Chapter 4:

Confusion

I spent the entire morning avoiding the elevators.

Stairs it was twenty floors of pure regret and burning thighs. Every time I thought about last night, heat crawled up my neck. The way I’d practically leaned into Alex like some scared kid. The way his hand had stayed on my back for so long. The way my heart had kept racing even after the worst of the panic passed.

Get it together, man, I told myself as I dropped into my desk chair, still slightly out of breath. It was just a bad moment. Nothing else.

I buried myself in work. Emails, mockups, client calls. Whenever I...