IN HIS PA BODY

ELYSIA POV The way his muscles flex against the fabric of his sleeves. His chest, just slightly visible where that top button refuses to do its job. The way his lips move at the edge of his perfectly structured jaw. Every detail precise. Every detail unfair. Perfect. Gerrat Donovan. I swallowed. Hard. His eyes swept the room the way they always did, like he was cataloguing everything and finding it all beneath him. I didn't care. I would take being beneath his notice over not seeing him at all. "You are literally drooling, Elysia Sinclair. This is embarrassing." Anora's voice cut through the music, low enough to be private, sharp enough to land perfectly. My best friend materialized beside me, champagne flute in hand, judgment fully loaded. "Please, Anora." I didn't even blink. "Let me look. This is the closest I ever get to him." She made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. I ignored it. Three years. Three years I'd been working at GWorld Games Tech, nursing the most unrequited, most illogical, most spectacular crush of my life on a man who had never once looked in my direction. To be fair.. Gerrat Donovan didn't really look in anyone's direction. He existed in his own atmosphere, orbiting a different sun, breathing air that hadn't been approved for the rest of us. I was HR. Bottom of the building. He was the CEO. Top of everything. The math was not giving. "Okay I'm not going to pretend," Anora said, tilting her glass toward him across the room. "Yes. He is hot. Smoking, disgustingly hot…" "Thank you." "But Elysia, look at him." She gestured with her whole arm. "He hosted this party. He did. For the launch of his game. And he is standing in the corner doing what appears to be... reading emails." I looked. She wasn't wrong. Gerrat stood at the edge of the event hall, the entire celebration blooming around him, music, laughter, flashing lights, open bars, and he was focused on his phone like the party was something happening to someone else entirely. His PA hovered nearby, looking like a man slowly reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment. "He's dedicated," I said. "He's a killjoy." "He's focused." "He's cold." "He's…" "Gay, possibly." Anora said it the way she said everything, blunt, unbothered, sipping her champagne like she hadn't just detonated something in my chest. I turned to look at her. Offended. Deeply. "That is a baseless rumor." "Is it?" She raised a brow. "Name one woman he's ever been seen with. Take your time." I opened my mouth. Closed it. The silence between us stretched long enough to become its own answer. "He's private," I finally said. Even I could hear how thin it sounded. I bit my lip, a reflex I'd had since childhood, one that appeared faithfully whenever I was nervous or saying something I didn't fully believe. "See," Anora pointed at me. "Even your lips know the truth." I grabbed a drink from a passing tray and swallowed it whole. The liquor burned a clean line down my chest and I welcomed every bit of it. My eyes drifted back to him, they always did, magnetic and helpless.. and this time I noticed the person beside him more carefully. His PA. The one who'd been hovering like a shadow all evening, tablet in hand, expression somewhere between professional and quietly defeated. He was young, lean, with the kind of face that might be handsome if it weren't so exhausted. As I watched, his gaze drifted, just for a second, across the room. I tracked it. Followed the line of his eyes all the way to… Anora. "What?" She caught my expression. "Don't look immediately…" She looked immediately. The PA's eyes snapped away like he'd been scalded. "—I said don't." I pressed my lips together to trap the smile. "I think the PA has a crush on you." Anora blinked. Looked again, more carefully. "...Him?" "He's been glancing over all night. Not at me, by the way. Specifically, deliberately, at you." She was quiet for exactly three seconds. Then, a firm little shake of her head. "No." "Anora.." "No men. I said what I said." She lifted her chin. "Not after that I can't even say his name. I refuse." I laughed, a real one, loose and warm, A laughter that untied the knot that had been sitting in my chest all evening. "You are so broken." "And you," she pointed, "are in love with a man who doesn't know you're alive. So we are both tragic tonight." She raised her glass. "Cheers." I raised mine. "Cheers." We danced slowly where we stood, letting the music move through us without really trying. The party glittered on. Gerrat Donovan continued existing in his own private universe.. unreachable, unbothered, unfairly beautiful from across a room. I tried not to stare. I stared. Eventually the warmth of too many bodies and one drink too many started pressing in on me. I was not, by any measure, a drinker. My body was beginning to file a formal complaint. "I need air," I told Anora. "Don't fall off the roof," she called after me, already moving to the music. *************** The stairwell was quiet. The rooftop, quieter. I pushed through the door and the night received me, cool air, open sky, the city glittering below like something spilled and beautiful. I closed my eyes and just breathed. Let the music below fade to a distant pulse. Let my shoulders drop back down to where they belonged. This… This was what I needed. "f**k him..fuck YOU, Gerrat Donovan! I quit. I am QUITTING!" My eyes snapped open. Across the rooftop, half swallowed by the shadow of the ventilation unit, was a figure, jacket abandoned somewhere, sleeves shoved to his elbows, one foot kicking at the empty air like it had personally wronged him. The PA, mid meltdown, venting into the open sky with everything he had. I watched him