The Arctic freeze on the fourteenth floor had officially melted, replaced by a localized climate that could only be described as “Tropical and Highly Combustible.”
It happened gradually over the next two weeks, a slow, undeniable thaw that fundamentally altered the ecosystem of Summit Strategies. It started with the coffee. On Monday morning, Ava arrived at her desk to find a half-caf, oat milk latte with a single pump of vanilla sitting next to her keyboard. There was no note, but Ethan caught her eye through the glass divider and offered a small, devastatingly casual salute.
By Wednesday, they were eating lunch together in the breakroom, arguing passionately about whether a hot dog technically qualified as a sandwich. (Ethan said yes; Ava threatened to report him to HR for culinary heresy).
By the following Monday, the banter had returned in full force. It was a rapid-fire, overlapping rhythm of inside jokes, industry gossip, and gentle teasing that left the rest of the strategy team feeling like they were watching a high-speed tennis match without a net.
“I’m just saying,” Ethan called out from his pod, not looking up from his laptop, “if we use the Helvetica Neue font for the app headers, we are basically telling the consumer that we have no joy in our hearts and we want them to suffer.”
“Helvetica Neue is clean, Ethan,” Ava shot back, tossing a crumpled-up sticky note over the glass divider. It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder. “It says ‘we are efficient and we respect your time.’ If you want joy, we can use Comic Sans and really lean into the chaos.”
“Don’t even joke about Comic Sans, Red. Julian will hear you and he’ll burn the building down.”
Ava smiled, turning back to her screen. The nickname didn’t make her flinch anymore. It made her stomach do a complicated, fluttery little gymnastics routine that she was aggressively trying to ignore.
Across the aisle, Sarah let out a loud, dramatic groan, dropping her head onto her desk with a solid thud.
“Are you okay?” Ava asked, rolling her chair backward to peer into Sarah’s pod.
“I am being psychologically tortured,” Sarah mumbled into her desk mat. She lifted her head, her dark eyes flashing with homicidal rage. She held up a piece of heavy-stock sketching paper. “Look at what he left on my chair.”
Ava leaned over to look. It was a beautiful, incredibly detailed charcoal sketch of Sarah. But instead of her usual polished, professional demeanor, Julian had drawn her wearing a Victorian mourning gown, clutching a clipboard to her chest, with a speech bubble that read: Alas, the kerning on this spreadsheet hath doomed us all.
Ava bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “It’s… very well rendered. The shading on the corset is exquisite.”
“He is a menace!” Sarah hissed, slamming the sketch face-down. “He spent the entire morning yesterday rearranging my highlighters so they were slightly out of rainbow order. Just slightly! Enough to make me think I was losing my mind. And when I confronted him, he just looked at me with those stupid, brooding eyes and told me I needed to ‘embrace the entropy.’”
“Sarah,” Ava said gently, resting her chin on her hand. “You are wearing the Ruby Woo lipstick.”
Sarah froze. “So?”
“You only wear the Mac Ruby Woo lipstick when you have a presentation, or when you know you’re going to run into your ex-boyfriend at a wedding,” Ava pointed out. “You do not wear it on a random Tuesday unless you are actively trying to look devastating.”
“I am trying to look intimidating,” Sarah corrected, her cheeks flushing a deep, furious pink. “I am going to war, Ava. You have to look good when you go to war.”
“Right. Of course.” Ava smiled. “Just let me know when the war involves making out in the supply closet, so I can clear my schedule.”
“I hate you,” Sarah grumbled, aggressively opening a spreadsheet. “And for the record, Lena updated the betting pool. You and Ethan are currently sitting at two-to-one odds for ‘Accidental Confession of Love at the Office Christmas Party.’”
Ava’s smile faltered slightly. The betting pool was a joke, but the underlying reality was terrifyingly accurate. She and Ethan were operating in a state of suspended animation. They were working together flawlessly, they were flirting constantly, but they hadn’t talked about the breakroom confession. They hadn’t talked about the fact that he was turning down the LA partnership for her.
They were standing on the edge of a cliff, holding hands, pretending they couldn’t see the drop.
“Reynolds. Hayes. My office. Now.”
Marcus Kline’s voice boomed across the bullpen, shattering the morning chatter.
Ava grabbed her notebook and walked toward the executive suite, meeting Ethan at the door. He smelled like sandalwood and fresh coffee, and he gave her a quick, reassuring smile before pushing the heavy glass door open.
Kline was standing behind his desk, staring out at the Chicago skyline. He turned around as they entered, chewing his nicotine gum with aggressive speed.
