3. TOO CLOSE

Gabriel had spent years perfecting control.

He had built it brick by careful brick the day Noel turned eighteen and suddenly wasn’t a kid anymore. He had reinforced it every time Benjamin mentioned his son in passing. He had armored it with professionalism, distance, and the constant reminder that Noel was his best friend’s boy. Off limits. Untouchable. Absurd to even think about.

And in one single day that armor was cracking.

He stood at his office window and watched Noel walk past without so much as a glance in his direction.

No eye contact. No nod. No sarcastic little remark about the carbonara from last night. He simply refused to acknowledge Gabriel’s presence and it was chipping away at his self control.

He’s ignoring me.

The thought looped like a bad circuit. Gabriel didn’t know what he’d done. Yesterday he had been exactly what Noel seemed to want—professional and distant. He’d used Laurent instead of Angel. And had given him real work instead of special treatment because he’d thought that was what he’d want. Could he have been wrong?

Apparently so because now Noel was punishing him with silence and Gabriel was losing his fucking mind over it.

He couldn’t focus. Couldn’t read a single email without his eyes and entire fucking body  dragging him back to the glass wall where he could see Noel at desk. The first real proximity—having Noel in the building, breathing the same air, existing in Gabriel’s direct line of sight—was destroying every boundary he had spent years constructing.

He had tried. God, he had tried to keep the distance. But the second Noel stepped through those doors yesterday, every carefully maintained inch between them had started shrinking.

Then the pipe burst.

Water everywhere in the intern bullpen. Dirty, muddy, filthy water spreading across the carpet like a personal attack. Gabriel had been in the middle of a call when the shouting started. He had hung up mid-sentence and walked out to assess the damage.

His eyes went straight to Noel.

Noel stood frozen at the edge of the flood, shoulders locked so tight Gabriel could see the tension from across the room. His hands were curled into fists at his sides. He kept shifting his weight like he was trying not to step in the water, like the sight of the mess was physically crawling over his skin. He had OCD.

Gabriel knew. Benjamin had mentioned it years ago in that offhand way fathers talk about their kids’ quirks. Noel hated dirt. Hated disorder. Hated anything that felt like it could get under his skin and stay there. Gabriel had filed the information away like he filed everything else about Noel—quietly, completely, without ever admitting why he remembered them.

Noel probably had no idea Gabriel noticed. No idea Gabriel was watching right now and fighting the violent urge to cross the room, pick him up, and carry him somewhere clean.

Stop. You have no right. Did he stop? No. 

The interns had to be moved. Fast. Gabriel gave the order himself, voice calm even while his chest felt like it was caving in.

“Split them up. Damien’s office can take one. I’ll take one. The rest go to the conference room annex until facilities clear this.”

He had meant to keep Noel out of his space. Had specifically told facilities to put him anywhere else.

But then he saw where they put him.

Damien’s office.

Damien—Gabriel’s old law school friend, solid litigator, useful on cases, and an absolute fucking pervert when it came to anyone under twenty-five. The man had a reputation. Wandering hands during after-work drinks. Too many “jokes” that weren’t jokes. Gabriel tolerated him because he was good at his job and never crossed the line into anything actionable.

But the second Gabriel walked past Damien’s open door and saw Noel laughing at something Damien said—head tipped back, shoulders relaxed for the first time all day, actually vibrant—something ugly and possessive slammed through Gabriel’s ribcage so hard he almost stopped breathing.

No.

Damien was leaning too close. Hand on the back of Noel’s chair. Grinning like he’d won something.

Gabriel didn’t even need to decide or sit on the thought.

“Switch,” he told the intern currently in his own office. Voice flat. “You’re with Damien now. Laurent, with me.”

The intern blinked and Damien started to protest. Gabriel didn’t even look at him.

“Now.”

Five minutes later Noel was in Gabriel’s office.

And Gabriel was losing what little control he had left.

Noel still wouldn’t look at him. He sat at the small secondary desk they’d dragged in, shoulders rigid, eyes glued to his laptop screen like Gabriel was a ghost. Every time Gabriel spoke, even something as neutral as “Pass me the Harrison file”, Noel answered in clipped monosyllables and went right back to pretending Gabriel didn’t exist.

The proximity was unbearable.

Gabriel could smell him. Could hear every quiet shift of his chair, every soft exhale. Could see the way Noel’s throat worked when he swallowed. The glasses sliding down his nose that he kept pushing up with one finger.

Control. You had it for years. And it was gone. Chipped away to nothing by one day of Noel in his space, ignoring him like it cost nothing.

Gabriel lasted until almost nine o’clock.

Noel had been working steadily, but the exhaustion from the pipe chaos and the long day finally won. His head had drifted down onto his folded arms on the desk. Glasses still on. Breathing even. And then he was out cold.

Gabriel told himself to leave him there. To put distance back between them before he did something catastrophic. Of course he didn’t listen.

Instead he stood up and walked around the desk. He stood over Noel and looked down at the soft fall of dark hair, the long lashes against flushed cheeks, the stupidly endearing way the glasses had slipped crooked on his face.

Don’t touch him. He did, of course.

Fingers brushed Noel’s temple as he carefully lifted the glasses off. The skin was warm and so fucking soft. Gabriel’s thumb lingered against the sharp line of Noel’s cheekbone for one second. Two. Three.

