Rule number one: do not fall in love with your boss.
Rule number two: do not forget rule number one.
Rule number three: when he looks at you like that, pretend it doesn't mean anything.
Summary: When you land a job as the personal assistant to Harry Styles, the calm, charismatic CEO of Fine Line Enterprises, you quickly learn the role is much more than managing a calendar. From early morning calls to last minute flights and being the gatekeeper to one of the busiest men in the industry, your lite becomes completely intertwined with his.
🥞Hello, I'm AbiwonKenabi. I keep my fanfiction here 🥞
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This blog is primarily for my Spamtenna / Deltarune rambling and fics. I like lots of other things too though.
Here is a selection of my fics if you are interested:
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📝Still In Print - (Ongoing) a prequel/midquel series that explores Spamton's previous relationship with fellow Addison: the distinguished print ad Newsbrook
✏️Chewed Pencils - Epilogue Series to Pencil Me In that explores the next chapter in Spamton and Tenna's lives... Parenthood! (Complete! a little under 40k words) (tag: #pencilmein)
✏️Pencil Me In - (The OG!) Spamton is hired on as Tenna's off-beat assistant. Come join them alongside a cast of colorful characters in this workplace drama turned romance? (Complete, a little under 90k words) (tag: #pencilmein )
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⭐Pursuing Star - When a lost child lands in Spamton and Tenna's laps, Spamton must deal with the intentional distance he's kept between him and Tenna... and what the next step in their relationship will be. Can he figure it out while everyone in Cyber City wants this kid? (tag: #Pursuing Star ⭐)
And More!
(I'll try to keep this up-to-date with my recent stuff but my projects have progressed so much, thought a refresh was in order!)
One of my favorite fics just published their final chapter (there's an epilogue still in the works though!) and I wanted to give them a shout out! It's called Pencil Me In by @abiwonkenabi-blog (who is finally on Tumblr yayy!!)
It's an AU fic where Spamton never makes the phone call and gets hired as Tenna's assistant. Lots of 90s office aesthetics, FANTASTIC character work (especially for Spamton imo), and cool as hell world building and OCs!
It's a little less than 90k words, would make for a good binge 👌 go send them some love! 💕
Rule number one: do not fall in love with your boss.
Rule number two: do not forget rule number one.
Rule number three: when he looks at you like that, pretend it doesn't mean anything.
Summary: When you land a job as the personal assistant to Harry Styles, the calm, charismatic CEO of Fine Line Enterprises, you quickly learn the role is much more than managing a calendar. From early morning calls to last minute flights and being the gatekeeper to one of the busiest men in the industry, your lite becomes completely intertwined with his.
Word Count: 6.5k
Warnings: Power imbalance, eventual smut, drinking, cursing.
The drive back to the office is quieter than the drive there.
Not uncomfortable quiet, but the kind that settles naturally after a long meeting, both of you sitting with your own thoughts while the city moves past outside the windows. The tension from earlier has eased a little, though not completely, and you can still feel traces of it in the way he sits beside you, one arm resting near the door, sleeves still rolled up, attention fixed somewhere beyond the passing traffic.
You keep your notebook in your lap this time instead of pretending to read it, mostly because you know you’re not absorbing a single word if you try.
Your mind keeps drifting back to the meeting instead.
To the way he handled it. The way he never raised his voice or lost control of the room even when things clearly weren’t going the way he wanted. You had expected someone intimidating to be loud about it somehow, colder maybe, sharper in a more obvious way.
Instead, he just got quieter.
More focused.
And somehow that felt more intimidating than if he’d snapped at someone.
You glance over at him for a second before looking back out the window.
He catches you anyway.
“What?” he asks, not looking up from his phone.
You blink. “Nothing.”
A small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, like he doesn’t believe you for a second.
“You looked concerned,” he says.
“I was just trying to figure out if that meeting went as badly as I think it did.”
That gets a quiet laugh out of him, brief but real.
“It wasn’t great,” he admits.
You nod slowly. “You seemed irritated.”
“I was irritated.”
There’s no hesitation in the answer. No pretending otherwise.
You glance over again, a little more carefully this time. “You hide it well.”
That finally makes him look up from his phone.
“You think so?”
“Considering nobody in that room looked relaxed enough to breathe near the end of it?” you say lightly. “Yeah. I’d say you hide it pretty well.”
He huffs another quiet laugh and shakes his head slightly, looking back down at his phone.