“The Bean & Leaf board moved the presentation up,” Kline announced without preamble. “They want to see the unified concept next Friday. Not in three weeks. Next Friday.”
Ava’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Marcus, that cuts our timeline in half. Julian is still finalizing the visual assets, and the app wireframes need to be stress-tested.”
“Then Julian works faster, and Ethan stress-tests in his sleep,” Kline said dismissively. “This is the big leagues, Ava. When the client says jump, we ask how high and what color parachute they prefer.”
“We can do it,” Ethan said smoothly, stepping forward. “The core narrative is locked. We just need to accelerate the assembly.”
“Good,” Kline grunted. “But before you assemble it, I need you to validate it. I want you two in the field today. Go to the flagship suburban location in Evanston. Sit there for three hours. Watch the customer flow. Watch the pain points. I want to make absolutely sure that our ‘Sanctuary and the Bouncer’ concept actually solves the reality on the ground, not just the theory on the whiteboard.”
“A site visit,” Ava said, nodding slowly. “Okay. We can head up there after lunch.”
“Go now,” Kline ordered, waving a hand toward the door. “Take the rest of the day. Expense your coffees. Just bring me back a bulletproof pitch by Monday.”
Ten minutes later, Ava found herself standing in the underground parking garage of the Summit building, watching Ethan unlock a sleek, black Audi sedan.
“Corporate rental?” Ava asked, sliding into the passenger seat. “Perk of the freelance contract,” Ethan said, getting into the driver’s
seat and starting the engine. The car purred to life, the interior smelling of expensive leather and new car polish. “I usually take the L, but I figured a site visit to the suburbs required some horsepower.”
He pulled out of the garage and merged seamlessly into the late-morning Chicago traffic, heading north toward Evanston.
The car ride was dangerously domestic. It was a bright, crisp autumn day, the kind of day where the sky is a piercing, impossible blue
and the leaves along Lake Shore Drive are burning with gold and crimson.
Ethan reached over and tapped the dashboard console. “You have auxiliary cord privileges. Don’t abuse them.”
Ava grinned, pulling out her phone and connecting it to the Bluetooth. “You’re going to regret that. I have been listening to a playlist called ‘Angry Women with Acoustic Guitars’ for the last three weeks.”
“I think I can handle some acoustic rage,” Ethan laughed, merging onto the highway.
She put on a Phoebe Bridgers album, and for the next forty minutes, they drove up the coast of Lake Michigan. They didn’t talk about the pitch, or the accelerated timeline, or the LA partnership. They talked about movies they had seen recently. They argued about whether deep-dish pizza was actually pizza or just a savory casserole. They fell into the easy, effortless rhythm of two people who knew exactly how to make each other laugh.
It felt like a date. It felt so much like a date that Ava had to keep reminding herself to look at the spreadsheets on her phone just to maintain a shred of professional deniability.
They arrived at the Bean & Leaf in Evanston just before noon.
It was exactly as depressing as Linda from the focus group had described.
The exterior was a faded, peeling green. Inside, the lighting was dim and slightly yellow. The armchairs in the corner looked like they had survived a minor war, their upholstery worn thin and stained. The line for the register stretched all the way to the door, a chaotic jumble of stressed-out college students, exhausted parents, and people staring blankly at their phones.
“Wow,” Ethan murmured, standing just inside the doorway. “It’s like a museum of sadness.”
“It’s a goldmine for our pitch,” Ava corrected, her strategic brain kicking into gear. “Look at the bottleneck at the register. The barista is
trying to take orders, heat up pastries, and answer questions about the Wi-Fi password all at the same time. The friction is palpable.”
“Go grab that booth in the back corner before the guy with the massive backpack takes it,” Ethan instructed, gently touching the small of her back to guide her forward. “I’ll get the coffees. What do you want?”
“I’ll take a-“
“Half-caf oat milk latte, one pump of vanilla,” Ethan interrupted, a knowing smile on his face. “And a blueberry scone. For Linda.”
Ava’s breath hitched. “You remembered.”
“I always remember your coffee order, Ava,” he said softly. “Go sit down. I’ll be right there.”
Ava navigated through the crowded store and slid into the cracked leather booth in the back corner. She pulled out her notebook and a pen, trying to focus on the customer flow. She watched a woman in a business suit abandon the line in frustration. She watched a teenager trip over a poorly placed display of travel mugs.
But mostly, she watched Ethan.
He was standing in line, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dark jeans. He was taller than almost everyone else in the store, his broad shoulders and effortless, rumpled charisma making him stand out like a movie star in a grocery store. He was chatting easily with the exhausted barista, offering a sympathetic smile that seemed to instantly lower the barista’s blood pressure.
