Date: April 5, 2025

  I should have left earlier.

  I had my bag packed. My laptop shut down. My jacket in hand.

  And then, like an idiot, I sat back down. There was just one more change I could make to the last part of the code. Just one more refinement so that we could close off the tasks better this sprint. I told myself that once I finished the last tiny change, I could go home and relax, without the issue nagging at me for the rest of the night.

  Just five more minutes.

  But then five minutes turned into ten, then twenty, and by the time I actually glanced out the window—the city was drowning.

  Rain pounded against the glass in relentless sheets, swallowing streetlights and turning roads into rivers. Thunder rolled through the sky, shaking the windows, and when I pulled out my phone, my stomach dropped. The freak storm the news had been warning us about. The one in all the emails. The one I had completely forgotten about.

  No cabs. No Ubers. No Caltrains running.

  I was stuck.

  And apparently, so was Ethan.

  Friday, 9:42 PM – No Escape

  I heard the elevator chime from across the office. A moment later, footsteps approached.

  “You too?”

  I turned. Ethan stood at the entrance to our floor, taking in the nearly empty space, the flickering glow of desk monitors left behind. He looked slightly damp—just enough to suggest he’d stepped outside to check the situation himself before realizing exactly how screwed we were.

  I exhaled. “Let me guess. No luck?”

  He shook his head. “Transport’s down. Roads are flooded.”

  I slumped back in my chair. “Great.”

  Ethan set his bag on his desk with a quiet shrug. “Could be worse.”

  I gave him a flat look. “How?”

  He took a sip from his ever-present thermos, deadpan. “I could be stuck here with Leo.”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

  Friday, 10:17 PM – The Floor Situation

  After an hour, the office started to feel ridiculous.

  Empty desks. The dim glow of forgotten monitors. The occasional flicker of lightning reflecting against the windows, casting weird, stretched-out shadows.

  Too much stillness.

  I abandoned my desk and made my way toward the breakroom, hoping a change of scenery would make the night pass faster.

  There, I found Ethan fixing himself yet another coffee.

  For some reason, I was relieved to see him.

  He turned when I walked in. “Finished working for the night?”

  “Yeah, started feeling a bit spooky in there on my own,” I muttered, picking up one of the office mugs with a sigh.

  Ethan quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you were superstitious.”

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  “I’m not scared of ghosts,” I replied, filling my mug. “It’s the crazed serial killers I’m more concerned about.”

  Ethan nodded. “Makes sense. You’d die first.”

  I snorted, nearly spilling my tea. “Excuse me?”

  He took a slow sip of coffee. “I have more Final Girl energy than you.”

  I paused, staring at him—the six-foot-tall human equivalent of a well-timed sigh, casually leaning against the counter, completely serious. And then I laughed.

  Ethan just watched me, that almost-smirk of his barely there, but his eyes warm in a way that made my stomach do something weird.

  Friday, 10:42 PM – The Dinner Situation

  “Red or white?” I held up the two bottles.

  Ethan looked at me like I’d just asked him to choose between rusty nails and broken glass. “Neither.”

  I plonked the juices I had retrieved from the vending machine down on the countertop, along with the rest of my finds: a balanced meal of potato chips, protein bars, questionably dated sandwiches, and something that might have been beef jerky but was probably closer to rubber.

  “Blackcurrant or apple,” I announced. “Those were the only juices left. But I suppose I’ve only ever seen you drink coffee.”

  “Because coffee works,” Ethan said simply.

  In some unspoken agreement, we had decided the breakroom was now our sleeping quarters for the night.

  We dragged a few of the many beanbags from the common area and made two makeshift beds. It wasn’t much, but it was better than sleeping upright in a chair.

  Surprisingly, the air conditioning—useless during the day—had decided to work overtime. The office was freezing. I burrowed into my beanbag, trying to conserve warmth, when my stomach betrayed me with a growl.

  Before I could decide on a snack, Ethan threw one of the packets of chips at me.

  Salt and vinegar. My favorite.

  I blinked. “Had I told you I liked that?”

