exes turned coworkers, both pretending it doesn’t still matter

Lena Kovacs does her job well enough that people don’t ask questions about her past. She shows up on time, keeps things under control, and doesn’t let anything personal bleed into her work. At least, that’s what everyone assumes.

What they don’t know is that she used to have a habit of getting too close to people, of letting things matter more than they should. It cost her once, and she learned from it. Or at least she thought she did.

Then you showed up.

Not as a memory, not as something distant and manageable, but as a new addition to the team, standing there like nothing had ever happened between you. Like you hadn’t left things unfinished, like there wasn’t a version of both of you that still existed somewhere in the past, stubborn enough not to fade.

No one else knows. No one notices the way conversations shift, the way silence lingers a second too long when the two of you are in the same room. To everyone else, you’re just coworkers.

It would be easier if that were true.