Jamie

Chapter Five

Jamie

Jamie felt it before he saw it.

That heat. That subtle, insidious shift in the air whenever Julian was near. Like a static current crawling under his collar, prickling the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, raising goosebumps he couldn’t explain. Every time Julian passed too close in the narrow hallway between cubicles or let his gaze linger a half-second too long across the open floor, Jamie’s body reacted before his brain could catch up.

He didn’t catch Julian staring.

Not exactly.

But he felt it.

Like an invisible hand pressed firmly to the small of his back—barely there, unseen by anyone else, but undeniable. A steady pressure that made his shoulders tense, his breath hitch, his pulse stutter every single time.

The first few days had been slow-motion torture.

Jamie spent them hunched at his desk like a man trying to vanish into the glow of his monitor. He typed too fast, backspaced half his sentences into oblivion, reread the same three lines of client feedback until the words dissolved into nonsense. He forgot how to hold a pencil without his fingers trembling; the graphite kept slipping, leaving jagged lines across his sketchpad. He kept his head down, avoided eye contact with anyone who might ask why he looked like he hadn’t slept properly in a week, and—most critically—avoided Julian’s office like it was cordoned off with yellow hazard tape and flashing warning lights.

Which wasn’t difficult. Julian mostly kept to himself. Doors closed. Face unreadable behind the tinted glass wall. Voice cool and clipped in the handful of team stand-ups they both attended. Professional. Polished. Detached.

The perfect supervisor.

Except Jamie knew exactly what it looked like when that iron control finally slipped.

He’d seen it. Felt it. Lived it in vivid, humiliating detail.

Felt the way Julian’s jaw had flexed—hard, involuntary, almost pained—when Jamie moaned into his mouth that night. Felt those long fingers press deeper, rougher, anchoring Jamie against the mattress like Julian was terrified he might disappear if he let go for even a second. Heard the sharp, low, broken sound Julian made—half growl, half plea—when Jamie gasped for more, when he arched and begged without coherent words, body trembling under the weight of want.

And now they were both pretending none of it had ever happened.

Except… they weren’t pretending very well.

Jamie could feel the lie woven into every careful inch of distance Julian maintained. In the way Julian’s eyes flicked to him during meetings—quick, guilty—then darted away too fast. In the way his own traitor pulse jumped every time Julian’s voice carried across the floor—low, steady, commanding in a timbre that made Jamie’s stomach flip and heat pool low in his belly.

It was Thursday when everything shifted.

Jamie had stayed late to finish revisions on the product launch campaign. Most of the creative floor had emptied by six—lights dimming section by section in orderly waves, the usual chatter replaced by the soft, constant hum of the HVAC and the occasional distant ding of the elevator. Jamie liked the silence. It helped him focus. Helped him pretend the rest of the world—and the man who occupied too much of his headspace—didn’t exist.

He hadn’t realized Julian was still there.

Not until a quiet voice spoke from behind him.

“You’re still here?”

Jamie flinched so violently he nearly knocked over his water bottle. It wobbled precariously, sloshing cold liquid across his desk before he caught it with both hands.

He turned.

Julian stood a few feet away in the shadowed aisle between desks, sleeves rolled to his elbows again, tie loosened by one careful tug, top button of his shirt undone. He looked tired—or maybe worn thin in a way Jamie didn’t yet know how to interpret. Shadows bruised beneath his eyes. Jaw darkened with late-day stubble. Shoulders carrying tension that hadn’t been visible during daylight hours.

“Yeah,” Jamie managed, forcing his voice to stay even despite the way his heart had lodged itself in his throat. “Just… cleaning up the wireframes for Monday’s review. Wanted to smooth out the transitions before Marlene sees them.”

Julian nodded once, slow and deliberate. But he didn’t move.

Didn’t leave.

Didn’t turn back toward his office like Jamie had half-hoped he would.

Jamie waited. The silence stretched—too long, too thick, too full of everything they weren’t saying. He reached for his mouse just to give his hands something to do. “I can send them to you before I leave, if you want—”

“Actually,” Julian interrupted, voice low and measured, “I was hoping you could go over them with me now. I’ve got time.”

Jamie swallowed. His throat clicked audibly in the quiet.

“Now?”

“Only if you don’t mind.” Julian’s tone remained smooth, almost professional—but there was something underneath it. Something quieter. Hungrier. “You’re the one who designed them. I’d rather see the work from your perspective.”

Jamie hesitated.

His heart slammed against his ribs so hard he was sure Julian could hear the frantic rhythm.

Then he nodded.

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah. Okay.”

He stood, grabbed his laptop with unsteady fingers, and followed Julian into the glass-walled office that had haunted his dreams—and his nightmares—all week.

Julian held the door open and let it shut with a quiet, deliberate click behind them.

The sound felt final. Irrevocable.

Jamie sat across from him at the wide glass desk, heart hammering loud enough to drown out rational thought, trying desperately not to stare at Julian’s forearms as he folded them on the surface—shirt sleeves pushed up, veins standing out against tanned skin, the faint pale band where his watch usually sat still visible.

Jamie opened the file with fingers that felt clumsy and foreign.

“So, this is the new landing page iteration…” He clicked through the first few slides, forcing his voice to stay level. “I tightened the hero animation here, shortened the copy on the CTA, and added that subtle parallax on scroll to give it more depth without tanking the load time.”

Julian leaned in, watching the screen intently.

Jamie kept talking. Explaining. Pointing things out with the cursor. Highlighting keyframes. Walking through the logic behind every small decision.

Julian asked thoughtful questions—good ones, precise ones. “What happens if we drop the secondary button opacity to sixty here?” “Can we test the hover state on mobile?” “Go back to that last transition—play it slower.”

He took his time.

Said nothing unnecessary.

But as the minutes ticked by, the air between them changed.

It wasn’t just professional anymore.

Jamie could feel it.

The weight of Julian’s eyes drifting—not to the screen, but to his mouth when he spoke. The accidental brush of their fingers when Jamie passed the laptop across the desk. The way Julian’s voice dropped—lower, rougher—when he murmured, “Good work.”

And when Jamie finally closed the presentation, saved the file, and looked up, Julian didn’t speak.

He just looked at him.

And kept looking.

Dark eyes steady. Unblinking. Searching.

Jamie’s chest rose and fell too fast.

His voice came out quieter than he meant—almost a whisper. “This is a bad idea.”

Julian’s jaw clenched—once, hard.

“I know.”

But he didn’t look away.

And neither did Jamie.

The silence stretched again—electric, dangerous, inevitable.

Neither of them moved.

Neither of them breathed quite right.

And in that suspended moment, with the city lights bleeding gold through the glass behind Julian’s head, Jamie realized something terrifying and thrilling at once:

They weren’t pretending anymore.

Not even a little.