Presley, another student marketer who has only been here a few months, pipes up from behind her. “I got it, Jane. You look like you need a sec.”

Relief and nerves make my voice quiver. “Thank you, Presley.”

She nods and strides away, toward the hall to the conference room, her dark ponytail swinging behind her.

In the bullpen, Mark is tossing a stress ball back and forth with Brandon, brainstorming ideas for a campaign. He catches my eye and gives me a wink.

Face heating, I force out a weak smile then race to the restrooms, running a list in my head of what I need to do. Wash my hands first and foremost, fix my hair, take some deep breaths—“Oh!” I collide with someone coming around the corner. My hand reflexively lifts during the impact, which means—the brown gunk on my hand is now on whoever I just ran into.

“Oh, no.”

Alex. It had to be Alex.

Strong hands grip my arms in a steadying hold. “Jane. Oh. What is this?” He’s eyeing the brown spot on his worn-out Led Zeppelin t-shirt with a mixture of confusion and revulsion.

“BART incident.”

His bright green eyes meet mine, filling with amusement, and then he smiles. The world spins to a stop and my heart flip flops in my chest.

Alex is my not-so-secret crush, a fact that has me turning bright red every time he comes within a sixty-foot radius.

And now, he’s touching me.

“Ah. You were on your way to mitigate the situation.” He releases me, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and inclining his head in the direction of the bathrooms behind him.

“Think of yourself as collateral damage.” I smile and heat floods my face. I managed to say something without sounding like a total dork, so of course I’m going to turn bright red.

Despite the fact that Alex and I have worked closely together for months, I still can’t keep my shit together around him. And it’s worse now, after what happened in the storage closet right behind him.

Don’t think about it, Jane. Don’t remember or you’ll make it worse.

It’s not apparent at first glance, but Alex is kind of a big deal. He started developing gaming apps as a teenager and made his first million just this past year.

About six months ago, he hired Blue Wave to help him market his newest releases. I was on his team initially, but then of course, I screwed it up and was transferred off his team two months ago. Since then, I only see him when he stops by the office for meetings, or to drop things off or whatever business he has now.

It’s for the best, really. If I don’t see him every day, then I can’t waste my time imagining running my hands through his shaggy hair, which is eternally a week away from needing a haircut. I also can’t think about what it would be like to bite that spot at the end of his jaw, just under his ear, or what his perfectly symmetrical lips would feel like against mine.