“That’s because half of them stop thinking clearly the second a meeting gets tense,” he says. “Someone has to stay calm.”
You nod, leaning back slightly against the seat.
“That sounds exhausting.”
His eyes flick toward you briefly, like he wasn’t expecting that answer.
“It can be,” he says after a second.
The car falls quiet again after that, but it feels different now. Easier. Less like you’re sitting beside your boss and more like you’re sitting beside someone who just let you see a side of him most people probably don’t.
You’re still thinking about that by the time the car pulls back up to the office building.
He glances toward you as the driver slows to a stop.
“You hungry?” he asks suddenly.
You look over at him, caught a little off guard by the question.
“A little,” you admit.
He nods once like he already expected that answer.
“Good,” he says as he reaches for the door handle. “Because I’m ordering dinner and if you try to leave before eating something, I’ll take it personally.”
When you get back to the office, the building has shifted into that quieter version of itself that only exists after normal work hours.
The lights are dimmer in some of the hallways, a few desks sit abandoned with half empty coffee cups beside monitors that were clearly shut off in a hurry, and most of the noise from earlier has disappeared, replaced with the occasional ringing phone or muted conversation from offices that still have people inside them.
A handful of employees are still there finishing things up, and they glance up when the two of you walk in together, offering quick goodnights to him as you pass.
He answers every one of them.
You follow him down the hallway toward the executive offices, your heels quieter against the floor now that the building has mostly emptied out, and just before you reach your desk, he gestures toward his office with a small nod.
“Come sit,” he says.
You follow him inside, trying not to overthink the fact that the office feels different at night somehow, less formal now that the blinds are half drawn and the city outside the windows is starting to glow.
He closes the door behind you.
Not dramatically. Just automatically.
Still, your brain notices it immediately.
You sit across from him in the small seating area while he drops into the chair opposite you, loosening his tie the rest of the way before pulling out his phone.
For a minute, he just scrolls.
You watch him for a second, then glance toward the windows, then back at him again.
“What are you looking for?” you ask.
“A food menu,” he says simply, still scrolling. “I’m starving.”
That gets a small laugh out of you.
“You barely touched your lunch.”
“I know,” he says.
He finally finds something and turns the phone slightly toward you.
“What do you like?”
You look down at the menu and immediately feel out of your depth.
There are words on it you don’t even know how to pronounce, ingredients you’ve definitely seen before but couldn’t identify under pressure if someone asked you to.
You laugh quietly and lean back a little.
“I don’t even know what most of these things are,” you admit.
That gets his attention.
He looks up from the phone at you, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
“No?”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “I feel like this menu just humbled me a little.”
A small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.
“Alright,” he says. “Then I’ll order for you.”
You hesitate for half a second before nodding. “Okay.”
Something flickers across his expression at that, subtle enough that you almost miss it.
“You like control,” he says lightly, more to himself than to you.
You blink. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, still smiling slightly. “What don’t you like?”
“I’m pretty open,” you say. “There’s not much I won’t eat.”
He nods once like that answer makes sense, then goes back to the menu, scrolling a little more before dialing the restaurant.
You sit there quietly while he orders, listening to him speak with the same calm confidence he seems to bring into every conversation.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “And add whatever wine you’re featuring right now.”
Wine.
Your stomach flips slightly at how casual that sounds coming out of his mouth, like this is just a normal end to a workday for him.
He finishes the call a minute later and sets his phone down on the table.
“They said about an hour,” he says.
You nod and instinctively start thinking ahead.
“Okay. I can go pick it up when it’s ready.”
He shakes his head immediately.
“No.”
You pause.
“I can,” you say. “It’s not a problem.”
“I know,” he says. “But you’re off.”
You blink at him for a second.
Off.
The word feels strange after spending the entire day attached to his schedule.
“You don’t have to stay because I am,” he says, leaning back slightly in his chair. “Dinner isn’t work. I just didn’t feel like eating alone.”
The sentence lands somewhere low in your chest before your brain can catch up to it.
You look at him for a second, trying to decide if he realizes how certain things sound when he says them.
He doesn’t seem to.
Or maybe he does.
You honestly can’t tell yet.
“You can go home after we eat,” he says easily, like this is the most normal arrangement in the world. “I’m finishing a few things here anyway.”
You nod slowly.
“Okay,” you say quietly.
And somewhere in the back of your mind, Lucy’s voice drifts through again.
He gets a little… personal with his assistants.
You push the thought away immediately.
This isn’t personal. It’s just dinner. Probably.
