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Gareth stood alone beside Bay Six. The manual override case hung open.
“Of course,” he muttered.
“You always go toward the things that bother you, don’t you...”
Gareth turned.
Sage stood at the far end of Receiving, grey hoodie beneath their safety vest, ring of keys dangling from one finger. Their expression held faint amusement, and Gareth found that irritating because he never knew whether they were laughing at him or knew something he did not.
“What are you doing here?”
Sage looked around. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I work here.”
“Not tonight.”
They began walking toward the main aisle. Gareth followed before deciding whether he meant to.
The warehouse changed around them gradually enough that he almost missed it. Shelves grew taller. The aisle lengthened. Boxes lost their labels. The emergency exits disappeared.
“You like following instructions,” Sage said.
Gareth frowned. “You make that sound like a diagnosis.”
“You make it sound like virtue.”
“That’s Alex’s line.”
“No. Alex thinks restraint is your religion.”
Gareth stopped. “And what do you think?”
Sage turned and walked backwards, still watching him. “I think you like somebody taking the weight out of your hands.”
The words landed uncomfortably close. Gareth kept walking. Sage entered a cross-aisle and vanished.
“Whoa.”
He hurried after them and found Victoria’s office waiting where the aisle should have been.
There were no walls around it. Only the desk, the chair and the enormous pane of glass standing alone in the middle of the warehouse.
Sage stood behind the desk.
“That’s not your office,” Gareth said.
“It isn’t yours either.”
They walked around it and pointed toward the floor. Gareth stared at the space between them. His pulse changed. Sage noticed.
“What?” he said.
“You know what.”
“No.”
Their smile sharpened. “Kneel.”
For several seconds Gareth did nothing. The command did not sound like Victoria. Sage’s voice was softer and almost casual, which somehow made it worse. There was no managerial authority behind it. No professional hierarchy. No excuse.
“That doesn’t belong to you,” Gareth said.
Sage tilted their head. “Then why did your body hear it?”
Heat rose through his chest.
“Fuck off.”
“That’s an answer.”
Sage stepped closer.
Their presence suddenly felt different. Not seductive exactly. Too deliberate for that. But the distance between them had become something Gareth could feel physically. Sage was smaller than him, close enough now that he could see the pulse in their throat and the faint shadow beneath the neckline of their hoodie where the garment shifted against their body.
Gareth hated that he noticed. Sage noticed him noticing.
“Interesting,” they said.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“Were you hoping I would?”
Gareth’s jaw tightened. Sage lifted one hand and rested two fingers lightly against the centre of his chest. The contact was barely there. His body reacted anyway.
Something adjacent to desire, but not quite that. Awareness sharpened by the fact that Sage had touched him without hesitation, as though they already knew he would allow it.
Gareth caught their wrist. Sage did not pull away. For one suspended moment, neither moved.
There was something strangely intimate about holding them like that. Their skin was warm beneath his hand, their expression perfectly calm. Gareth became aware of how close their bodies were and immediately resented the fact.
“Where are we at?” Sage asked, using Victoria’s words. The words hit like a switch.
“Green,” he answered automatically.
Sage smiled. Gareth released them at once.
“No.”
“No what?”
“That wasn’t for you.”
“Then why did you answer me?”
The office glass darkened behind them. When Gareth looked toward it, he saw himself reflected there on his knees. He spun back. Sage had moved behind him.
Their voice came near his ear. “You keep thinking the question is who gets to tell you what to do.”
Gareth turned sharply. Sage was close enough that he nearly collided with them.
“What is the question, then?”
Sage looked directly at him. “Why does permission feel so much like relief?”
The warehouse lights flickered. Suddenly Gareth was kneeling. He had no memory of getting there. Sage stood before him.
Gareth’s hands rested on his thighs exactly as they had in Victoria’s office. The position produced the same strange settling inside him, the same quiet beneath his ribs.
Except this was Sage. Sage placed two fingers beneath his chin. Gareth’s breathing changed. This gesture was Victoria’s.
“You don’t want this from me,” Sage said.
“No.”
“Good.”
Their thumb brushed once across his lower lip. Tiny. Deliberate. Gareth caught their hand again. Sage smiled down at him.
“But you wanted to know if it would still work.”
Before Gareth could answer, Sage’s features began to change beneath his hand.
Their hair darkened. Their jaw softened. The grey hoodie became a blouse, their body shifting subtly beneath his grip until the hand he held belonged to someone else.
Victoria stood before him. Gareth released her and scrambled to his feet. She looked amused, stepped closer and placed her palm over his heart. Gareth could feel it hammering beneath her hand.
Victoria looked up at him with devastating calm. “Are you sure this is what you wanted?”
Gareth woke so violently that the sheets twisted around his legs.
He sat upright in darkness, breathing hard, his bedroom slowly rebuilding itself around him. Bed. Window. Phone charger. Chair.
No Sage.
No Victoria.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“What the fuck?”
His phone read 4:17 a.m.
Gareth reached for the water on his nightstand, then stopped. His keys lay beside the glass. Ordinary keys. House. Car. Locker. Nothing strange about them.
He stared anyway. Then he switched on the lamp and left it on until morning.
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