“Morning, Sean.”
Greg. The IT guy with the calm voice, enormous hands, and ridiculously kind eyes. I haven’t even lifted my phone, and yet, here he is.
I turn in my chair. “Are you spying on me or something?”
He grins, that wide, toothy grin that shows off his tusks just enough to make my stomach do something strange. “Your network status light turned red. I’ve got a dashboard for that.”
“Of course you do,” I say.
He chuckles and crouches beside my desk, the floor creaking under his weight. The scent of citrus cleaner and cedar hits me like a low-voltage shock. He reaches past me to the back of the tower, and I get a close-up view of his beefy bicep.
“Loose cable,” he murmurs, plugging something back in. The monitor flickers along with my chest. “There we go.”
I open my mouth to thank him, but he’s already smiling like he knew it would work. “Try now.”
The login screen accepts my password instantly.
“…You have some kind of sixth sense, you know that?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Just intuition.”
And then he’s gone, rolling his cart down the hall,leaving behind a faint scent of freshness and a handful of candies on my desk.
By Wednesday, it’s a pattern.
Technology misbehaves, I think about calling IT, and Greg appears. Printer jam? He’s there. Software update that freezes halfway through? There before I can even restart. My desktop lags, and suddenly a large hand is reaching over my shoulder, tapping a key combination I didn’t know existed.
It’s… convenient. And unnerving.
Amara notices. Of course she does.
“Settling in okay?” she asks, leaning over my desk, a mischievous tilt to her head.
“Yup. Great,” I say, lying through my teeth.
“Mm-hmm,” she hums. “Seems you’ve got an admirer.”
I freeze mid-keystroke. “I do not.”
Her grin widens. “Uh-huh.” She taps her talons on the top of my monitor. “Anyway, Franklin mentioned he’s pleased with your progress so far, by the way. He said he’s impressed you’ve gotten the new workflow down already.”
Franklin—the boss. Pleased. That should be good. It is good. But somehow, it’s not the part of the news that has my stomach doing flips.
“Mm,” I mutter, nodding. Internally, I can’t stop thinking about Greg’s grin, the way he shows up before I even ask for help, the toothy smirk that makes me question every boundary I know I should set to keep this job.
“And,” she continues, leaning closer, voice droppingto a conspiratorial whisper, “I think your admirer might be enjoying the little grumbles you make when things go wrong.”
I snort. “I do not grumble.”
“Right. Totally not,” she says, eyes sparkling with amusement. “But he seems to like it anyway.”
And just like that, I’m blushing, trying to act professional, and completely aware that maybe—just maybe—the one employee I don’t expect to look forward to seeing is the one I can’t stop thinking about.
I don’t look up from my monitor. “If you’re talking about Greg, he’s just doing his job.”
She hums. “Doing it very thoroughly, if you ask me. I swear I saw him fix your mouse pad yesterday.”
“It was peeling.”
