"If you continue to vibrate at that frequency, you are going to shatter the structural integrity of the bench."
Lenny didn’t look up immediately. He couldn’t. His neck muscles were currently locked in a spasm of defensive shivering that had started somewhere around the lobby of the Titan Tower and had only intensified since he’d collapsed onto this slab of frozen wood. He was staring at his sandwich. It was a sad, triangular thing packaged in plastic that was currently sweating condensation on the inside while freezing on the outside. Ham and cheese. Or maybe turkey and swiss. It was hard to tell through the gray film of the plastic and the even grayer mood of the afternoon.
"It’s… it’s the wind," Lenny managed to stutter, his teeth clicking together with a sound like dropping marbles on a tile floor. "It cuts. Right through. The polyester."
"Polyester. There’s your first error in judgment." The voice was deep, smooth, and irritatingly calm. It sounded like the voice of someone who owned a humidifier and slept eight hours a night. "Polyester retains moisture and conducts thermal energy away from the core. You are essentially wearing a refrigerator coil."
Lenny finally turned his head. The movement made his scarf—a scratchy, wool-blend disaster he’d bought at a discount rack—itch against his jaw. Sitting on the other end of the bench was a boy who looked like he had been 3D-printed by a luxury fashion house. He was wearing a camel-colored overcoat that looked like it cost more than Lenny’s entire existence, a charcoal scarf draped with mathematical precision, and leather gloves. He wasn’t shivering. He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, reading a hardcover book in the middle of a blizzard.
Well, not a blizzard. But a very aggressive flurry.
"I’m an intern," Lenny said, as if that explained the polyester, the shivering, and the general aura of doom. "I don’t get paid enough for wool."
The boy marked his page with a slim leather bookmark and closed the book. He turned to face Lenny fully. His face was sharp, angular, composed of straight lines and exacting geometry. Dark hair, cut short and styled away from his forehead. Eyes that were a disconcerting shade of slate gray, watching Lenny with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a particularly unstable chemical reaction.
"I am also an intern," the boy said. "Department of Acquisitions and Mergers. Jeffrey."
"Lenny. Junior Assistant to the… Assistant of Logistics." Lenny tried to extend a hand, realized his fingers were currently shaped like a frozen claw, and retracted it into his sleeve. "You don’t look like an intern. You look like you own the building."
"Dress for the job you want, not the job that requires you to fetch distinctively temperature-controlled almond lattes for a woman who has forgotten how to smile," Jeffrey said. His tone was dry, clipped, and theatrical. It was the voice of someone pretending to be forty when they were barely seventeen.
Lenny laughed, a short, sharp bark of sound that turned into a cough as the cold air hit his lungs. "Mrs. Gable?"
"Mr. Sterling," Jeffrey corrected. "But the archetype is universal. The High-Functioning Sociopath with a caffeine dependency."
The wind picked up, a sudden gust that rattled the bare branches of the oak trees overhead. The sound was like skeletal fingers scratching against the sky. Lenny hunched deeper into his coat, pulling his knees up. He felt ridiculous. He felt small. The city was too big, the buildings too tall, the glass too reflective. He was just a smudge of biological matter on a very expensive landscape.
"Why are you out here?" Lenny asked, his voice shaking. "If you’re in Acquisitions, surely they have a break room. A heater. A fire pit fueled by shredded contracts."
Jeffrey looked at the glass tower looming behind them. It reflected the gray sky, looking like a monolith of ice. "The air in there is recycled. It tastes of toner cartridge and suppressed rage. I needed oxygen. Even if it is… aggressively crisp."
"Aggressively crisp," Lenny muttered. "It’s minus ten. My toes are gone. I can’t feel them. I think I left them back at the crosswalk."
"Eat your sandwich," Jeffrey commanded. "Caloric intake generates heat. Thermodynamics."
Lenny looked down at the sad triangle. He fumbled with the plastic tab. His fingers were numb, useless sausages. He pulled. Nothing. He clawed at the plastic. It stretched but didn’t tear. He felt a prickle of heat behind his eyes—not warmth, but the stinging, humiliating heat of tears. It was such a stupid, small thing. He couldn’t open his lunch. He was seventeen years old, top of his class in calculus, capable of organizing a database of four thousand clients, and he couldn’t open a ham sandwich because the city hated him.
He sniffed, loud and wet. He prayed Jeffrey wouldn’t notice.
Jeffrey noticed. The leather gloves moved before Lenny registered the motion. A hand, warm and firm even through the leather, reached out and took the sandwich from Lenny’s trembling grip.
"Allow me," Jeffrey said softly.
With a precise, sharp twist, Jeffrey broke the seal. He peeled back the plastic with an elegance that made the ham sandwich look like a delicate hors d'oeuvre. He didn’t hand it back immediately. instead, he held it out, waiting for Lenny to stabilize.
"Thank you," Lenny whispered. He took the sandwich. His fingers brushed Jeffrey’s gloved hand. The leather was warm. It was shocking, that warmth. It traveled up his arm like a static discharge, zapping the nerves in his elbow. He jerked back slightly, flushing.
"You are hypothermic," Jeffrey stated, though the edge of his voice had softened. It wasn't pity. Pity was messy. This was an assessment. A calculation.
"I’m fine," Lenny lied, taking a bite of the bread. It was cold. It tasted like despair and mayonnaise. "Just… tired. It’s the silence. Up there. Everyone typing. No one talking. It’s like a graveyard, but with better Wi-Fi."
Jeffrey leaned back, resting his arm along the back of the bench. He wasn't touching Lenny, but his arm created a barrier against the wind, a subtle enclosure. "Silence is a weapon in the corporate sector. They use it to make you doubt your own competence. If no one speaks to you, you assume you have committed an error."
