Sacha had ignored the doughnuts out of a principle that hadn’t solidified yet, but it hadn’t surprised him to learn that Jonah’s generosity was a weekly occurrence. He had kind eyes that didn’t belong in the cut-throat world of corporate advertising.
Does he, though? Or is this the version of him you’ve created in your own head? You hardly know this man.
But Sacha wanted to. Which made the odd pact they’d come to last week all the more complex to swallow. Sacha rarely met anyone he wanted to talk to as much as he wanted to fuck them. And it was even rarer that he wanted to fuck someone more than once. He possessed a scant attention span when it came to peopling because people were boring. Vacuous. Dull. It irritated him that Jonah Gray was anything but.
I don’t have time for this. Especially not if he was committing to the extra work of recoding the weakest parts of the website supporting the cursed fitness app, but regardless of Sacha’s feelings on personal relationships, he liked a challenge. No.Loveda challenge, and this was one he couldn’t resist.
The day dragged on. Sacha’s offer to recode the website was approved at a tense management meeting, but even if he worked day and night, there was still no guarantee the website would hold. And Sacha had no intention of working day and night. He had an auburn-haired friend with benefits he wanted to reconnect with before he began to wonder if their encounter last week had been an empty promise.
They hadn’t spoken since. It wasn’t deliberate, but they’d stumbled out of the building that night too dazed to exchange numbers, and they hadn’t crossed paths in person.So? Go into his office and shut the fucking door. Or ask him what he’s doing tonight.
But Sacha did neither. He stayed where he was, huddled in the corner of Blutecc’s office space with the few employees he could tolerate without throwing things, and worked like a dog until even Helga deserted him.
“Go home,” she said. “It’s only Monday.”
“What does that matter?”
“You have the whole week ahead of you. There’s no point exhausting yourself now.”
Sacha rolled his eyes. “I am not exhausted. But you go. I will see you tomorrow.”
“Are you sure? I can stay if you—”
“Go,” Sacha insisted. “I cannot talk when I’m coding anyway so it would be boring for you to stay.”
Helga fetched him more coffee then left. Sacha inhaled the strong black brew, and got up to pour himself some more. It was his sixth cup of the day, something he’d pay for if he wasn’t careful, but he needed the stimulation to keep his heavy eyes sharp. Despite everything he’d told Helga, he was aware of his lack of superpowers.
It was late by the time a warning flicker passed through his vision. A flash of pain that would need a bulldozer to stop it if Sacha didn’t catch it in time.
He opened the desk drawer he’d claimed as his own and found the pill bottle stashed at the back. It was nearly empty. He popped two and made a mental note to refill his prescription, then dropped the bottle back into the drawer.
The temptation to keep working was strong, but Sacha knew himself well enough to know he at least needed the break of his journey home. He shut his laptop down and packed it into his bag. His coat was on the other side of the office for reasons he couldn’t quite remember.
He retrieved it. Jonah’s box of doughnuts was by the water cooler. Sacha strode past with every intention of heading straight for the lifts, but, of course, as it had done all day long, a mere glimpse of Jonah’s hair threw his entire brain off course.
Sacha was at Jonah’s office door before he could stop to make sense of what he was doing. “Midnight oil, yes? That’s how you say it?”
Jonah glanced up from his computer. His hair was a riot and he looked as tired as Sacha felt. “Something like that. Why are you still here?”
“Why are you?”
“My team wrote a terrible pitch for an important summit tomorrow. I have to redo it or we’re going to crash and burn.”
Sacha nodded. It was a scenario he knew well, though the context was different to his own work. “How far have you got?”
“About halfway. It’s going to take me all night, but I need to take it home so I can eat and shower.”
“So take it home.”
“I’m going to. I’m waiting for it to transfer to the cloud so I can access it remotely.”
“What are you going to eat?”
The first flickers of Jonah’s smile warmed his lovely face. “I don’t know. Whatever’s at the top of my delivery account, I suppose. I don’t have time for anything else. What about you? Why are you still here? Or did you tell me already and I’m too scatty right now to remember?”
“I did not tell you, but it is the same. I must do something no one else can do in a short space of time.”
“How long?”