Leaning back in his office chair, just far enough that it didn't move, Alec flipped to the next page in his book, chewing anxiously at the inside of his cheek. His sister-in-law, Clary, had recommended the novel, and when he borrowed her copy he hadn't been expecting the story to be so intense. He didn't often read new books, he preferred to reread favorites—so it was totally strange not to know what would happen. It would have a happy ending, of course, but at what cost?

The phone on the desk rang, and he jerked out of the story with a sharp breath. Slipping his finger between the pages to save his place, he set aside the book and reached out to answer the call. The script rolled off his tongue with long-practiced ease: "Idris Electronics, this is Alec with tech support. What can I do to assist you?"

"Hello, I have a question about a laptop I just bought online," said the male voice on the other end. The words were straightforward enough, but his voice swam deep, smooth, with a teasing lilt that hinted at an accent. Alec swallowed and willed his unbidden blush to recede, even though he knew full well the caller couldn't see him.

"All right, what system and model is it?" he asked first.

The caller fell silent (unfortunately), but just before Alec opened his mouth to guide him through the process of finding the model on the box or laptop, he read off the information. Plus some extra manufacturing details that must have been typed in the same areas. A smile crept onto his face. Bless.

"All right," Alec said again, mostly just to give himself that extra second to get his thoughts together. "So what's the problem you're having?"

He laughed a little, quiet and low in his throat. "Don't laugh," he warned, "but I can't get it to set up a user account… thing."

Alec leaned forward. "I wouldn't laugh," he said earnestly. "Don't worry. I'll walk you through it, and we can see where you're getting stuck. It'll all be fine."

"Okay, if you promise," said the caller, a sideways smile audible in his voice.

The blush was definitely here to stay. Alec decided to ignore it as he adjusted his headset and started to lead him through the process of setting up a user account in Windows 2013. Eventually they figured out that the problem was in the layout of the control panel, so once they sorted that out, the caller created what he needed, and Alec realized in a fall of disappointment that there was really no more reason to stay on the line.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" he asked, half hoping that the answer would be yes.

"Nope," the caller said cheerfully. "I think that covered it for now."

"Okay." Alec hesitated. "Well, you might be asked to complete a survey about the tech support assistance you just received, so please do that. It helps us improve our services."

"Oh, don't worry," drawled the caller. "Your services have been marvelous."

Alec's face burned. "Um—well—"

"Thank you." The Cheshire grin was practically visible. "So much."

"You're welcome," Alec choked out. "Thanks for choosing Idris. Have a good day." And he hung up before he could make any more of a fool out of himself.

Then his brother Jace walked in the front door, took one look at him, and grinned. "Good Lord. Someone's been flirting at work!"

"I have not!" Alec insisted, but the blonde only sashayed away with a clearly disbelieving suuuure.

Book in hand, Alec went in to the office the next day, half hoping he'd hear from the caller again. It was ridiculous, and he knew it, but still, he hoped. He sat down at his cubicle and gave an experimental spin in his chair just to reorient himself to the professional environment.

"Morning," grumbled the other tech support guy, Simon, who was somehow even nerdier than he was. (Unfortunately, it seemed to work for Alec's sister, Isabelle, who walked over from her fashion business next door every day at noon, and they stole into the back room and loudly "ate lunch together." Every day.) "When do I get to work from home?"

Alec shrugged. "Maybe after you've stopped telling the rude callers to 'give up and set their computers on fire.'"

"I try for the honest approach," protested Simon just as his phone rang. He muttered under his breath but picked up. "Hello, Idris Electronics, this is Simon with tech support. What can I help you with today?"

Now minus a conversation partner, Alec rolled back into his cubicle and pulled up a site to officially document the calls he'd taken yesterday. Including the one that involved the world's most gorgeous voice. Heat prickled his cheeks at the memory, even as he tapped the keys harder and told himself that he'd been reading too much into a friendly encounter.

His own phone rang not soon after, though, so he had to put that work on hold. "Idris Electronics, this is Alec with tech support. What can I do to assist you?" He said the same thing every time, because why test fate by improvising?

"Hello, my name… is Frank." The voice on the other end rattled with age, and he felt himself wince in sympathy. Elderly callers always needed extensive help.

"Good morning, Frank," he replied kindly. "What can I help you with?"

Frank, as it turned out, had thirteen grandchildren, and by the end of the call, Alec knew all their names. When he hung up, he heard Simon laughing. "What?"

