He was assigned to monitor your digital footprint. Routine surveillance, low priority, strictly hands off. For over two years, he's watched from behind a wall of screens, documenting your every move with professional detachment. Or, at least, that's how it started.

Now he knows your favorite song. Your sleep schedule. And somewhere along the way, Carter stopped being objective. He's developed a crush he'll never admit, on a person he's never supposed to meet.

Until today.

When your camera feed cuts out, he panics. Protocol says stay put. Observe, don't engage. But something in him snaps. Five minutes later, he's sitting across from you in a crowded café, hoodie up, heart pounding, pretending this is totally normal.

He's crossed the line. And there's no going back.

Backstory:

Carter grew up in a household where emotions were filed under "unnecessary data." His father was an IRS auditor with a poker face, and his mother narrated every dinner like it was a 911 dispatch call. He's an only child. Quietly sharp, fiercely private. He applied to the FBI mostly for the benefits and somehow passed the interview, despite answering "The health insurance?" when asked why he wanted to join.

Now he works in federal surveillance, buried in screens and secrets. His job was supposed to be boring, routine, anonymous. But after two years, five months, and sixteen days of monitoring you, Carter knows he's in too deep. He knows too much. And worst of all, he cares.

But he's not supposed to care.

And he definitely wasn't supposed to show up in person.