Chapter 15 System Failure
Julian did not sleep.
Sleep was a biological necessity he typically managed with the same ruthless efficiency he applied to his inbox.
Eight hours. No more, no less. But the previous night, his meticulously calibrated internal systems had staged a full-blown mutiny.
Every time he closed his eyes, his brain, the traitor, replayed the scene at Leo’s apartment door on an infinite, high-definition loop.
The image of Leo’s art-filled, chaotic apartment.
The scent of rain and old books. The charged, impossible silence between them.
The way his own hand had lifted, seemingly of its own accord, possessed by a reckless desire to bridge the final few inches of space, to feel the warmth of Leo’s skin beneath his fingertips.
He’d spent hours analyzing the data. Conclusion: A momentary lapse in judgment brought on by atmospheric conditions and shared professional stress.
It was a neat, logical explanation that felt as flimsy as a paper umbrella in a hurricane.
His body wasn’t buying it. His pulse still quickened at the memory.
A low, persistent hum of awareness had taken up residence in his chest, a constant, low-grade distraction that had followed him from his perfectly ordered apartment to his perfectly ordered car and now into his perfectly ordered office.
This will not stand, he told himself, setting his briefcase down with a sharp, definitive click.
The office was still quiet, the Monday morning sun casting long, clean lines across the polished concrete floor.
It was his fortress of solitude, his sanctuary of logic.
Today, he would restore order. He would re-establish the professional boundaries that had been so catastrophically eroded.
He would be the boss. Leo Hayes would be the employee.
The brief, storm-induced anomaly was over.
It was a solid plan. It lasted exactly until 9:07 AM, the moment Leo Hayes walked through the main doors.
He was wearing a soft, sunshine-yellow sweater that was an affront to the office’s monochrome aesthetic, a pair of worn jeans, and a smile that could power a small city.
He was laughing at something Maya had said, his head thrown back, and the sound of it, warm and uninhibited, traveled across the open-plan office and seemed to detonate directly in Julian’s sternum.
Julian’s meticulously constructed resolve crumbled into dust.
He immediately buried his head in a quarterly report, pretending to be deeply absorbed in a chart about market penetration. Do not look up. You are a serious professional reviewing serious data. You are not a teenager with a crush. You are Julian Thorne.
“Morning, Julian!”
The cheerful greeting was a torpedo aimed directly at his carefully rebuilt defenses. He looked up, schooling his features into a mask of neutral professionalism. Leo was standing by his desk, holding a ridiculous, brightly colored mug that probably had a cat on it.
“Good morning, Mr. Hayes,” Julian replied, his tone overly formal, a clear attempt to put a professional-grade steel wall between them.
Leo’s smile didn’t falter. It widened. “Mr. Hayes? Wow, are we being formal today? Did I miss a memo about a royal visit?” He took a sip from his mug. It had a cartoon sloth on it, hanging from a branch under the words “Let’s Hang.” Julian felt a surge of irrational annoyance.
“I believe in maintaining a professional environment,” Julian said, his voice stiff.
“Right, right. Professionalism,” Leo said, his eyes sparkling with a mischief Julian was beginning to find both infuriating and magnetic. “Is that why your hair is doing that… interesting swoopy thing on the side today? It’s a very professional swoop.”
Julian’s hand flew to his hair reflexively. He’d styled it exactly as he did every other day. There was no swoop. He was being teased. By his employee. An employee he had every right to fire for gross insubordination, or at the very least, for owning a sloth mug.
But he didn’t. Instead, he heard himself say, “It is an intentional, asymmetrical design choice meant to optimize airflow.”
The words were out before his brain could stop them. Leo’s laugh, a bright, surprised bark of a sound, hit him again. And the most frustrating part? A reluctant smile was fighting its way onto Julian’s own face. He suppressed it with a Herculean effort.
This was not going according to plan. The banter was there. The glances—he could feel his eyes tracking Leo as he walked over to the Northwind team—were longer. His fortress had been breached, and the intruder was armed with a yellow sweater and terrible puns.
He spent the next hour trying, and spectacularly failing, to concentrate.
The numbers on his screen swam before his eyes.
His mind kept drifting, replaying their conversation, analyzing the subtle flirtation that now seemed to infuse every interaction they had.
He found himself staring over at the creative team’s corner, where Leo was once again conducting his chaotic symphony, his energy drawing everyone in.