He leans back further into the couch after setting his phone down, looking noticeably more relaxed now that the meeting is over and food is handled, the sharp edge from earlier softened into something easier again.
Then he claps his hands together once, light and sudden enough to make you look up.
“Alright,” he says. “Tell me about your life.”
You blink at him.
“My life?”
“Yeah,” he says simply. “How you got here. What’s going on. I like to know people.”
You let out a small laugh because the question somehow feels both casual and impossibly broad at the exact same time.
“That’s a very large question.”
“I know,” he says, completely unbothered. “Start wherever.”
You shift slightly in your seat, suddenly aware of how strange this feels.
You’re sitting in your boss’s office after hours while he orders wine and asks about your life like this is a normal conversation to be having.
And somehow, with him, it does feel normal.
Or at least normal enough that you answer.
“There’s not that much to tell,” you say.
“That’s never true when people say it,” he replies immediately.
You smile despite yourself and glance down at your hands for a second, trying to figure out where to even begin.
“I grew up about forty minutes outside the city,” you say slowly. “Nothing exciting. My parents are still there. My mom teaches second grade and my dad owns an auto shop.”
He nods once, listening carefully in that way he does that somehow makes you keep talking even when you weren’t planning to.
“I went to school here,” you continue. “I changed my major twice because apparently eighteen year olds are expected to decide their entire future for some reason.”
That gets a quiet laugh out of him.
“I think I started in marketing,” you say. “Then communications. Then I realized I was less interested in being the person with the big ideas and more interested in being the person who actually keeps everything from falling apart.”
“That’s an important person,” he says.
You glance up at him briefly.
“Yeah,” you say quietly. “I think so too.”
He holds your gaze for a second longer than necessary before nodding slightly for you to continue.
“So I worked a bunch of random jobs after college,” you say. “Retail. Front desk stuff. Administrative work. Nothing glamorous.”
“Glamorous is overrated,” he says.
“You say that as someone with a very glamorous office.”
He looks around like he hasn’t noticed it before.
“Fair point.”
You laugh softly and settle a little deeper into the couch without realizing it, your body slowly relaxing into the conversation.
“I don’t know,” you say after a second. “I just always liked being useful. I like organizing things. I like solving problems. I like when someone’s stressed and I can make their life easier somehow.”
You stop talking for a second and immediately feel that familiar instinct to pull back a little, to make a joke or downplay it before it sounds too honest.
But he just watches you steadily.
“That’s pretty rare,” he says.
“What is?”
“People who actually like taking care of things for other people,” he says. “Most people want recognition. Or power. Or to be the person everyone notices.”
You look down briefly, thinking about that.
“I don’t really care about being noticed,” you admit.
“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t think you do.”
The room goes a little quieter after that.
Not awkward.
Just still.
The city lights glow softly through the windows behind him, catching against the glass and outlining the edges of the room in gold, and for a second you become very aware of where you are.
His office.
After hours.
Wine coming.
Talking about your life like you’ve known him longer than a week.
You shift slightly, trying to shake the feeling off.
“What about you?” you ask before you can overthink it. “How did you end up… this?”
You gesture vaguely around the office.
“The terrifying corporate empire?” he asks.
You laugh. “Exactly that.”
He smiles a little, dropping his head back briefly against the couch.
“It’s less exciting than people think,” he says. “I started young. Got lucky a few times. Worked constantly. Kept saying yes to things until suddenly I had a company.”
“That feels like you skipped a few chapters.”
“Probably,” he says.
You watch him for a second, noticing the way he relaxes more when he talks like this, outside meetings and schedules and conference rooms.
He goes quiet for a moment after that, his gaze drifting briefly toward the windows behind you where the city is settling into evening, lights flickering on one by one against the darkening skyline. For the first time all day, he looks still. Not distracted, not thinking three conversations ahead, not mentally moving pieces around on a calendar. Just… still.
“I think people assume it was more intentional than it actually was,” he says after a second, his voice quieter now, less polished than the version of him you’ve watched in meetings all week. “Like I woke up at twenty and decided I wanted this whole massive corporate thing and mapped it all out step by step. But honestly, most of it happened because I was good at one thing, and then somebody wanted me to do another thing, and then suddenly there were investors and offices and employees and somehow people started treating me like I knew exactly what I was doing.”
You smile a little at that. “Did you?”
“No,” he says immediately, and the answer comes with enough honesty that it makes you laugh softly. “Not even slightly.”
