I'm not even sure this is going to make sense but...
I came across a post on Twitter where someone wrote that they didn’t feel Thomas was attracted to Ysa because she’s always the one taking the initiative. First of all, I want to say that I respect that point of view, everyone is allowed to see romantic interactions in different ways. But I don’t agree with it.
It’s true that Thomas isn’t the most obvious example of a romantic character in a book. And yes, it’s also true that the characters Be3mov writes often have certain inconsistencies and sometimes get dragged down by poorly written episodes. But I’ve never felt that Thomas didn’t like Ysa; in fact, I actually think that, given the way he is, he’s the easiest person on the team to notice having a crush on the MC.
We’ve all been taught that men should be the ones taking risks and leading everything if we want the romance to “work,” but that’s just not the case. Thomas is awkward when it comes to love, he didn’t even think relationships were worth it. But now he’s figuring it out. He’s trying (he literally stops to look at Ysa in the office just because).
And of course, love is raw and passionate. It’s sex, it’s carnal, and sometimes it moves fast.
But love is also slow (and in a world where everything moves fast, I’m always grateful for that).
It’s asking for another kiss because you’re too nervous to give in to it. It’s making a little plushie from something someone mentioned months ago, just because they might like it. Love is saying that, for the first time, you feel like you belong somewhere.
We’re all looking for different things in a relationship, and that’s great and beautiful. The only thing that really matters is that you feel loved at the end of the day.
So yeah, maybe I’ve read too much into the situation, but I really like how the relationship between Thomas and Ysa is developing. And maybe that’s because of the way I see love (and how I fell in love with my boyfriend—because he remembered little things about me I couldn’t even recall).
I feel like we’re forgetting that the Crowstorm video from episode 17 still hasn’t been published. So if, in the next episode, the team notices something weird between the LI and Ysaline, and then they see the video
“A cheeseburger, small fries, an orange juice, and…” Looking back, she sought Thomas’s eyes. Leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, the redhead gave her a nod. Alice gave him a thumbs-up in understanding and turned back to the McDonald’s cashier. “Two cheeseburgers, three pickle slices, one tomato. A Coke Zero. Three packets of ketchup and large fries. Please.”
"That’ll be 12 euros. Cash or card?” Before she could say a word, Thomas stepped up beside her."
“Cash, please.” He placed a bill and two coins on the counter, feeling his friend’s eyes scanning his face.
"What’s up with you?"
"It’s the first time I’ve seen you pay in cash. Everything okay at home?"
“Everything’s great at home.” Watching the employee walk off to prepare their order, he turned his attention to Alice’s brown eyes. “Roy paid me for the drinks the other night in cash, against my will. It was that or kiss goodbye to my 15 euros. And payday’s still a week away.”
A few minutes later, their food arrived, and it didn’t take them long to find a table. Thomas wasn’t exactly a fan of fast food restaurants, but he knew if Alice stayed cooped up all weekend, she’d be unbearable on Monday. And he didn’t want to deal with that version of her, nor did he fancy watching their coworkers roll their eyes at every comment she made.
While chewing her burger, Ali felt Thomas’s eyes on her hair.
"I have a hair appointment on Tuesday," she said, wiping the corners of her mouth with a napkin.
"I figured. You’ve never let your roots grow out this much.” Alice nodded while sipping her juice. “Why don’t you go back to your natural hair color?"
"Because right now, I identify with being blonde." Thomas raised an eyebrow, prompting her to explain. "You know, with all this darkness inside, I need to show a bit of light on the outside."
"Oh, here we go again with your soul stuff." Alice laughed, pleased with his logical retort. "You do know the only thing that can fix that inner darkness is a therapist, not a hairdresser, right?"
"I might’ve heard that once or twice."
Now it was Thomas’s turn to laugh. Popping three fries into his mouth, he chewed while glancing around the nearly empty place. That’s what you got for dining at eleven on a Sunday night in March, peaceful solitude and each other’s company.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Alice frown at her phone. Either someone had dumped puppies at the shelter she volunteered at on Saturdays, or she’d just gotten a message from Devon during his break.
Three minutes passed and her expression hadn’t changed. Thomas crumpled the empty fry packet and began stacking the trash on the tray to get her attention.
"Remember I told you Ioan finally got divorced and started dating my friend Léa?" she asked"
"You cried nonstop for three days and broke your record for not showering. 48 hours."
