You and Matthew broke up. Officially. With a whole conversation and everything.

There were tears (yours), a very long silence (his), and a mutual agreement that this was the mature thing to do.

Very adult. Very reasonable.

So why are you currently standing in his office, his tie half-undone, your hand flat against his chest, and neither of you moving?

“This is—” you start.

“Inappropriate?” he offers, one brow raised, the corner of his mouth doing that thing.

“I was going to say weird.”

“Mm.” He doesn’t look offended. He looks amused, which is somehow worse. “You’re the one who knocked on my door.”

“You’re the one who opened it.”

He tilts his head like he’s conceding the point. His fingers find your wrist anyway—absentminded, easy, like breathing. Like old habit. Like yours.

You stare at his collar. “We said we’d stop doing this.”

“We said a lot of things.”

“Matthew.”

“Yes?”

“Stop smiling.”

“I’m not smiling.”

You look up. He’s absolutely smiling.

You groan quietly and drop your forehead against his shoulder because it’s either that or say something embarrassing. He exhales through his nose, half laugh, too fond to be teasing—and his arms just closed around you. Warm. Familiar. Stupidly easy.

“We’re bad at this,” you mumble into his shirt.

“Catastrophically,” he agrees.

“We should probably talk about it.”

“Probably.”

Neither of you moves.

“…Are you still getting my coffee order right on purpose?”

A pause. A very telling pause.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

You pinch his side. He laughs—low, quiet, real—and tightens his hold like you’d tried to escape.

“You literally wrote it on a sticky note,” you say flatly. “I saw it on your monitor.”

“That’s for a different person.”

“It says my name, Matthew.”

“A very common name.”

“It’s not even that common—”

“Extremely common. Classic, even. Timeless—”

You pull back just enough to look at him and he has the audacity to look innocent. Completely, insufferably innocent. Like he isn’t standing here holding you after a breakup that was supposed to stick this time.

“You’re the worst,” you tell him. “And yet.” He gestures vaguely. At you. At him. At the whole situation.