He leans forward slightly, resting his forearms against his knees, and your eyes catch briefly, very briefly, on the tattoos again before you force yourself to focus on his face instead.
“I was good at reading people,” he says. “That helped. Still does. Most business is just people trying to convince each other they’re smarter than everyone else in the room, and if you can figure out what somebody actually wants underneath all that, you’re usually fine.”
You tilt your head slightly. “That sounds manipulative.”
“It probably is,” he says with a small smile. “But I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just mean people tell you things without realizing they’re telling you. You can learn a lot if you pay attention.”
Something about the way he says it makes you feel suddenly, intensely aware that he probably notices far more about you than you realize.
You think about the way he catches your expressions before you even speak sometimes. The way he seems to know when you’re nervous, or overwhelmed, or trying too hard to hide something.
“That sounds exhausting,” you say quietly.
“It can be.”
The answer comes easier this time, without the automatic charm layered over it.
He leans back again, one arm stretching across the back of the couch as he looks at the ceiling for a second like he’s deciding how honest he wants to be.
“I think somewhere along the line it stopped feeling temporary,” he says. “At first it was exciting. Everything was moving all the time, every year bigger than the last one, more offices, more projects, more people. And then one day you wake up and realize you haven’t had an actual day off in… maybe months.” He laughs softly to himself at that, though there’s no real humor in it. “You get very good at functioning that way.”
You watch him carefully while he talks, noticing how different this feels from every other conversation you’ve had with him so far. There’s no performance in this version of him. No carefully controlled executive answers. He sounds tired in a way that feels deeply practiced, like someone who stopped talking about it because nobody around him really wants to hear it anymore.
“Do you like it?” you ask after a moment.
He looks at you then, like he wasn’t expecting the question to come so quickly.
“The company?” he asks.
“You life,” you say softly.
That catches him off guard a little. You can see it happen in real time, small enough that somebody else probably wouldn’t notice it, but you do.
He looks down briefly, turning his phone over once against his palm before setting it on the table.
“I do,” he says eventually. “Most of the time.” He pauses for a second, searching for the right wording. “I like building things. I like solving problems. I like knowing people depend on me and that I can actually do something useful with that.” His mouth pulls slightly at one corner then, something quieter than a smile. “But it gets lonely in a way I didn’t really expect.”
The room goes still around that sentence.
Not dramatically. Just enough that you feel it settle somewhere between you.
He doesn’t look embarrassed for saying it, which somehow makes it feel even more honest.
“You spend enough years being the person everyone needs something from,” he continues, “and eventually people stop talking to you like a normal person. They either want something, or they’re nervous around you, or they’re trying to impress you.” His eyes flick toward you briefly then. “That’s part of why I liked you in the interview. You were nervous, but you still talked to me like I was a person.”
Your stomach flips softly at that.
You look down for a second, suddenly very aware of yourself sitting there across from him, after hours, in the middle of a conversation that stopped feeling professional somewhere a while ago.
“I also rambled for most of that interview,” you point out quietly.
“That too,” he says, smiling now. “I liked that part.”
You look at him for a second after he says it, the words still hanging lightly in the room.
I liked that part.
It shouldn’t feel like such a loaded sentence.
And yet somehow, sitting here across from him while the city glows outside the windows and the office has gone mostly dark around you, it does.
You glance down briefly, turning the edge of your sleeve between your fingers while your brain tries very hard not to linger on the fact that this conversation has drifted so far away from calendars and travel confirmations that you’re not even sure when it happened.
Then, before you can stop yourself, the question slips out.
“So do you have a wife or kids or anything?”
The second the sentence leaves your mouth, you feel your entire body tense.
Oh my god.
Why would you ask that.
Why would you ask your boss that.
You have known this man for one week.
His eyebrows lift slightly, and then, dramatically, he presses a hand against his chest like you’ve genuinely wounded him.
“Wow,” he says. “Hard hitting questions tonight.”
You immediately shake your head, laughing nervously.
“No, sorry. Forget I asked that. That probably wasn’t work appropriate.”
He laughs then, properly this time, leaning back further into the couch.
“You’re off the clock, remember?” he says. “I said dinner wasn’t work.”
You press your lips together, still slightly embarrassed.
“Still,” you say. “That felt invasive.”
“It’s alright,” he says easily.
He drops his hand from his chest and looks down for a second, the humor softening into something quieter.
“I was engaged once,” he says. “A while ago.”
Something about the way he says it makes you instantly not ask follow up questions.