for a moment. "You know," I said, "you could simply walk up to him and hand in a resignation letter." He spun around so fast he nearly lost his balance entirely. Eyes wide, chest heaving, caught completely, humiliatingly off guard. "Didn't know anyone was up here," he managed, straightening quickly. "Same," I said. "Carry on. I'll pretend I heard nothing." An awkward quiet settled between us. Two strangers, one rooftop, a shared need to escape whatever was happening seventeen floors below. "Is he really that bad?" I asked, after a while. "Who?" "Gerrat Donovan." He turned to look at me properly. Something complicated moved across his face. "You don't want to know," he said finally. "It's .. frustrating doesn't even cover it. No boundaries, no off switch, no concept of the word…rest. We are at a party right now and I have filed three reports and confirmed two overseas calls tonight." He caught himself. Straightened slightly. "I shouldn't be talking about my boss." "Probably not," I agreed. I looked out at the skyline. "But for what it's worth.. I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat." He frowned. "Trade places?" "You're near him every day." The words came softer than I planned. More honest than I intended. "Same room. Same air. You probably know what his voice sounds like when he's not performing for a room. You've probably stood close enough to…" I stopped. Registered his expression. Cleared my throat. "I just mean. Generally. Near him is more than most people get." The silence that followed was very, very loud. "You like him," he said. Careful. Quiet. Less a question than a gentle landing. My lip found its way between my teeth. He let out a short breath, half laugh, mostly exhausted. "I should go back…" "Wait." It came out before I could stop it. He paused. "Can I ask you something first?" A cautious look. A slow nod. "Is he.. the rumor. Is Gerrat Donovan actually…" I searched for a graceful way to finish that sentence. There wasn't one. "Is he gay?" The professional reflex kicked in immediately. "I can't share personal information about…" "I'll get you Anora's number." Complete silence. His face did something very specific. A muscle near his jaw tightened. His eyes moved.. just a fraction .. with the quiet, careful calculation of a man attempting very hard to appear unmoved by an offer that had moved him considerably. "The blonde," I said. "My best friend. I saw where you were looking all night. I can connect you." I let that sit. "Answer the question." Four full seconds of internal war played out across his face. "He's not exactly gay," he said, measured. "But he genuinely cannot stand women near him. Like.. actively. It's complicated history, I think. That's everything I can say." I nodded slowly. Cannot stand women. Three years of hoping and that was what I was working against. Not indifference. Intentional, built walls. "If only I were you," I said, almost to myself. Almost laughing at myself. "A man. Already in his space. He'd actually have to see me." "And if I were anyone else," he said, with a tired smile, "I'd sleep through the weekend without guilt. But the paycheck keeps me humble." He paused. "The number?" "Give me your contact first." I extended my hand. "Elysia Sinclair." He looked at it for a moment. Shook it once, firm. "Kaleo Dean. Leo's fine." "Goodnight, Leo." "Goodnight, Elysia." He slipped back through the rooftop door and I was alone again, just me and the city and the cool air and the quiet, stubborn hope I'd been carrying around for three years like something I couldn't put down. I tipped my head back and looked up. If only wishes were horses. Somewhere in the dark above me, a single star blinked. I didn't notice. ************** I don't remember the drive home. I remember Anora sending approximately nine unhinged texts. I remember my heels hitting the floor by the door. I remember falling onto my bed like a demolished building, every bone surrendering at once. Sleep came fast and total and completely dreamless. ********** Bing. Bing. Bing. I surfaced slowly, dragged up through layers of sleep I wasn't done with. An alarm. Persistent. Irritating. Whose? I didn't set an alarm. I never set an alarm on weekends, that was a boundary I held sacred. This was a violation. This was…. I reached out to silence it and my hand collided hard with something solid. A lamp. On the wrong side. I sat up. The room was wrong. White walls… bright, clean, relentlessly white. Not my warm beige. The furniture was expensive and minimal, everything arranged with the kind of rigid precision that isn't accidental but maintained. A wardrobe. A neat desk. Files stacked at perfect right angles. Not my desk. Not my room. Not my anything. I stood, and that was wrong too. The balance of it. The weight. Something about the way my body moved through space felt unfamiliar in a way I had no language for yet. I felt too tall. Not soft enough. There was a flatness.. where there shouldn't be and my hands flew there before my brain had fully caught up. My boobs…Nothing. I looked down. Nothing there. "What…" My voice came out in a register that did not belong to me. Low. Grounded. A stranger's sound coming from my own throat. I said it again just to be sure. "Hello?" That deep unfamiliar rumble answered me from inside my own chest. Three fast steps to the mirror. I raised one hand. The reflection raised one hand. I touched my face. The reflection touched its face. But the face in the glass, the face staring back at me with wide, slowly unraveling eyes, was not my face. Kaleo Dean looked back at me from the mirror. The scream that came out of me was immediate, enormous, and absolutely nobody in the building was remotely prepared for it.