  “You always take that one first when there’s a meeting spread,” Ethan replied.

  I stared at him. “Wow, talk about next level attention to detail."

  Ethan just shrugged, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  Friday, 11:04 PM – The Dangerous Conversation

  Somewhere between my second cup of tea and finally giving up on checking the weather updates, Ethan and I started talking.

  “I’m telling you, it’s weird!” I insisted from my camp in the beanbags.

  “Sounds a lot like bigotry,” Ethan said nonchalantly as he shoved another peanut butter protein bar into a ham and cheese sandwich, and then took a large bite.

  I held back a gag as I watched him chew, but then a nagging curiosity tugged at me. “…how is it?”

  Ethan said nothing, chewing thoughtfully. After a while, he swallowed.

  I waited.

  “…Weird,” he said, his face as serious as ever.

  I buried my face in the beanbags and laughed. It was fun to see him like this, still Ethan, but silly in a way I never expected. It was disarming, and comfortable. And a part of me felt like he was doing it on purpose, so that I felt better.

  I thought I caught another smile, and my heart seemed to skip a beat.

  Hmm, this was starting to become a little bit of a problem.

  Saturday, 1:10 AM – Safe in the Night

  Luckily, the breakroom lights could be switched off. The city lights peered through the rain from the window, casting a blueish tinge over the room.

  I was so tired that at some point, I just drifted to sleep, despite feeling so strange in the office.

  In the middle of my sleep, I remember shivering in the cold. I stirred and tried to bury myself further into the beanbags, curling my body up protectively.

  Suddenly, I felt something warm and heavy drape over me.

  Smells nice.

  It was the last thought I remember having before exhaustion pulled me under again.

  It wasn’t until a particularly loud clap of thunder that I suddenly snapped awake. Groggy and disoriented, I looked down and realized I was wrapped in a heavy wool coat.

  I looked up to see Ethan by the window.

  Still awake.

  Still close, but not too close.

  Still watching the rain.

  I should have sat up. I should have moved away, but instead I found myself staring, wondering how long it would take for him to notice.

  Then—without looking at me:

  “You can sleep, you know.”

  I blinked, embarrassed that I’d been caught. “What about you?”

  Ethan huffed a small breath. “I don’t sleep much.”

  I studied him. “Why?”

  He finally looked at me. Paused.

  Then, quietly, “too much noise.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I propped myself up with my elbows. The coat shifted as I did, and I blushed, realizing it must be his.

  “Oh. Uh, thanks,” I said awkwardly, lifting it to return it.

  “Keep it for now. I don’t need it.”

  I paused. Then he added, “You don’t need to overthink everything.”

  The easy way he said it, the certainty and accuracy stilled me. I didn’t know how he did it, like he always seemed to know what I was thinking before I said anything.

  I felt my blush deepen, and I looked away, suddenly feeling hyper-aware of the warmth of his coat, the scent of coffee and something distinctly him.

  And as I lay back down, I realized that I wasn’t cold anymore. But that wasn’t what was keeping me awake.

  Saturday, 7:30 AM – The Elevator Moment

  By the time the storm finally cleared, the city was pale and washed out, soaked under early morning light.

  Ethan and I packed up our things, neither of us in a hurry to say much.

  The elevator ride down was quiet. Not awkward, exactly, but… something.

  I caught my reflection in the mirrored doors—hair slightly mussed from sleeping on a beanbag, Ethan’s coat still draped over my shoulders. I glanced at him, expecting some kind of smirk or comment, but he just watched the numbers ticking down, unreadable as ever.

  The air between us felt weighted, like the night still lingered, but neither of us wanted to be the first to acknowledge it.

  The elevator dinged open.

  Ethan stepped out first, adjusting the strap of his bag. “See you Monday, Watanabe.”

  I nodded, gripping the coat tighter around me. “Yeah. Monday.”

  I told myself I’d forget about all of this over the weekend.

  And yet, when I caught myself staring at the coat hanging over my chair later that night, still faintly smelling of coffee and something distinctly him, I knew I wouldn’t.