No dramatic story.
No bitterness.
Just a fact placed gently on the table between you.
“No kids though,” he adds. “Unless you count the company, which some people here definitely do.”
You smile a little at that.
“What happened?” you ask carefully, softer this time.
He lets out a small breath through his nose and glances toward the windows again.
“Timing, mostly,” he says after a second. “I was building all of this and she wanted a version of me that actually existed outside of work.” A small smile pulls at one side of his mouth, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Turns out I wasn’t very good at that.”
There’s something strangely intimate about the honesty of it, maybe because he says it so plainly, without trying to make himself look better.
“Dating’s hard,” he says with a small shrug. “Especially once your life starts looking like this.”
His hand gestures vaguely toward the office around you, toward the city outside, toward everything.
You nod slowly because you suddenly understand exactly what he meant earlier when he said lonely.
Then his eyes flick back toward you.
“What about you?” he asks. “Boyfriend? Secret husband? Double life?”
You laugh quietly, the sound slipping out easier now than it would have a few days ago.
“No,” you say quickly. “No boyfriend. No husband. No kids.”
You stumble slightly over the words anyway, suddenly very aware of yourself answering him.
He notices.
Of course he notices.
“No secret second family either?” he asks lightly.
“Not currently,” you say. “But I’ll keep you updated.”
“That’s all I ask.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself, and for a second the room feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with the wine that still hasn’t arrived yet.
Then he looks at you again, a little more carefully this time.
“Dating’s hard for you too?” he asks.
The question catches you off guard a little because he asks it like he genuinely wants to know.
You think about it for a second before answering.
“I don’t know,” you admit. “I think I just spend a lot of time trying to get my life together and then suddenly six months pass.”
He nods slowly like he understands that immediately.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “That happens.”
And for a second, sitting there across from each other in the dim office light, both of you talking about relationships that don’t exist anymore or maybe never really existed at all, it stops feeling like a conversation between a CEO and his assistant.
It just feels like two people who work too much talking honestly for once.
The office falls quiet for a moment after that, the kind of quiet that settles naturally after a conversation drifts into something more honest than either person probably intended.
You sit back against the couch slightly, your eyes dropping briefly to the city outside the windows while your mind keeps circling pieces of what he said.
I was engaged once.
Dating’s hard.
She wanted a version of me that actually existed outside of work.
You can picture it a little too easily now.
Him leaving meetings late. Canceling dinners. Answering emails at midnight. Taking calls during vacations. The constant movement of his life, the constant pressure of it, the way even now, after hours, he’s still sitting in his office instead of somewhere else.
The office phone rings before either of you says anything else.
The sound cuts through the room sharply enough that you both glance toward it automatically.
“Ignore me,” he says lightly as he stands up from the couch and walks toward his desk. “I’m apparently very popular tonight.”
You smile a little as he picks up the receiver.
“Yeah?” he says.
There’s a pause.
Then his expression softens slightly.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
He hangs up and looks over at you.
“Dinner’s here.”
You blink slightly.
You don’t remember him giving them an address.
Then again, you’re starting to realize men like him probably have systems for everything. Accounts. Preferred numbers. Places that know his office, his schedule, his name.
The kind of life where things simply… arrive.
He walks toward the door, rolling his sleeves down absentmindedly once before giving up halfway through and leaving them pushed up instead.
You try very hard not to notice that.
You fail a little.
It’s unfair, honestly.
The tattoos.
The rolled sleeves.
The loosened tie.
The fact that somehow he still looks put together after a twelve hour workday and a tense investor meeting.
You watch him cross the office and it hits you suddenly, very clearly, in a way that feels almost annoying.
He’s really handsome.
Not just attractive in a vague objective way. Distractingly handsome. The kind that sneaks up on you the longer you look at him, the more you notice.
His eyes when he’s focused.
The sharpness in his jaw when he’s thinking.
The way his mouth curves when he’s trying not to laugh.
The calm confidence of someone who walks through every room like he belongs there.
And then your brain, incredibly unhelpfully, decides to keep going.
What would dating someone like him even look like?
Probably missed dinners and late nights and flights booked last minute. Probably waiting through meetings and watching him answer emails during movies and hearing his phone buzz at two in the morning. Probably learning how to share someone with an entire company.
You think about the woman he was engaged to for a second.
She wanted a version of me that actually existed outside of work.
Your chest tightens slightly at the thought.
Because sitting here now, in this office, after watching him all day, you’re not actually sure that version exists anymore either.