He was so good. He was so inherently, fundamentally good at moving through the world.
Ten minutes later, Ethan slid into the booth across from her, setting two steaming cardboard cups and a paper bag on the table.
“The Wi-Fi password is ‘Bean123’, and the barista’s name is Josh, and he is currently reconsidering all of his life choices,” Ethan reported, taking a sip of his black coffee.
“Did you get his life story in ten minutes?” Ava laughed, pulling her latte toward her.
“I’m a very good listener,” Ethan said, his eyes locking onto hers. The noise of the crowded coffee shop seemed to fade into the background. They were sitting in a cracked leather booth in the suburbs, surrounded by stressed-out commuters, but it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
“So,” Ethan said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table. “We have three hours to observe the friction. But honestly, Ava, I think we nailed it on the whiteboard. The app solves the line. The new furniture solves the aesthetic. The loyalty program solves the dwell time.”
“We did nail it,” Ava agreed, taking a bite of the blueberry scone. It was surprisingly good. “But Marcus wants us to validate it. So, we validate.”
They spent the first hour taking meticulous notes. They mapped the foot traffic, timed the average transaction, and noted the exact moments where customers looked visibly frustrated.
But by the second hour, the conversation began to drift.
“So,” Ethan said, tracing the rim of his coffee cup. “Tell me what I missed.”
Ava looked up from her notebook. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I missed six years of your life,” Ethan said quietly. The banter was gone, replaced by a deep, sincere curiosity. “I know you got promoted. I know you adopted Pixel. But what else? Did you travel? Did you pick up any weird hobbies? Did you ever finish reading Infinite Jest?”
Ava smiled, a warm, nostalgic feeling blooming in her chest. “I absolutely did not finish Infinite Jest. I used it to prop up a wobbly bookshelf in my old apartment.”
Ethan laughed. “Good. That book is a trap.”
“I traveled a bit,” Ava continued, leaning back against the booth. “Sarah and I went to Italy two years ago. We drank too much wine
and I accidentally insulted a waiter in broken Italian. I took a pottery class and made a bowl that looked like a melted shoe. And… I grew up, Ethan. I figured out who I was when I wasn’t trying to fit into someone else’s plan.”
Ethan listened with absolute, undivided attention. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t try to make it about him. He just watched her, his eyes soft and incredibly fond.
“I missed a lot,” he murmured, a shadow of regret crossing his face. “You missed my bangs phase,” Ava offered, trying to lighten the
mood. “It was dark. I looked like a stressed-out French foreign exchange student.”
“I would have loved the bangs,” Ethan said immediately.
He reached across the table. Ava froze, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Ethan didn’t grab her hand. Instead, he reached up and gently brushed a stray crumb of blueberry scone from the corner of her mouth. His thumb lingered for a fraction of a second against her lower lip.
The touch was electric. It sent a shockwave of heat straight down Ava’s spine, pooling low in her stomach.
“You had a crumb,” Ethan whispered, his voice rough. He didn’t pull his hand back. He let his fingers trail down the line of her jaw, his knuckles brushing against her pulse point.
Ava couldn’t breathe. The air in the booth was suddenly thick and heavy, charged with six years of repressed longing and the terrifying, undeniable reality of the present moment.
“Ethan,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering shut at the contact.
“I know,” he murmured, his thumb stroking her jaw. “I know we’re supposed to be professional. I know I promised.”
“You’re doing a terrible job of keeping that promise,” Ava whispered, opening her eyes to look at him.
“I’m doing my best,” Ethan said, a self-deprecating smile touching his lips. He slowly, reluctantly pulled his hand back, resting it on the table between them. “But you’re making it very, very difficult, Red.”
They sat in the booth for another hour, the air between them vibrating with unspoken words. They finished their coffees. They packed up their notebooks.
When they walked back out to the Audi, the autumn sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky, casting long, golden shadows across the pavement.
The drive back to the city was quieter than the drive up. The easy banter had been replaced by a heavy, loaded silence. It wasn’t the hostile silence of their first week, and it wasn’t the exhausted silence of their all-nighter.
It was the silence of two people who were rapidly running out of reasons to stay apart.
Ava looked out the window at the Chicago skyline rising in the distance. The pitch was moved up. The pressure was on. And Ethan Hayes was sitting two feet away from her, turning down the biggest job of his life just for the chance to be near her.
Act II was fully underway. And Ava knew, with absolute certainty, that she was going to fall completely, hopelessly back in love with him before Friday.