"Thanks, RAM drive.” The redhead smiled faintly at the nickname. “Thing is, Léa just messaged me.” She rested her chin on her hand and huffed. “They’re getting married. April 27th"
"Oh." Thomas scratched his cheek, unsure of the most appropriate response. "Well… good for them?"
"No. Honestly, I wish Ioan had been hit by a double-decker bus."
"Oh, The Smiths. So romantic."
"Léa invited me to the wedding, Thomas," said Alice, turning to look at him. "And she made sure to bold the words ‘you can bring a plus-one."
"Then bring a plus-one."
"Sure, let me just hop on Tinder real quick." Thomas rolled his eyes. Every Tinder adventure had ended in disaster. Disasters he could recount in painful, sometimes graphic, detail he wished he could forget.
"You’ve got over a month to find someone. And if you don’t, what’s the big deal with going solo?" Alice turned her phone screen toward him, pointing at Ioan’s name in the invite. "I’ve got a better idea, Ali: don’t go to the wedding."
"I have to go for Léa, not for that asshole."
Thomas wanted to tell her that maybe Léa wasn’t the best friend in the world if she’d started dating such a lousy ex. He’d love to have the same talk they’d had a dozen times before. And of course, he was willing to try to understand. But Alice, for all her empathy and flexibility, never applied that same logic to her friend.
"You could ask your brother, the invitation doesn’t say the plus-one has to be romantic."
"Thomas, what kind of image do I want to give if I show up with my 19-year-old brother?"
"I don’t know, maybe the image of someone who just doesn’t have a plus-one"
Thomas knew a lot about Ali. Her shoe size, how many diopters she had in each eye, or how many beers she could drink to beat Roy on any given Friday night. But right now, he couldn’t read her mind. Until one of her eyebrows gave a twitch — the kind that always gave her away — and the lightbulb in Thomas’s head flicked on.
"No, Ali. No."
"Thomas, yes"
"I’m not going to pretend to be your date at a wedding."
"Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!"
"No." Raising a hand, he gave her a small flick on the forehead. "Every single time, and I repeat, every single time you’ve said ‘it’ll be fun’, we’ve ended up in some kind of mess."
"But—"
"No buts this time."
"Remember that amazing leather jacket we saw at the mall the other day?"
"Don’t try to bribe me with capitalist tactics. It won’t work."
"What if I ask Devon to cover an extra hour for you for a month so you can come in later?"
"I don’t want you dumping your work on me either."
"I’ll go with you to the motorcycle expo in Brussels in July. I’ll do your laundry for a whole month. Please, please, please—" She pressed her palms together like she was praying and squeezed her eyes shut as she spoke a mile a minute.
"Fine."
"I’ll pay for your Netflix for a whole year."
"Alice—" Thomas took her hands and gently lowered them from his face. "I said fine. I’ll go with you."
Thomas knew a lot about Alice Dubois. Some things good, others… less so. But if he had to pick one of his favorite things about her, it was that thrilled smile she got when something went her way. Flashing her teeth, including the tiny chip on her left front tooth, Alice grinned so wide it nearly reached her eyes.
And Thomas knew this was going to be a mess, and that Alice would regret promising him a year of Netflix. But in that moment, just for that smile, maybe it would be worth it.
i'm also posting this fic on Wattpad in my native language (Spanish), you can check it here!
When the clock struck twelve, what it really meant was that it was time for Thomas to have his first hot chocolate of the day, half an hour before lunch, to start warming up his throat. Then at 4 p.m., he’d have another one.
Pulling his hand away from the computer mouse, he got up and, after three instinctive taps on his phone screen, the metal machine emitted the sweet sound of his drink being prepared.
“Thomas! I need you over here,” Devon’s voice interrupted the first scalding sip of chocolate, and also Thomas Rheault’s mental peace.
Slowly and reluctantly, he headed to his boss’s office. Tapping his finger three times on the door, he waited to hear a signal before turning the handle and entering the room. His eyebrows lifted when he saw that Devon wasn’t alone; a woman was sitting there. As he crossed the room to stand beside his boss, he was able to observe her more closely. Five earrings adorned her left ear and a small ring her nose. Sitting cross-legged, her face wore a calm and serene smile.
“This is Alice Dubois.” As her name was mentioned, the girl uncrossed her legs and stood up energetically, extending her hand toward Thomas. “She’ll be taking over Danica’s position starting today.”
While the redhead calculated the socially appropriate amount of force for a handshake, Alice quickly shortened the distance between their hands. Thomas was surprised by the warmth that spread through his palm, despite the chill of the rings she wore.