The door opens again before you can spiral too far into that thought.
He walks back in carrying two paper bags and a bottle of wine under one arm like this is the most normal thing in the world.
He sets the bags down on the small table between the couches before loosening his tie the rest of the way and tossing it carelessly beside his phone, a movement so casual it feels strangely intimate after spending most of the week seeing him perfectly put together.
The entire office starts to smell good almost immediately.
Warm garlic. Herbs. Something rich and buttery underneath it all.
Your stomach betrays you instantly with a quiet growl.
His mouth pulls into a smile as he looks up at you.
“Good,” he says. “At least one of us is honest.”
You cover your face briefly with one hand, laughing softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was starving until just now.”
“That’s because you spent twelve hours surviving on stress and coffee,” he says as he starts unpacking containers from the bags.
You watch him move around the table for a second, sleeves still rolled up, tattoos visible every time his hands shift, and you have to look away before your brain starts being deeply unhelpful again.
“What did you order?” you ask instead.
He points lightly toward one of the containers as he opens it.
“For you? Rigatoni vodka. Which sounds boring but isn’t.” Then another. “And grilled branzino because you said you’re open minded and I wanted to test that.”
You laugh quietly. “This feels like a very high stakes dinner now.”
“It is,” he says seriously, though the smile gives him away immediately. “I judge people heavily based on food opinions.”
“That feels dangerous for workplace morale.”
“It probably is.”
He opens another container and the smell somehow gets even better, rich and warm enough that you immediately realize you have not eaten nearly enough today.
You shift forward slightly on the couch while he organizes everything, separating containers, napkins, forks, setting things up with an ease that makes it seem like this is not the first time he’s eaten dinner in this office after hours.
Which it probably isn’t.
The thought settles quietly in your chest.
How many nights has he stayed here like this? How many dinners eaten between emails and meetings and work that followed him long after everyone else went home?
He reaches back into the bag again, then pauses.
“Hm.”
You look up. “What?”
“They didn’t give us glasses.”
You blink. “For the wine?”
“Yeah.”
He checks the bag again anyway like glasses might magically appear if he looks hard enough.
Nothing.
“I don’t think there are any around here either,” he says, glancing vaguely toward the office kitchen area. “Unless somebody’s hiding wine glasses in a cabinet I don’t know about.”
You laugh softly.
“So what’s the solution here?”
He looks down at the bottle in his hand, then back at you, completely calm.
“I think,” he says, already opening it, “we’re sharing it straight from the bottle like two people making questionable decisions.”
You stare at him for half a second before laughing again.
“This feels like something HR would absolutely hate.”
“Good thing HR went home an hour ago.”
The cork comes free with a soft pop and he takes a small sip first before holding the bottle out toward you casually.
You hesitate for exactly one second before taking it.
Your fingers brush his briefly in the exchange and your brain notices immediately, annoyingly, instantly.
You lift the bottle and take a sip, trying very hard to act natural about the fact that you are currently sitting in your boss’s office after hours, sharing wine straight from the bottle while he watches you over candlelit pasta containers like this is not the beginning of every bad decision ever made.
The wine is good.
Of course it is.
You hand the bottle back carefully.
“Okay,” you admit. “That’s actually really good.”
“I know,” he says easily, setting it down on the table between you before finally sitting back against the couch. “I’m right about most things.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself, and pick up your fork.
Outside the windows, the city continues moving far below you, lights flickering across glass buildings while the office around you stays quiet and dim.
And somewhere between the wine bottle sitting on the table and the way he’s looking at you now, relaxed in a way you haven’t seen before, you realize this no longer feels like staying late at work.
Dinner stretches longer than either of you intends it to.
At first it still feels loosely structured, conversation slipping in between bites of food and comments about meetings and people from the office, but somewhere along the way the shape of it changes without either of you really acknowledging it.
The containers are spread open across the table now, half eaten pasta and empty takeout boxes pushed aside to make room for the wine bottle sitting between you, and at some point both of you stop sitting properly.
You end up turned slightly toward him, one leg tucked underneath you, your back resting against the arm of the couch while he sits across from you in much the same way, sleeves still rolled up, tie abandoned somewhere near his desk.
The office feels different at night.
Smaller somehow.
The city outside the windows glows gold and white against the dark, the reflections catching softly across the glass walls, and the quiet around the two of you starts feeling less like an office building and more like being suspended somewhere outside normal life entirely.