"I didn't know you could say, 'Ohhh, yep, mm-hmmmmm' so many times in a row." The Jewish guy cackled.

"Yeah, okay, I'd like to see you handle it better." Alec leaned out far enough to shoot him a look before he picked up the phone again to answer another incoming call. "Idris Electronics…"

Work kept them busy all morning, which was typical. They covered half the world in time zones, so if they weren't helping some poor businesswoman in Italy then they were coaching a lost dude in California. actually had to postpone lunch in favor of guiding a crying girl through installing some math software she needed for college, and while he certainly didn't regret the shift in priorities, his stomach was complaining loudly by the time two o'clock rolled around.

When he got two minutes without a new call coming in, he pushed away from his desk. "Hey, I'm gonna eat for a minute," he warned Simon, who waved at him to acknowledge he'd heard.

That morning he'd packed himself a nice, well-rounded lunch, but he wasn't sure he'd have time to eat the whole thing right now, so he grabbed the most calorie-packed parts and tucked the smaller snacks into a drawer for potentially snacking on silently during calls. He stuffed half a sandwich into his mouth at once and began to work at chewing it as he walked back to his cubicle.

"Hi, I'm Simon with Idris Electronics," he heard the other tech support guy say, and he wondered how Simon just changed his opener so often without ever seeming nervous that he might stutter or mess up.

Alec managed to swallow a small chunk of the bread and leaned back, enjoying his five-minute belated lunch break. It felt ridiculously luxurious. The thought made him laugh, and he almost choked.

"Can you speak English?" Simon's voice grew louder and slower next door. "I'm sorry, could you—? What—?"

Alec forced down his protective instincts. Simon does not need you to take over the phone call, he told himself. He is perfectly competent and doesn't need your help. Besides, you have food in your mouth. Regardless, big-brotherly habits died hard.

"No, sir? Could—?" Simon stammered, trying to get the caller to listen to him. "Sir, lemme just—I'm gonna tra—I'mgonnatransferyoutoourothersupportguyjustasecond!" This last sentence-word was blurted loud and in one breath just before Alec heard the beep of a call transferring to his phone. He went to pick it up, but Simon rolled over on his chair, wide-eyed and nigh traumatized. "I'm sorry, man. I can't make out a word of what he's saying. You try."

They were no stranger to heavy accents; Simon shouldn't have been so flustered by it. Alec struggled to finish the last of the sandwich still in his mouth. "What happened?"

"I don't even know. He's half-yelling, sounds mad, and I swear he isn't even speaking English." He grimaced. "Just talked over me."

Alec thanked him for the warning and then, once the curly-haired guy had rolled back over to help another customer, picked up the transferred call. Better to shorten up the opener if he has trouble with English, he decided. Speaking slowly and clearly, he said, "This is Alec. Can I help you?"

"Oh, thank God," laughed a beautifully familiar voice. "I couldn't have kept that up much longer without laughing."

"You w…?" Alec felt laughter bubble in his throat, but confusion stifled it. "Did I not help you well enough? Why do you need help again already?" It didn't occur to him until too late that he should probably have pretended not to remember the caller by voice alone. Wow, good job, way to sound creepy.

But the caller didn't seem to mind. "No, I told you you were marvelous, and I don't lie. Well, not about that." He made it sound like that referred to more than Alec's tech support skills.

"But the accent…?" The tiny natural lilt was far from being worth laughing at and didn't impede understanding at all.

"I've traveled a lot," he explained breezily. "I channeled my inner Parisian and added a little angry Peruvian to the mix. It was a little mean, I'll admit."

Of course this guy was well traveled. Alec adjusted the phone between his ear and his shoulder and tried not to feel inferior for having not yet left the country. "Did you just feel like harassing someone today?" he asked, a little shortly—he empathized with Simon's frustration.

The caller went silent for a moment, as if stunned. "Harassing, no," he said finally. "I just wanted your coworker to pass my call off to you."

Alec's face burned, and instinctively he spun his chair away from Simon's cubicle. But he couldn't encourage such tactics. "You could have just asked."

This made the caller laugh. Even though that hadn't been Alec's intention, pleasure warmed his stomach. "I did ask," the caller corrected him. "When I called a few hours ago. The Soames boy said you weren't available."

"I wasn't," Alec said, half in a laugh despite himself. "So you felt the best way to handle that was to call back and pretend to be a customer from hell?"

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" the customer countered smoothly, and Alec snorted.

