Bzzzzt.

Nic nearly fell over himself to scramble over to the buzzer. He crashed against the wall where the panel was held, spreading his hands instinctively to spread the weight against the wall so he didn’t dent it. The condo was solidly built, though, and the wall didn’t buckle.

“Hello?” he answered, pressing the button.

“Package for a Nic Montero.”

“That’s me. I’ll let you in. I’m on the fifth floor.” Nic let go of the button and pressed the door open button, then waited by his apartment door.

The moment he heard the knock, he pulled open the door and smiled at the delivery guy, signed the screen of the electronic device he handed over, and took his package.

Just in time. He had to work from the office today, which meant leaving in ten minutes. The Amazon purchase he’d made over the weekend had next-day delivery and he’d hoped that meant this morning. Apparently, it had.

Nic tore open the package and discarded the wrapper, then held the shirt up to the light. In the stark, cold light of day, held up against his own body, it looked different from the photo online.

The shirt was nothing that special. It was menswear, a standard linen button-down business shirt, not the soft silk or pretty floral embroidery he wanted to experiment with. But it was light pink, a shade he hadn’t worn since middle school. And it would go well with the charcoal gray of his scarf under his winter coat.

He shrugged off his dark blue conservative shirt and swapped it out for the pink one, buttoning it up. A little wrinkled, but under his suit jacket, those would smooth out throughout the day.

This was the most feminine outfit he had now—the scarf plus pink shirt—and he was feeling brave. Time to see how the office took it.

The drive to work was quick, luckily. He’d chosen a condo reasonably close to the office so he didn’t have to worry about traffic on the days where he didn’t get to work from home. That distance meant he didn’t really have time to worry about the what-ifs.

Other people wore more casual clothing, but he’d already gotten a reputation for bland, masculine suits and occasionally business casual clothing. Nothing risky, nothing with color to it.

As soon as Nic walked through the first section of the office, Evie stood up and waved him over. He was confident that at least she’d like it. The way she was beaming confirmed it.

“Hey, good-looking! That’s a great color on you. You should wear it more often.”

“I will,” Nic told her, relaxing into a quick smile. “Thanks. Good morning.”

Now that he knew Evie was good friends with Kyle, he couldn’t risk getting attached to her. Hanging out with Kyle’s best friend would just be weird, after… angrily making out with him just late last week.

Not an appropriate thought for work, he reminded himself.

“Morning. Here for the day?”

“Yep, except the progress report with the charity. Boss wants to make sure I’m actually coding and not hiring it out to, like, eight little monkeys with matching hats and diplomas.”

Evie snorted with laughter. “I’m not sure I shouldn’t do that,” she admitted. “This project’s getting on top of me.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Perl. I hate Perl.”

“Oh, I’m good with Perl,” Nic told her. “Five or six?”

“Five.”

“Great. If you want to send anything over, I can have a look at it.”

Evie looked relieved. “Would you? Oh, God, thanks. It’s hideous. I’m only using it to grab some old data before I give them something that actually works.”

“Hey, Perl’s ugly but it works. Usually.” Nic grinned.

Evie laughed. “Thanks. I’ll send you something later. Only after you’re finished with your work, though. How’s that going?”

“Really well. I’m ahead of track and I have to slow down so I don’t go off-track with what the client wants,” Nic admitted, though he kept his voice down. He didn’t want to be the office show-off.

“Great.” Evie high-fived him. “Okay. I gotta get back to this script. It’s calling my name, and not in the nice way.”

Nic dropped his voice and growled like a video game boss, “Evie.”

“Something like that.” Evie laughed, louder this time. “Oh, someone brought in donuts. Go grab one before the good ones are gone.”

“Happy Monday to us!” Nic waved and trotted off.

On his way to the donuts, Nic heard a snort and turned for a look. Hank’s office door was open and he was eyeing Nic.

“Morning to you, too,” Nic answered coolly. He hadn’t forgotten the comments at the status update meeting, but he wasn’t going to harp on them. He just didn’t trust Hank now.

He was right not to. Hank’s next remark was, “Did you get caught in a Pride parade on the way over? I think you got a little—on your shirt there—”

Nic glanced down, but there were no smudges or stains on his new shirt. Then, he clued in and rolled his eyes. “A little pink?”

Hank paused for long enough to make it clear that wasn’t what he meant. He was totally implying there was cum all over his shirt just because it was pink. Bastard. Then, Hank answered in a mocking tone, “Yeah. Sure.”

“It’s a common color. In RGB terms, lots of red and a little green and blue. Keep up with the times. They just discovered it,” Nic dryly answered. He snorted with laughter as he headed past Hank’s office to the lunchroom.

He kept chuckling all the way there. How damn insecure was Hank that the color of Nic’s shirt offended him and made him assume he sucked cock? Wow. Speaking of fragile masculinity.

The donut was totally worth walking past Hank’s office twice. His favorite kind of glazed treat, and in suspiciously perfect timing, he was just licking his fingers—thoroughly—as he passed Hank’s office on the way back to his own. He didn’t look over, but he heard the strangled noise of offense.

Victory, and it’s not even 10 a.m.!

As he flopped in his chair, he scrubbed his fingers clean with hand sanitizer, then leaned over to press the message light on his phone and tucked the receiver between his ear and shoulder while starting up his laptop.

“Hi, Nic. This is Kyle. Sorry I couldn’t reach you in person.”

His good mood ballooned. Then, it sank.

“Uh, I have to reschedule our progress meeting that was supposed to be today. Sorry, things are crazy here.”

Shit. Now he’s avoiding me at work. Every red flag was going off in Nic’s head. This was why mixing business with personal feelings was such a bad idea.

“I’ll give you a call tomorrow and hopefully I’ll reach you, we’ll figure out a better time. Hope this doesn’t slow things down—sorry for the short notice. Okay, talk to you soon.”

Well, Nic had half-expected him to say that Denver or someone else had to interface with the company on the charity’s behalf now. That could still be the next step of—

Whoa, Mr. Abandonment Issues. Nic caught himself short and shook his head. This didn’t mean anything yet. He couldn’t jump to conclusions.

But Nic’s Monday was gloomier without Kyle’s bright hair and brighter smile to look forward to seeing later.