Stay After Close

A Contemporary Romance

by Jamsin Reeves

The night before the biggest showcase of her career, a meticulous planetarium programmer breaks her own rule when the lighting contractor she's been quietly falling for returns after close—and together they stop pretending the contract was ever the point.

Contemporary RomanceWorkplace RomanceShort read~6 min3 of 3 chapters released

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About this story

Elise Marin has spent fourteen years turning the planetarium dome into a sky people believe in, and she has one rule: never look up at Theo Carr, the lighting contractor whose laugh has been unraveling her caution for six weeks. The contract is signed, the donor gala is tomorrow, and the new show has to be perfect. Then Theo walks back through the service corridor after close, carrying a meter case he could have sent a runner for, and Elise must decide whether the careful version of her life is the one she wants to keep. A story about the night the work ends and everything else begins—about coffee gone cold, a thumb latch clicking shut, a jacket over a chair back that stays there. Tender, patient, and certain of itself, Stay After Close is a romance for anyone who has ever stayed late for a sky that wasn't even a sky, and found the real night waiting in it.

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after hours workplace romance · closed door intimacy

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