You moron, he chastised himself, trying to cover the sound up as a cough. But then again, this guy had to be joking around, so maybe the incredulous laughter was an okay response. "Look," he managed finally, "I appreciate the sentiment, but Simon's just as good at what we do as I am. I'm sure he could have helped you out."

"Steven could have his PhD in tech support," said the caller. "I don't care."

Alec's pulse pounded in his throat and chest; he shifted in his seat and popped a blueberry into his mouth to distract himself. "So what can I help you with?" he asked, trying to return to professionalism. Because there was only heartache in reading too much into friendly customers.

The caller made a sound in the back of his throat that did nothing to help Alec's professionalism. "I need help with…" His voice trailed off, and Alec got the feeling he was turning around, looking around. "…with, uh, my… router?"

He sounded like he'd only heard the word on TV. "Okay, what's the problem?"

"The light isn't on."

"Is it plugged in?" Alec asked patiently.

On the other end he heard a slight popping sound, like a cord being pulled from its home. "Nope," said the caller, sounding pleased with himself.

Alec covered his grin with one hand. "Okay, let's try that."

"Gee," the caller emphasized in his best sorry-mister voice, "I have no idea where anything goes. You're gonna have to walk me through the process. In extreme detail."

"Do you have a computer?" Alec asked, only half-joking, and Simon rolled out from his cubicle to give him a weird look. He waved him away, mouthing I've got it.

"I wouldn't swear to it."

"Well, that might have something to do with the light not coming on. Problem solved." He hated the words as they came out of his mouth, because if he'd solved the problem, even jokingly, it meant he had to hang up and help someone else.

The caller seemed to have come to the same conclusion. "Oh, no, wait! Yeah, here it is. Computer at hand. How could I have possibly missed that?"

A ridiculous wave of relief eased the set of Alec's shoulders. "I couldn't say. It's a mystery." He walked him through each step slowly and carefully. Purely out of a desire not to disappoint a customer in need, of course. He laughed too often: Simon knocked on the wall separating them a few times as if to make sure he was okay. Every time, he knocked back to reassure him things were fine.

Eventually they had dragged the process out as long as it could go. Alec was pretty sure that the caller hadn't really needed that much help. And that he might have made up the problem just to stay on the line. Smiling, he asked, "Anything else we need to fix on that?"

"No, I think we got it." The words came out easy, the pleasure of a problem resolved. No hint of the personal friendliness that had characterized this guy thus far.

His smile faded. Had he misinterpreted again? "Oh, okay. Great. No problem. Have a good—"

"Whoa, hang on!" the caller interrupted, sounding more startled than Alec had ever heard him so far. "Don't—I'm sure I can find another problem for you to solve. Just gimme a second."

Alec's brow furrowed. "I don't understand." So did this guy really have computer problems? Or was he creating them?

Rather than an explanation of the odd behavior, he heard some clicking, and then some swearing that sounded a little staged. "Great—I got locked out," the caller sighed theatrically. "Can you help me get through?"

"I…" Alec hated to end the call, but there were other people waiting for his help. "As much as I appreciate your desire to make me feel useful, I should probably help other customers now. Unless this is an urgent problem."

"Oh, 'useful' is the least of it," the caller disagreed. "But you make a good point." Before Alec could start the spiel about the survey, the caller continued, "I'm sure it'd be faster to work together face-to-face. Where's your office? I can come by later. You might be less busy then."

Alec opened his mouth to say something, anything, but words left him. He couldn't disagree: they did have customers come by in person sometimes, and work was usually slower after four. But to agree, to invite him to come… "I wouldn't want to inconvenience you," he managed lamely.

"Believe me, it's no inconvenience."

"You don't even know where I—the office is."

"Doesn't matter," said the caller matter-of-factly. "Although, since I do have to get there somehow, could you give me the address?"

Embarrassed by the jump in his pulse, Alec gave him the address. It's computers. It's computers. One hundred percent tech support business, he reminded himself. You need to calm down. The caller said he would come in around 4:30, and Alec told himself that the man would probably forget to come, or be late and not come until after Alec had gone home for the night. And then he'd get help from whoever was on shift. This wasn't a personal visit.

"All right, we'll see you then," Alec said, intentionally using the plural we of Idris tech support.

"Yes, you will," the caller said, a lilt of laughter to the words.

Stop it, stop it stop it, he commanded his racing heartbeat. To end on a professional note, for his own benefit, he said, "Have a good day, sir."

