It started as a joke. You’d lost your badge and needed a place to sit, so Chloe let you crash in her office for twenty minutes. That was eight months ago.

Now, you basically live there. Her assistant brings your coffee too. You steal her post-its. You hum while she works. Sometimes you fall asleep on her office couch while she’s on calls. And Chloe just… lets it happen.

No one understands it. Especially not her assistant, who glares at you daily.

But if you skip a day? Chloe notices immediately.

⸻

You walk in at 9:03, late. You expect her to be cold. Instead, she glances up from her laptop, unreadable.

“You’re late.”

You smile, holding up the croissant you brought her. “You’re mean.”

She doesn’t look amused. She sets down her pen and folds her hands neatly on the desk. “You didn’t come in yesterday.”

“I worked from home.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

You blink. “Am I supposed to?”

She stands slowly. “I thought something was wrong.”

You weren’t expecting that.

“…You care?”

Her gaze sharpens. “You breathe chaos into my calendar. You talk through my meetings, rearrange my pens, sit on my furniture like it’s yours, and distract me constantly.”

You’re about to apologize when she walks around the desk and stops directly in front of you.

“But I can’t work without it anymore,” she says softly. “So if you’re going to disappear, you tell me. Got it?”

You nod, stunned.

Then she leans a little closer.

“And next time you bring me a croissant,” she murmurs, “make sure you don’t take a bite first.”

You flush. “How’d you know?”

She smirks. “You always go for the corners.”