15. Sixteen Tons
Sixteen Tons
A lex and Kellan were deep in conversation…
the kind that rendered time meaningless.
The surface of Alex’s desk was covered in notes and printouts, stickie notes poking out in every direction.
Kellan’s laptop sat open between them, its screen glowing faintly in the soft light of the office.
Alex leaned forward, pen in hand, scribbling notes in the margin of a spreadsheet as Kellan pointed to something on the screen.
“So if we can lock Jensen Productions first,” Kellan murmured, scrolling through the data, “that could set the precedent for the others. They already want to move their social media strategy in-house, and if we package it right—”
“They’ll jump at the chance,” Alex finished, their eyes focused on the highlighted info. “Exactly. And if they commit, it gives us leverage when we pitch to the others.”
They had found their rhythm. A shorthand developing with ideas bouncing between them where one would start, the other easily picking it up.
It wasn’t that they were ignoring the outside world…
they had simply tuned it out. The clicking of keyboards, the ring of phones, even the low hum of conversation that usually filled the space had all faded into background noise.
Except… now there was no noise at all.
It wasn’t until Alex reached for their water bottle and glanced at the clock that the quiet registered.
The hour was later than they’d realized.
Most of the lights in the open office had been dimmed, the workstations outside their glass walls, empty.
The others had packed up and gone home without so much as a goodbye.
Except one. Cassie.
She had her messenger bag slung over her shoulder, her phone in hand as she headed toward the elevator.
Her steps were steady, deliberate, until something made her glance toward Alex’s office.
She slowed as her gaze landed on the two of them through the glass.
Heads bent close together, focused, animated.
They were clearly working on something important. Something intense.
Something Kellan hadn’t mentioned.
Cassie’s lips pressed into a thin line. Kellan never stayed late.
Correction, Kellan never worked late. Not unless it was a client emergency.
And Alex? Cassie had made it a point not to care what they were doing, especially not after hours.
But seeing the two of them like that—shoulders almost touching, the intensity of their focus—it stirred something bitter and restless in her chest.
Her steps faltered for just a beat before she caught herself.
She tucked her phone into the pocket of the jeans, squared her shoulders, and kept walking…
calm, unbothered, like nothing was out of the ordinary.
Whatever they were working on, she would find out soon enough.
And if they were keeping her out of the loop? She’d deal with that, too .
Inside the office, Kellan caught the movement from the corner of their eye… a flash of auburn hair, the slight pause. Their breath hitched, and they glanced toward the hall. Their posture shifted, just slightly, shoulders stiffening, hand pausing on the trackpad.
Alex noticed immediately. “What?”
Kellan blinked, snapping back to the moment. They cleared their throat, eyes darting back to the spreadsheet. “Nothing. Just thought I saw a ghost.”
Alex raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Kellan said quickly. “All good.”
Alex held their gaze for a moment longer, then shook their head with a small huff of amusement. “Alright. Let’s wrap this up before we end up sleeping at the office.”
Kellan nodded absently, but as they gathered their things, their mind wasn’t on the proposal anymore. It was on Cassie and the way she’d looked at them before walking away. She was definitely going to ask questions.
***
The next couple of weeks passed in a blur of late nights, hushed conversations, and stolen glances across the office.
Alex and Kellan met regularly, usually at the same cozy cafe or sometimes in Kellan’s apartment, sifting through spreadsheets, refining their proposal, and making lists of which clients to approach first. Kellan, still nervous about Cassie finding out, kept checking over their shoulder, but Alex’s unshakable enthusiasm kept them focused.
The more they worked on the plan, the more Kellan believed it could actually succeed .
By the second week, they had started putting out feelers to Kellan’s clients.
Cautiously at first. The responses were promising.
More than a few clients had been waiting for The Sharpe Agency to offer these services so they could consolidate all their creative needs under one roof.
Alex and Kellan recorded the interest carefully, lining up everything they would need to make the strongest possible case to corporate.
Meanwhile, Cassie was noticing.
Every time she saw Alex and Kellan in deep discussion, sometimes in Alex’s office, sometimes tucked away in the corner of the conference room, her frustration grew.
Kellan had always been her person. The one who understood her sarcasm without explanation, who could talk her down from a ledge with a single raised eyebrow, who had stuck by her through every late night and last-minute client panic.
They’d built something together. Not just a friendship, but a partnership forged in fire and pitch decks.
Now, watching Kellan lean into Alex’s shoulder, laughing at something she couldn’t hear, Cassie felt something coil tightly in her stomach.
It wasn’t just jealousy. It was displacement.
She wasn’t sure if she was more upset with Kellan for adapting so easily…
or with Alex, for slipping into the space Cassie had once occupied without seeming to even try.
The Monday and Thursday staff meetings offered no relief.
If anything, they only made it worse. The air in the room always seemed charged, like static before a storm.
Alex led with calm precision, unfazed and polished, while Cassie kept her tone clipped and her gaze impersonal.
Every exchange was pointedly professional.
Neither of them acknowledged the undercurrent. They didn’t have to. Everyone in the room could feel it. But no one said a word.
Hockey was supposed to be her outlet. Her release.
The one place she could let everything go.
But even there, the edges had started to blur.
Tuesdays and Saturdays still belonged to the rink.
Cassie played her games, bruised and breathless and sharp around the corners.
Alex played theirs. Never against her, not yet. But close enough.
Too close.
At first, Cassie chalked it up to coincidence.
There were only so many teams, after all.
Only so many time slots. But soon the pattern became impossible to ignore.
If Alex played first, they lingered after their game, somehow always in the stands by the time Cassie hit the ice.
If they played later, they arrived early… just early enough to catch hers.
Cassie never saw them walking in or out. They never approached. But she could hear them. Their voice, clear and unmistakable, cut through the noise whenever she scored. No one else cheered like that. Not for her.
And still, when she skated off the ice, heart pounding and sweat dripping down her neck, she never saw them. Alex always seemed to vanish, slipping away unseen.
It shouldn’t have mattered. That’s what she kept telling herself.
She didn’t need Alex’s approval. Didn’t crave it.
Didn’t even want it. But every time her eyes swept the bleachers, every time she spotted an empty seat where they might have been, Cassie felt the sting.
A quiet ache she wasn’t sure she wanted to acknowledge, Now. Or ever.
And that was the problem.