But the caller picked up on the distancing honorific. "Magnus," he corrected.

Alec debated whether to acknowledge this. But in the end… "Magnus?" he echoed, his voice cracking.

"Mm-hmm. My name. Figured you should know it before I showed up with flowers and a bad Hallmark card."

Alec's face burned, and an embarrassed smile pulled at his lips. "Ha ha," he managed, hoping it wasn't totally obvious that he'd been picturing a similar scenario. "Wouldn't that be something."

"Wouldn't it," agreed the caller, Magnus. But it wasn't a negation of the image.

"I guess… I'll see you, then." He winced at his own clumsiness. "Have a good day."

"You too, darling."

The phone line clicked with a hang-up before Alec could respond.

Granted, it took a few minutes before Alec could respond to much of anything.

Simon's phone clattered onto its cradle, and the curly-haired guy rolled over to Alec's cubicle. "The hell was that?" he exclaimed.

Alec shook his head in confusion. "I—I don't—"

"You were on that phone for—" Simon checked the clock. "—an hour and ten minutes. And I heard actual laughter. And then there was that." He knew Alec liked guys, so he understood what it might have meant.

Alec held out his hands helplessly. Eventually he got his tongue to work well enough to summarize the situation.

"I thought that accent sounded fake," mused Simon.

Alec didn't mean to spend the afternoon watching the time, but he caught his gaze flicking toward the clock on the wall more than once during the rest of his calls. After 3:30 the rush died down, and it was all he could do not to stare at every tick of the second hand. His throat seemed to vibrate with his racing pulse. Even though that's stupid, he reminded himself for the five hundredth time. Magnus is only coming for business. He has a computer problem he needs the local nerd to solve. He's probably married with kids or something.

But even as he told himself that, he suspected it wasn't true.

Four o'clock came and went, as did 4:30. Without anyone to help, Alec tapped a finger anxiously on his desk as he logged records and entered data, desperate for any task that might take his mind off a customer who might or might not ever show up in person. From what he knew, Magnus seemed flamboyant, the kind of person to forget appointments or show up late, so Alec couldn't give up and go, right? He had to stay, to wait. Just in case.

At 4:45, Simon rolled over "just to say hi." He parked right beside Alec and spun to face the doorway to the lobby. "Any news?"

"Nothing you haven't heard," Alec said, worry making his words curt.

Thankfully Simon understood, didn't take offense, and sat watch with him until their phones rang. "I'll handle it," he offered, and rolled back to his cubicle. Alec heard him say, "Idris Electronics, I'm Simon, what can I help you with?"

Back to finger-tapping, Alec spun in half-circles as he watched the door. 4:49. How did minutes and seconds last so long?

On impulse, he brought up the weather app on his phone. Maybe it was storming out; that would make sense. No one wanted to drive through a storm at the beginning of the five o'clock rush. But no, the app showed a happy yellow sun next to a beautiful 78°F.

So it wasn't weather that had delayed Magnus. Alec's stomach plummeted. I fell for it, he realized, and it hurt more than he thought it should. Clenching his jaw, he turned back to his computer.

As he was putting in his earbuds, more than ready to let music carry him through his last half-hour of work, he heard from the lobby a voice that made his heart stutter.

"Afternoon. Could you point me in the direction of tech support?"

He stumbled out of his chair, then stopped himself from running to the lobby. Stop and think. Do you want to look desperate? Slowly, stiffly, he sank back into his seat to wait for Magnus to appear in the doorway.

"Thank you," said the muffled voice, and then—

"Oh God," whispered Alec.

It had been worth the wait.

The guy—the man—that strode through the doorway had golden skin and black hair slicked up in glittery, just-messy-enough spikes. He had to be several inches over six foot, taller even than Alec himself. His neon T-shirt and skinny jeans fell perfectly on his lean frame, accentuating slim angles and slight muscles. No flowers or card, at least not in plain sight, yet neither did he seem like he'd just rolled off the couch and come over.

But what stunned Alec most were Magnus's angular eyes, revealing Indonesian descent, but in an unexpected yellow-green color that glowed not unlike a cat's. They scanned the office area and then landed right on Alec.

Magnus grinned. "Alec?"

Face tingling. Alec instinctively returned an embarrassed smile. "You must be, um, Magnus. Hi."