“Nice to meet you! My name is Alice Dubois.” A strand of hair escaped the ponytail she’d tied, revealing the length of her blonde hair.
“The pleasure is mine.” He had never really understood that phrase; he didn’t feel any pleasure in meeting someone new. Pleasure came when a friendship was forged or when bonds began to develop. But without prior knowledge of the person, he never saw the point of that expression. "Protocol," Devon had once told him. “Come with me to my desk and I’ll explain a few things.”
“Thanks, Thomas!” Devon’s voice saw them off.
Though he couldn’t see her, Thomas could feel the young woman’s eyes inspecting every inch of the office. As they walked to his desk, they were intercepted by Elenda and Brune, who briefly introduced themselves before heading to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Such a nice atmosphere,” she murmured once she finally sat in the chair Thomas had pulled up beside him. “But wait, no interview?”
“No.” Thomas started typing listlessly on his computer. He hated the long, tedious process of onboarding new employees. “What for? Devon’s already seen your résumé and met you in person.”
“You’re seriously not going to ask me anything? Really?” Alice was beginning to feel suspicious about this job opportunity.
“Nope,” the redhead said without lifting his gaze from the screen, emphasizing the "p." Noticing the awkward silence forming, he sighed. “Were you really that excited to have a job interview? I’ve got some scripts here if you want to rehearse.”
“It’s not that.” Resting her elbows on the table, she framed her face with her hands and tried to sneak a peek at what the young man was typing so intently. “I just practiced in front of the mirror yesterday.”
“How do you rehearse a two-person interaction in front of a mirror?”
“With lots of imagination and determination.” Thomas stifled a quiet laugh at her reply. “Besides, it’s not just verbal language that matters. Body language is important too. Look.” Alice grabbed his arm to finally pull his attention away from the screen. “This smile isn’t the same as this one.”
As she spoke, she demonstrated different types of smiles. Thomas’s blue eyes gave her brief flickers of attention as his fingers completed the task of creating her office badge.
Her voice was soft. He didn’t mind that she hadn’t stopped talking for five minutes. He gave her a faint “hm” for each question, signaling that he was listening. Because, even if it didn’t seem like it, he was.
“Do you have a motorcycle?” Thomas looked up for the first time since they sat down and found Alice’s brown eyes scanning his desk. Raising her index finger, she pointed to a pair of gloves next to the monitor. “Those are biker gloves, or so I think.”
“Yes,” the redhead picked up the gloves and stored them in the top drawer. “To both. I have a bike, and those were the gloves for it.”
“Cool.” Placing both hands in the gap between her spread legs, Alice leaned toward Thomas. “I’ve always wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle. Is it hard?”
“No.” Pulling out the freshly made badge, he grabbed some scissors to round off the corners. “It’s like anything, once you learn, it becomes a habit. And once it’s a habit, it’s not hard.” Tossing the leftover plastic in the trash, he handed her the ID. “Here you go.”
“Where did you get this photo?” she asked, laughing incredulously as she looked at the photo on the badge.
“Your Instagram.”
“No way.” She covered her mouth to soften her laughter. “That was… seven years ago! I was 19 in that picture.”
“So?” Taking a sip of his (now lukewarm) chocolate, Thomas began closing the tabs on his computer. “You look good.”
“I look terrible!” She pointed to a tiny red mark on her forehead in the picture. “I’d fallen the night before at a party in Portugal and barely lived to tell the tale.”
“But you look pretty.” Alice looked up from the picture, raising her eyebrows playfully. “Wounded forehead or not, your facial features are clearly visible, and that’s what we need in a company photo.”
Alice laughed again before looking back down at her new badge.
“You know, Thomas,” she said, glancing from the card to him with a smile. “I think working with you is going to be easy.”
Six weeks later, Thomas had discovered a lot about Alice. In addition to having done her Erasmus in Italy, she had learned how to make the best carbonara in the world (or so she claimed). She always needed something in her hands when talking to someone—and that was all the time, because she couldn’t stay quiet for more than ten minutes. Most of the time, she was taking her rings on and off, never forgetting their combination. She was funny and always had questions for Thomas. And they made a good work team. But the most surprising thing was that Alice was just as observant.
She had memorized Thomas’s hot chocolate schedule perfectly, and two minutes before he’d get up, she would declare it was time for her coffee break too. And she always ordered the same thing: a cinnamon cappuccino.
“How far can you recite the number Pi?”