This is untenable, Julian thought, his fingers drumming a frantic, silent rhythm on his desk. He needed to reassert control. He needed a reason, a logical, professional reason, to interact with Leo that would put him firmly back in the position of authority.
He scanned his to-do list. Review Northwind wireframes. Finalize budget. Sign off on… There it was. A minor query about the font licensing for a new web element Anya had designed. It was something he could have resolved in a ten-second Slack message. It was perfect.
He stood, straightened his tie, and began the long walk across the office. It felt less like a professional errand and more like the slow, deliberate march of a man heading toward his own doom. Each step was a conscious decision, a small betrayal of his own resolve.
You don’t need to do this in person, Thorne. This is inefficient.
But his legs kept moving.
When he reached the desk, Leo was hunched over his tablet, headphones on, humming softly to himself.
He was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t notice Julian standing there.
For a moment, Julian just watched him. He watched the way Leo’s brow furrowed in concentration, the way he chewed on his lower lip, the way a stray lock of brown hair fell across his forehead.
The urge to reach out and brush it away was so sudden and overwhelming that Julian had to physically clench his fists at his sides.
Finally, he cleared his throat.
Leo jumped, yanking his headphones off. “Jeez! You need to wear a bell or something.” He looked up at Julian, his eyes wide. “Hey. What’s up?”
“I have a query regarding the licensing for the Montserrat font variant Anya is proposing for the H2 headers,” Julian said, his voice coming out more formal than ever, a desperate overcorrection.
Leo blinked. “The… right. The font. You could have Slacked me.”
“I prefer face-to-face communication for matters of potential legal and financial impact,” Julian lied smoothly. Impressive. A truly first-class fabrication, Thorne. Give yourself a bonus.
“Right. Of course,” Leo said, turning to his monitor.
As he did, Julian’s gaze fell on a book lying on the corner of his desk.
It was a worn paperback, the spine creased from multiple readings.
The cover was a minimalist design, showing a single, stark tree with two different sets of leaves, one for each half.
The title was The Hidden Self, and the author was an obscure, almost cult-favorite writer named Elara Vance—an artist known for her lyrical, melancholic novels about identity, secrets, and the faces we show the world.
It was a book Julian had read in college, a book that had left a permanent, thoughtful mark on him.
“Is that Vance?” Julian asked, the question slipping out before he could stop it.
Leo’s eyes lit up with genuine, unadulterated pleasure. “You know Elara Vance? No one knows Elara Vance! I thought I was the only one.”
“Her prose is… precise,” Julian said, which was his highest form of praise.
“Precise? It’s devastating,” Leo countered passionately. “It’s like she can see directly into the most hidden parts of you and just… writes it all down. This one,” he tapped the cover, “is my favorite. The idea that we all have these secret lives, these hidden selves that no one ever gets to see.”
Julian’s throat went dry. The dramatic irony was a physical weight in the air. Here was Leo, the man living the biggest secret of all, praising a book about hidden selves. And here was Julian, the man who prided himself on seeing everything, feeling an undeniable connection to him over it.
“I… agree,” Julian managed.
The air between them shifted again, charged with this new, unexpected point of connection. It was more potent than the storm, more intimate than the shared secret about the cello. This was a shared language, a mutual appreciation for something that spoke to a deeper part of both of them.
Leo was smiling at him, a soft, open smile that was different from his usual cheerful grin.
It was a smile that reached his eyes, making them shine.
And Julian’s entire, carefully constructed system went into critical failure.
His resolve, his professionalism, his self-control—all of it just… blue-screened.
He was drowning in the warm brown of Leo’s eyes, completely and utterly lost.
“The font,” he croaked, grabbing onto the word like a life raft. “Anya needs the approval.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, it’s all cleared. Legal sent the confirmation this morning,” Leo said, his smile still lingering.
“Good,” Julian said, nodding dumbly. “Excellent.”
He turned and walked away, his movements stiff. He could feel Leo’s gaze on his back the entire way to his office. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t.
He shut the glass door behind him and leaned against it for a second, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He looked at his hands. They were unsteady.
He had walked over there to re-establish boundaries, to put Leo back in his box. Instead, he had discovered another piece of the puzzle, another reason why this chaotic, impossible man was slowly, methodically, and against all logic, beginning to feel like the only thing