The former caller sauntered up to the cubicle—that was really the only word to describe the stride that Alec felt all the way between his legs. "Sorry I'm late," Magnus apologized. "I even left a few minutes early, but hit some horrible traffic and a detour. I promise this is not a reflection on my eagerness to…" His breathtaking eyes traced Alec's face in an impossibly sensual way. "…get your help in person."

Flushing hotter, Alec shook his head in dismissal of the compliment even he couldn't misinterpret. "It's fine. I'm sure you're busy anyway."

"Not at all," Magnus lied smoothly.

Alec knew it wasn't true but felt a little better at the reassurance anyway. Business, he repeated. "You were having trouble with your—with logging in, right?" he asked hastily.

Magnus pulled his laptop out from under his arm. "Yeah, here."

"Okay." Settling back into familiar territory, Alec accepted the computer and set it on the desk. It turned on fine; so far, so good. "Can you try to log in, let me see what it's doing?" He glanced at Magnus and was surprised to see a few stray cat hairs clinging to the seam of his shirt. The sight somehow threw him, warmed fondness in his chest.

"Sure." Magnus's long fingers flew over the keyboard, ending with a solid slap to the Enter key. The screen changed to say Welcome, loading for a few seconds, before fading into his desktop background, a photo of him hamming it up with a blue-haired girl and a green-haired guy. "Well, would you look at that," he said in theatrical surprise. "Of course it's fine now that you're here."

"Of course." Alec hid a smile.

"This laptop, I swear…" Magnus turned it off and tucked it back under his arm. "Well," he said promptly, "since that ended up being a bust, let's go get dinner. My treat, for being such a pain-in-the-ass customer."

"You're not a pain," Alec reassured him, leaning forward. "I've dealt with way worse. Actually, I—" He broke off and looked away. Stop while you're behind.

But he could feel Magnus still watching him. "You what?"

What indeed. Alec self-consciously laughed a little, tugging on his hair. "I liked talking to you," he admitted. "You're more, uh, fabulous than anyone else I've ever talked to."

"Fabulous?" Magnus echoed, a strange note in his voice.

Afraid he'd stepped on a touchy subject, Alec backpedaled. The words tripped out over each other. "Outgoing, I mean. Fun. Most of the time fun people have better things to do than make conversation with me. And you're funny and smooth, and even Simon asked if something was up because I was actually having a good time—not that I don't like my work, but—"

"Don't worry about it," Magnus stopped him, one hand up and a laughing gleam in his catlike eyes. "I promise, I won't tell your boss you hate your job." But he was laughing quietly. Joking.

Calming, Alec exhaled slowly. "Sorry. Anyway, all that to say, it's really fine. Don't feel obligated."

"I rarely feel obligated to do anything," Magnus replied matter-of-factly. "But I enjoyed talking to you too, and on top of that, you boast a truly stunning black-hair-blue-eyes color scheme. So I'd like to do dinner, if you don't have plans."

At a loss for words, Alec made a small choking noise at the back of his throat.

"No, just dinner, I think," Magnus corrected him. "But I'm always open to plans changing."

Surprised, Alec snorted, and it was enough to shock him out of the date-offer coma. "I… I have a little time left on my shift," he said finally, "but afterward… yeah. Okay. I'd like that."

Magnus preened. "I'll wait, then," he purred, and he pulled up a rolling chair to perch in. "Unless I can come up with a problem so urgent it requires you leaving right now…?"

Simon raised his voice: "Alec can work from home."

Magnus looked to Alec, eyebrows high. "That is important information. I'm glad Steven thought to share it."

"Simon needs to mind his own business," Alec said pointedly, raising his own voice.

Simon had the nerve to laugh. "Believe me, if I have to work next to you and this keeps going on, that makes it my business."

He did have a point: if whatever-this-was was going to become more than work (and it did seem to be barreling that way), Alec would much rather keep it private, well away from the workplace. He took the out. "He's right. I only have a little left to do—I can do it from home tonight or tomorrow morning."

"Thank you," said Simon. "Go away."

Ignoring him, Magnus brightened and jumped back to his feet. "Great! I know just the place."

Alec had barely stood and gathered his jacket and book when Magnus took his hand. The warm, solid heat of skin on skin tingled like magic, and the smile Magnus cast him brought one to Alec's face as well.

Magnus pulled him out through the lobby into the warm afternoon. Alec had to squint against the shine of glitter in direct sunlight, but something dangerously close to hopeful contentment had settled in his gut.

Maybe, he thought as he climbed into Magnus's car. Maybe.