“Ali, just because I studied engineering doesn’t mean I’m a math genius.” Alice looked away from her screen and peeked over the divider between their desks. She let her glasses slide to the bridge of her nose and squinted. The redhead raised an eyebrow at her expression. “Fine. 3.1415926535.”
“You’re amazing.”
“If you say so.”
They both returned to work in silence. In fifteen minutes, Ali would ask another question or tell him about her weekend. Last week, she had gone with her friend Léa (who was a redhead, like him) to a flea market where she’d tried the best croissants her young palate had ever tasted.
But before Alice’s lips could form a word, her phone interrupted the peace. Looking at the screen with curiosity, she frowned, apologized, and left the room with the phone pressed to her ear. And when ten minutes passed and the blonde hadn’t returned to ask questions or share random thoughts, Thomas knew something was wrong.
“Meeting in my office in two minutes,” Devon entered the room smiling, a folder under his arm. “We’ve got some cool projects this week.”
By "cool" he meant events that no one found remotely interesting, but who were they to crush their boss’s dreams?
“Where’s Ali?” Elenda’s voice surprised the Devenementiel staff, who began turning their heads in search of their coworker.
“She stepped out to take a call,” Roy said. “Ran into her in the hallway, she said she’d be back soon. She looked nervous.”
Thomas glanced at his phone screen instinctively.
“Well, can someone go find her so we can get started? Or we can start without her, right?” Brune’s voice broke the brief silence in the room.
“Thomas, 3D printing event at the engineering school on Tuesday the 28th.” Devon handed him the folder, and the others groaned. No one wanted that project, but they were a little jealous that he always got the best ones. “Can you go find Alice? I’ve got a ceramics workshop opening in two weeks. I’m sure she’d love to handle it. We’ll get started without you. I’ve got to leave early today.”
“Yeah.” Leaving the folder on his desk, he began searching the office for his teammate.
He wasn’t especially thrilled to miss the meeting; it was his favorite way to stay in the loop at the company. That, and watching the 80 daily Instagram stories Elenda posted, which he followed from a fake profile of a Thai nail salon.
After wandering around the office without success, he decided to head down the stairs in case Ali had stepped out for fresh air. And just as he was about to descend the final steps—there she was. Sitting with her head on her knees. Not a good sign.
“Ali,” Thomas spoke from his place on the stairs. He didn’t want to get too close and risk making her uncomfortable. She seemed to be crying, and he was well aware of his non-existent comforting skills. “Devon’s started the project meeting. We need you upstairs.”
“Oh, Thomas.” Her voice sounded dull and lifeless, making Thomas clench his jaw, uneasy. “Sorry. I’ll be up in a second.”
“Okay.” Looking at her back one last time, he continued upstairs.
He knew that if he stayed, things would get awkward. He didn’t want to deal with someone crying, and she probably didn’t want a coworker to see her like that. He checked his watch and bit his lip lightly when he saw it was noon. Time for his hot chocolate, and Alice’s cinnamon cappuccino.
Sighing, he headed to the coffee machine. Tapping his phone screen three times, he heard the coffee machine start up. As he picked up his cup, he began tapping again with his free hand until the machine started up once more.
And when both drinks were in hand, he retraced his steps from five minutes earlier.
“Ali, it’s 12:05.” The blonde turned to see her coworker. With the staircase window behind him, the light made the orange of his curls look even brighter.
“Sorry.” Bringing the back of her hands to her eyes, she began wiping away the traces of tears and smudges of mascara from her cheeks.
“No need to apologize.” Stepping down one stair hesitantly, he held out the coffee at a still-respectful distance. “I just meant that this is when you usually have your cinnamon cappuccino.”
Alice stared at the cup he was holding out to her, stunned.
“If you don’t want it, I can take it back upstairs.”
“You remembered my coffee,” she finally said, more to herself than to him.
“You always order it. How could I not remember?” He shrugged as she reached for the cup, eyes still fixed on the steaming liquid. “Doesn’t seem that impressive to me.”
“I lived with an ex for two years who couldn’t remember to bring me coffee when he went grocery shopping.” She took a sip. “It’s impressive, Thomas.”
“If you say so.”
“I do,” she said, smiling again. “Someday you’ll realize how lovely it is when someone remembers you. Even when you take it for granted.”
A few seconds later, as he watched her regain her usual self, raccoon mascara and all, swearing because she’d spilled coffee on her white shirt, Thomas thought Alice looked even prettier than she did in the photo he’d used for her company badge.
And that he really needed to buy a jar of cinnamon.
