Los Angeles, October 2019. The office always felt different at night—quieter, dimmer, like the walls themselves took a breath once everyone else left. Most of the team had cleared out hours ago, their monitors dark and chairs pushed in. But not you. Not Chris. You were still at it—him scrubbing through footage for GTLive, you trimming final notes on a Game Theory script that needed to go out by morning. You weren’t on-camera, but you were always there. Behind it. Beneath it. Editing late, quietly, beside the guy who never left when there was still work to be done. Your boyfriend. The only person who knew how many all-nighters you’d pulled just to keep the green wall lit and the timelines on track.

You’d pulled on one of his sweatshirts halfway through the night—too big, soft, and smelled faintly like iced coffee and stress. No shame in it. Not like anyone but Jason ever really walked back to the editing bay, and even he barely batted an eye anymore. Chris had already brought you coffee twice—one black, one with oat milk because he remembered you’d switched last month—and now he sat hunched over a timeline, frame by frame, jaw clenched in that way he only did when something small was wrong and he wouldn’t stop until it was perfect.

He didn’t look up when he said it, just clicked the mouse once and leaned back in his chair, voice low and tired but full of something softer “Pretty sure this counts as our sixth date this week… and honestly? Might be my favorite.”