You have no business touching him. Noel is Benjamin’s son. Twenty-two years old. This is absurd. This is—

He forced his hand back like it had been burned, set the glass on the desk, stepped away and breathed through the roaring in his ears.

You’re losing it. You’re actually losing it. Yes. Yes he was.

He sat back down at his own desk and tried to work. He failed miserably. Eventually he gave up and watched the rise and fall of Noel’s shoulders instead.

When Noel finally stirred twenty minutes later, Gabriel was still staring.

***

Noel woke up disoriented and warm and confused.

The first thing he registered was that he wasn’t at his own desk. The second was the familiar scent of Gabriel’s cologne—something expensive and understated that had no business smelling that good. The third was that he was still in Gabriel’s office. Glasses gone from his face. Someone had taken them off while he slept. 

He’d been ignoring him on purpose. That was the simple truth. Yesterday Gabriel had been too professional. It had hurt. And because Noel was apparently still twelve years old at heart, he had spent the entire day punishing Gabriel for it by refusing to look at him, refusing to speak, refusing to acknowledge that the man existed.

Petty. So fucking petty.

And now he was waking up in Gabriel’s space with his glasses off and his chest doing something complicated and terrifying.

Gabriel’s voice cut through the quiet, low and rough around the edges.

“You’ve been eerily quiet today.”

Noel sat up slowly, rubbed his eyes and still refused to look at him.

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to you.”

The chair across from him scraped back. He heard footsteps and then Gabriel was standing in front of him. Too fucking close. Noel could feel the heat of him.

“Look at me.”

Noel didn’t. He simply refused to.

Gabriel’s voice dropped lower. “Noel. Tell me what I did.”

Noel’s jaw worked. He stared at a point somewhere past Gabriel’s shoulder and felt his ears go hot.

“I’m not at all pissed off by the fact that you did not call me Angel yesterday,” he said, voice tight and defensive and completely unconvincing. “And I am not in any way mad at you for being way too professional. Like, at all. Not even a little bit.”

For a moment there was only silence. 

Then Gabriel laughed.

The sound rolled out of him for a full twenty seconds. Rich and genuine and it was warm in a way that made Noel’s stomach twist harder. 

Gabriel actually braced a hand on the desk like he needed the support.

Noel’s face burned. He pouted. Pouted *harder*. Crossed his arms and glared at the floor.

“Stop laughing.”

Gabriel wiped his eyes, still grinning. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.” Gabriel’s voice softened. “Get up. Pack your stuff. We’re going to get ice cream.”

Noel blinked. “It’s almost ten at night.”

“And you’ve had a shit day. Ice cream fixes shit days. Come on.”

The ice cream place was a tiny hole-in-the-wall twenty minutes away that stayed open late. Neon sign buzzing. Plastic booths. The kind of place that shouldn’t have felt special but somehow did.

Noel got two scoops—chocolate with rainbow sprinkles like he was eight again—and Gabriel didn’t even tease him. He ordered vanilla and sat across from him while Noel talked. About the pipe. About how gross the water had been. About how he’d wanted to burn his shoes. Gabriel listened intently. Noel liked it when Gabriel gave him his undivided attention.

By the time they finished, Noel’s shoulders had dropped for the first time all day. The irritation had melted.

Gabriel drove him home in comfortable quiet, pulled up in front of the house and put the car in park.

Noel reached for the door handle.

“Goodnight, Angel.”

The name landed soft and Noel knew he had deliberately said it. Something fluttered hard behind his ribs.

He paused and turned to meet Gabe’s eyes.

“I still don’t like that name.”

Gabriel’s mouth curved. “Yeah, sure.”

He reached over, ruffled Noel’s hair the same way Benjamin always did, then leaned in and pressed a quick, warm kiss to his forehead like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Sleep tight.”

Then he was gone—car pulling away into the night before Noel could figure out how to breathe again.

Noel stood on the front steps for a long minute, fingers pressed to the spot on his forehead where Gabriel’s mouth had been. The flutter in his chest refused to settle.

Inside, he went straight to his room and picked up Gabe Junior from the bed. Turned the one-eyed dinosaur so they were face to face.

“You will not believe the day I had,” he told the plush, voice low and exhausted and strangely light all at once. “Started bad. Got worse. The pipe, the water, having to sit in Damien’s office with that creep—God, I wanted to die. Then Gabriel switched me into his office and I spent the rest of the day pretending he didn’t exist because I’m apparently still a child who gets mad when people treat me like an adult.”

He flopped backward onto the mattress, still holding the toy.

“And then I fell asleep at his desk like an idiot and he took my glasses off and I woke up and he made me admit I was being petty and then he laughed for twenty whole seconds and then he took me for ice cream at ten o’clock at night and it was actually… fun. Like, really fun.”

Noel stared at the ceiling. The flutter was still there, warm and terrifying and impossible to name.

“The day went from bad to worse to… good. I have no idea what to think or feel. I’m extremely confused and yet I’m very happy. Which is stupid. And I still don’t like being called Angel. For the record.”

Gabe Junior’s single eye stared back, unimpressed as always.

Noel groaned and pressed the plush over his face.

“I’m so fucked.”