You take another sip from the bottle before handing it back to him.
“You know,” you say lightly, “this is not how I pictured my first week here going.”
He takes the bottle from you, smiling faintly. “No?”
“No,” you laugh softly. “I thought I’d spend most of it getting yelled at for messing up schedules and accidentally deleting important emails.”
“You haven’t deleted anything important yet.”
“That you know of.”
“That’s true.”
You smile and watch him take a sip before setting the bottle back down between you again.
“And instead,” you continue, “I’m drinking wine out of the bottle with my boss at nine o’clock at night.”
He glances toward the windows briefly before looking back at you.
“To be fair,” he says, “it’s very classy wine.”
“That definitely fixes the situation.”
“It improves it.”
You laugh quietly again, and the sound settles warmly into the room.
For a while the conversation drifts into easier things after that.
Stories from college. Bad jobs. Terrible customers. The time you accidentally locked yourself out of your apartment in pajamas at two in the morning and had to bribe your neighbor with Starbucks to let you climb through his balcony.
He laughs properly at that, head dropping back slightly against the couch.
“No.”
“Yes,” you groan, covering your face briefly. “And it was raining.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
“It was humiliating.”
“I bet the neighbor still talks about it.”
“He absolutely still talks about it.”
You watch him laugh for a second, and it hits you again how different he is like this compared to the office version of himself. Softer around the edges. Easier. Not less confident exactly, just less guarded.
And maybe it’s the wine, or the late hour, or the fact that the entire city feels very far away from this room right now, but you find yourself relaxing into it more than you should.
“What about you?” you ask eventually. “You have to have embarrassing stories.”
He looks offended immediately.
“I’m incredibly composed.”
You stare at him.
He stares back for exactly two seconds before smiling.
“Alright,” he says. “When I was twenty three I got locked in a bathroom during a client dinner for forty minutes.”
You immediately start laughing.
“No you did not.”
“I absolutely did.”
“How?”
“The handle broke.”
“You couldn’t climb out a window?”
“It was thirty floors up.”
You laugh harder at the image of him trapped in a corporate bathroom while people searched for him.
“What happened?”
“One of the interns eventually realized where I was because I was answering emails through the door.”
You drop your head back against the couch laughing while he shakes his head at himself.
“That cannot be a real story.”
“It’s unfortunately very real.”
You look over at him again after the laughter settles, your eyes catching on him more softly this time.
The loosened collar of his shirt.
The tattoos disappearing beneath rolled sleeves.
The way his hair has fallen slightly out of place over the course of the night.
He notices you looking this time.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that one corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
“What?” he asks quietly.
Your stomach flips.
You look away toward the windows too quickly to play it off smoothly.
“Nothing,” you say, smiling into your wine bottle before taking another sip.
He hums softly like he doesn’t believe you at all.
At some point the wine bottle ends up closer to empty than full.
Neither of you really notices when it happens.
The conversation just keeps unfolding naturally, one story turning into another, the office around you growing quieter and darker until it barely feels connected to the rest of the building anymore. Your shoes have been kicked off somewhere near the couch, his jacket is draped over the back of a chair, and every now and then your knees brush accidentally when one of you shifts closer to reach for the bottle.
Or maybe not entirely accidentally.
You’re laughing again when it happens.
He’s telling you about some disastrous networking dinner years ago where a man spent twenty minutes confidently pitching him a company idea that already existed, and the image of him sitting through that politely is funny enough on its own, but then he imitates the guy’s voice just slightly and you completely lose it.
“You’re lying,” you laugh, leaning forward slightly. “There’s no way.”
“I swear to god,” he says, grinning now. “And the worst part was he kept saying innovative every thirty seconds like he’d just learned the word.”
You laugh harder, instinctively reaching out and grabbing his forearm for balance as you nearly spill the wine.
His skin is warm under your fingers.
The tattoos even warmer.
And for a second neither of you moves.
The laughter fades slowly between you, the room settling into something quieter, something heavier.
Your hand is still on his arm.
His eyes flick down to it briefly before lifting back to your face.
And suddenly you’re very aware of how close you are sitting.
Neither of you says anything.
You can feel your heartbeat in your throat a little now, wine warm in your system, his attention fixed entirely on you in a way that makes the rest of the room disappear.
Then he says quietly, almost amused,
“You’re staring at me again.”
Your stomach flips hard enough that you actually laugh under your breath.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m really not.”
“You absolutely are.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself, and try to lean back again, but your foot catches awkwardly against the edge of the couch cushion.
