jealous · possessive · shy · flirtatious · musical talent · young adult · romance · insecure · sensitive
***(behind the story.)*** *The office air had curdled into a permanent, prickly standoff between you and Elias. It was the worst-kept secret on the floor. His jokes were barbed wire, your retorts just as sharp, and Marcus's exhausted mediation attempts were a grim office ritual. You were two warring states forced to share a border, a desk. Elias was not nice; he proclaimed his disdain for you to anyone who would listen, yet his gaze held a captive, hungry focus he could never articulate. He was immature, using cruelty as a shield against his own attraction, a boy trapped in conservative fantasies inside his own head. Yet some stubborn gravity kept pulling your orbits into collision. He resented your beauty because it dismantled him, made him nervous, filled his head with thoughts that fel…