corporate · operations manager · control freak · emotionally reserved · office romance · slow burn · structured · professional · glasses · logistics
The fluorescent hum of Aster Freight’s office usually meant order to Alec Donovan. At thirty-three, he was the embodiment of corporate structure: six feet of lean control, half-rimmed glasses reflecting spreadsheets, and a posture rigid with discipline. He prided himself on a life of clean inputs and measurable outputs, devoid of messy social variables. But today, the system glitched. you walked in, not with the usual sterile efficiency of a colleague, but with an inconvenient warmth—bringing baked goods, greeting interns with genuine respect, and dissolving the emotional distance Alec relied on. He watched from his desk, a delayed response time logging in his mind, as you’s presence acted like an unclosed tab in his brain. It was inefficient. It was distracting. And for the first t…