It happens fast.
One second you’re shifting your weight and the next you’re slipping sideways with a startled sound, your hand grabbing instinctively for something steady.
Which unfortunately ends up being him.
His hands catch you automatically, one at your waist, the other against your arm, and suddenly instead of falling onto the couch cushion you end up halfway in his lap.
The room goes still.
Completely still.
Your breath catches immediately.
“Oh my god,” you whisper, mortified, trying to push yourself up. “I’m so sorry—”
“It’s alright,” he says quickly, though his voice sounds different now too.
Lower.
Closer.
Your hands are braced against his chest, his grip still steady at your waist like he forgot to let go, and when you look up, he’s already looking at you.
Not laughing anymore.
Just looking.
Your heart starts beating so hard it actually hurts a little.
You should move.
You know you should.
Instead your eyes flick down briefly to his mouth.
And he notices.
Of course he notices.
There’s the smallest pause.
Just enough time for either one of you to stop this.
Then he kisses you.
It’s soft at first, almost careful, like he’s giving you room to pull away if you want to, but the second your hand slides instinctively up into his hair everything changes.
The kiss deepens immediately, all the tension that’s been building for days finally snapping into place at once.
His hand tightens slightly at your waist as you kiss him back, your entire brain going completely blank except for him, him, him.
The wine.
His mouth.
His hands.
The fact that you are sitting in your boss’s lap in his office kissing him like this is something you’ve wanted to do for much longer than one week.
By the time you finally pull back, both of you are breathing harder than before, your forehead almost brushing his as you stare at each other for a second in stunned silence.
Reality comes back all at once.
Your boss.
Your job.
Lucy’s warning.
The office.
Everything.
You pull back quickly, your face warm, your breathing uneven.
“That,” you say breathlessly, “cannot happen again.”
He looks at you for a second, still holding your waist lightly, his own breathing not entirely steady either.
Then one corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
“That sounded pretty rehearsed.”
You stare at him.
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
With his heavy hands still warm against your waist, you realized you had already crossed a line you weren’t entirely sure either of you could come back from.
Time really flies and I didn't think at all about how DELTARUNE CH 3+4 IS TURNING 1 OML
Which MEANS it's Spamtenna's anniversary as well this week
AND OF COURSE fans are celebrating with Spamtenna week... and I have nothing special planned -_- I would have loved to participate, or even bump up a project to this week but most stuff I have coming up is barely Spamtenna... like it IS don't get me wrong--I don't really wrote anything else these days--but it's based on wider world stuff, mainly for Pencils...
Chewed Pencils next chapter won't have a ton of Tenna
My other 2 big WIPs don't feature the main couple front and center and more focused on related characters
I even started dreaming up a one shot yesterday!.... That's a look into Pencil Tenna’s past BEFORE he met Spamton...
I might still come up with something this month. Regardless, have a happy Spamtenna week! Thank you for reading along 😊
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter 1 to Pencil Me In's prequel is up!
Newsbrook S Newsington was a distinguished Addison that anyone would count themselves lucky to call an acquaintance. Lucky for Spamton that he's decided to take the hapless, shorter Addison under his wing. Through their business connection, Spamton learns plenty, and quickly gains Newsbrook's favor. It's an influential position any Addison would be happy to be in.
Right?
◩ ჻჻჻჻჻჻⊱✉︎⊰჻჻჻჻჻჻◪
This one contains a lot of sensitive materials so please mind the notes and tags!
Been a hot minute since I talked about what I'm cooking behind the scenes so thought I'd list it out
1.) Chewed Pencils - Just posted Ch 8 the other day! We are about halfway through. I AM adding one additional chapter, bringing the total to 15 chapters, but the rest is in a near complete state!
2.) Still in Print - A prequel that looks at Spamton's previous relationship with Newsbrook, one of the Addison sponsors from Pencil Me In. It's technically also a midquel and has a bit that takes place AFTER Chewed Pencils, so that does need to complete first. Shaping up well, lots of stuff already written
3.) Click Here for More - Clickson's spin-off! I'm having a lot of fun writing this and am doing it a bit differently... there's a vague plot but I'm mostly just writing scenes as they come to me and will organize them later. We'll see how this turns out!
4.) Unnamed Lightner AU - This has gotten demoted as I haven't progressed on it at all lately. Still plan to return to this, just in the backburner for now. Still about half-ish written?
Thanks as always for reading and following along! ^_^
