched a concept that was warm, nostalgic, and just a little irreverent. He knew exactly how to read a room, how to lean forward, how to make everyone feel like they were part of a secret club.
When he finished, he glanced across the table at Ava for input. Their eyes locked, and for one dangerous heartbeat, neither of them looked away.
She cleared her throat, forcing her brain to reboot. "I like the nostalgia angle," she said, her voice remarkably steady. "But we need to lean harder into the 'third place' concept. Bean & Leaf isn't just about the coffee. It's where people go to escape their real lives. It's the place between work and home. Let's give them a brand that feels like coming home."
Ethan's smile was small, private, and entirely genuine. "That's perfect. You always did know how to find the heart of the brief."
The compliment landed like a paper cut—sharp, sudden, and stinging. Under the table, Sarah kicked Ava in the shin.
By the time the meeting ended, the whiteboard was covered in colorful notes and the creative team was buzzing with actual enthusiasm.
Ava gathered her things quickly, desperate to escape to the safety of her desk, but Ethan caught her in the hallway.
"Ava, wait."
She turned, crossing her arms over her chest like a shield. "We have six months of this, Ethan. I'd rather not rehash ancient history in front of the entire strategy department."
"I'm not asking to rehash." He ran a hand through his hair—the exact same nervous gesture he used to make when he was trying to explain a bad grade in college. "I just… I didn't know you still worked here. If I had known, I might have—"
"Might have what? Declined the biggest payday of your career?" She laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Please. We both know how that conversation goes. You always choose the job."
He flinched as if she'd struck him. "I deserved that."
"Yes. You did."
The elevator dinged behind them. Sarah poked her head out of the breakroom, holding two fresh coffees like a peace offering. "Breakroom. Now. Both of you. Tyler just tried to microwave a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito and the fire alarm is about to go off. It's the perfect distraction."
Ethan looked at Ava, a silent, pleading question in his eyes.
She sighed, the fight draining out of her. She took the coffee Sarah offered and muttered, "Fine. Five minutes. But if you say the word 'closure,' I will throw this iced latte directly at your face."
They ended up in the breakroom just as the fire alarm started its piercing, rhythmic chirp. Tyler was standing on a chair, frantically waving a dish towel at the smoke detector while Lena, the no-nonsense Head of Creative, yelled at him in rapid-fire Spanish. It was chaos. Perfect, ridiculous, Summit Strategies chaos.
Ethan leaned against the counter beside Ava, close enough that she could feel the ambient heat radiating from his arm. He looked at the Tupperware container on the counter.
"Still stress-baking?" he asked softly over the blare of the alarm.
"Still wearing the watch?" she countered, not looking at him.
He reached over with his right hand and touched the worn leather band on his left wrist. "Never took it off."
The alarm finally stopped, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. In the sudden quiet, Ava could hear her own heartbeat, loud and frantic. Six years of carefully built walls, of promotions and independence and moving on, suddenly felt thinner than she wanted to admit. Ethan was standing two feet away, looking at her like she was still the girl who used to steal his hoodies and argue about movie endings at 3:00 a.m.
Sarah appeared in the doorway again, her eyes dancing with absolute glee. "You two look like you're about to either solve world peace or murder each other. Either way, the team-building exercise is tomorrow at noon. Mandatory. And I already signed you both up as partners."
Ethan's eyebrows shot up. "Team-building?"
Ava groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "Sarah, I swear to God, I will fire you."
"You can't fire me. I'm union." Sarah grinned. "Besides, nothing says 'professional collaboration' like being locked in an escape room together trying to find a fake key while your unresolved sexual tension sets off the motion sensors."
Ethan laughed—a real, surprised, chest-deep laugh that made something warm settle in the center of Ava's chest. He glanced at her, his eyes soft and crinkling at the corners. "Guess we're doing this."