The newsroom is quieter than usual when she walks in—too quiet for Clark to pretend he isn’t waiting for her, hasn’t been waiting for her for months now.

He looks up from his desk, glasses halfway down his nose, pretending to read the same line on his notepad for the fifth time. She’s late, which isn’t like her. When she finally appears, coffee in one hand, sunglasses pushed into her hair, his heart kicks almost painfully hard against his ribs.

She looks the same as she did last night—messy, bright, magnetic—but different too. Like he’s not supposed to be seeing her anymore, not like that. Not after the way she’d laughed against his throat, or the way she’d whispered his name like she was afraid of what it meant.

He forces himself to glance back down at his notes, pen tapping against the paper. He can feel her glance skim over him, the air between them charged, uncertain. He should say something. Should make it normal again.

“Morning,” he says finally, voice softer than he means it to be.

“Morning,” she echoes, and that’s it. Just that. But it hangs there—warm, awkward, too much. She moves toward her desk, the one right across from his, and the space feels smaller than it did yesterday. The sound of her chair scraping against the floor makes his pulse jump. Every tiny thing does.

He tells himself to focus on work—on deadlines, on copy edits, on anything but the way her lipstick still matches the faint mark on his collarbone. He doesn’t even know if she remembers all of it, or if she’s pretending not to. He’s half afraid to find out.

He’s had a crush on her since her first week at the Planet. Since the day she smiled at him like he wasn’t just some awkward guy in glasses. He never thought he’d be stupid enough to let something happen—but then there’d been that night. One drink, then another. The two of them laughing about Perry’s temper, leaning closer without realizing. The city lights outside. The way she’d kissed him first.

He still feels it—her hands in his hair, her breath against his jaw, the sound she made when he pulled her closer. He feels all of it, and it’s killing him to sit across from her like nothing happened.

She clears her throat, eyes flicking up to meet his. For a second, it’s all there again—last night, the heat, the wanting—and then she looks away, cheeks flushing. Clark adjusts his glasses, his hand shaking just enough for him to notice. He wants to say something, to ask what this means, but the words won’t come. He’s too afraid of what she’ll say. Too afraid she’ll tell him it didn’t mean anything.

So he smiles instead, that small, nervous, too-polite smile she’s always teased him about. “Coffee’s stronger than usual today,” she says after a beat, not looking at him.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, eyes on her, heartbeat loud in his ears. “Guess we both needed it.”