"Exactly!" Lenny said, sandwich forgotten for a second. "I spent three hours this morning formatting a spreadsheet. Just moving columns. Left. Right. Center. And my supervisor just stood behind me, breathing. Not saying anything. Just… inhaling judgement. Exhaling disappointment."
"The silent hover," Jeffrey nodded gravely. "A classic intimidation tactic. Sterling does it while checking his watch. As if my very existence is delaying his schedule."
Lenny smiled. It felt weird on his face, like the skin was too tight to accommodate joy. "Does he do the sigh? The long, nose-bridge-pinching sigh?"
"He invented it," Jeffrey said. "He has a patent pending on the specific frequency of exhalation required to make an intern feel like a microscopic organism."
They sat there for a moment, the shared absurdity hanging between them like a shield against the cold. The wind howled again, blowing a swirl of dry snow across their shoes. Lenny watched the flakes land on Jeffrey’s polished oxfords. They melted instantly.
"It’s lonely," Lenny said. The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. He hadn’t meant to say it. He wanted to be cool. He wanted to be the kind of guy who joked about bosses and didn’t care. But the cold had stripped away his defenses. "I mean… I moved here for this program. I don’t know anyone. I just go to work, get scared, come here, freeze, go back, get scared again, go home, sleep. Repeat."
He stared at his shoes. Scuffed sneakers. Wet canvas. "I haven’t spoken to a human being about anything other than file extensions in three weeks. Until now."
Jeffrey didn’t reply immediately. Lenny squeezed his eyes shut. *Stupid.* *Stupid.* Now he was the pathetic, whining kid on the bench. Jeffrey—perfect, composed, future-CEO Jeffrey—would probably check his watch and leave.
Then, movement.
Lenny opened his eyes. Jeffrey was unbuttoning his coat. Not taking it off—that would be madness—but unbuttoning it. He shifted on the bench, sliding closer. Not touching, but close enough that Lenny could smell him. He smelled like expensive soap, old paper, and something sharp, like black pepper.
"Shift left," Jeffrey commanded.
"What?"
"Shift left. You are blocking the wind vector from the north, but you are exposed to the east. If we consolidate our surface area, we reduce thermal loss."
Lenny blinked, his heart doing a stupid, fluttery jump against his ribs. "Oh. Physics."
"Physics," Jeffrey agreed.
Lenny scooched. He moved six inches closer. Jeffrey moved six inches closer. Their shoulders bumped. It was like an electric fence. Lenny felt the impact in his teeth. Jeffrey didn’t pull away. His shoulder stayed pressed against Lenny’s, a solid, heavy weight. The camel hair coat was rough against Lenny’s nylon sleeve, but the heat radiating from Jeffrey was undeniable. It was like sitting next to a furnace.
"Better?" Jeffrey asked. He was looking straight ahead, at a pigeon pecking at a frozen crust of bread.
"Yeah," Lenny breathed. He forgot to eat his sandwich. He was too busy focusing on the sensation of his left shoulder. "Much."
"Loneliness is inefficient," Jeffrey said quietly. His voice was lower now, barely audible over the wind. "It degrades performance. It increases cortisol. It makes you prone to errors."
"Is that why you’re sitting next to me?" Lenny asked, emboldened by the proximity. "To improve my efficiency?"
Jeffrey turned his head. This time, the distance between their faces was startlingly short. Lenny could see the flecks of lighter gray in Jeffrey’s irises. He could see the slight redness on Jeffrey’s cheekbones, the only evidence that the cold touched him at all.
"No," Jeffrey said. "I am sitting next to you because my efficiency was also… compromised."
Lenny swallowed. His throat felt dry. "Oh."
"I haven’t spoken to anyone about anything other than mergers in a month," Jeffrey admitted. The confession was stiff, reluctant, as if he were pulling a tooth. "It is… tedious."
"Tedious," Lenny repeated. He grinned. A real one this time. "That’s a very Jeffrey word for 'it sucks'."
"Precision of language is important," Jeffrey said, but the corner of his mouth twitched. A micro-smile. A gap in the armor.
"You know," Lenny said, feeling a sudden surge of recklessness. "There’s a coffee cart on 5th. The guy there sells hot chocolate that isn’t distinctively temperature-controlled. It’s just… magma hot. And it has marshmallows."
Jeffrey raised an eyebrow. "Marshmallows. Pure sugar. Zero nutritional value."
"Spiritual value," Lenny corrected. "High spiritual value."
Jeffrey looked at his watch. A sleek, silver analog face. "I have twenty-two minutes before Sterling expects the briefing on the Kensington acquisition."
"I have twenty minutes before the Logistics Assistant realizes I haven’t alphabetized the invoices," Lenny countered.
"Twenty minutes," Jeffrey mused. He looked at the half-eaten sandwich in Lenny’s hand. "Discard that. It is depressing me."
Lenny laughed and tossed the sandwich toward the trash can. He missed. It landed in the snow. The pigeon descended upon it instantly.
"Nature provides," Jeffrey noted dryly.
He stood up. He loomed over the bench, a towering figure of wool and composure. He extended a hand. This time, it wasn't to take a sandwich. It was an invitation.
Lenny looked at the gloved hand. He looked at his own red, raw knuckles. He reached up. Jeffrey gripped his hand—firm, tight, pulling him up with a strength that surprised Lenny. For a second, Lenny stumbled, his frozen feet clumsy, and he pitched forward. Jeffrey didn’t flinch. He caught Lenny by the upper arms, steadying him. The grip was tight. Possessive. Grounding.
They stood there, chest to chest, the steam of their breath mingling in the air between them.
"Steady," Jeffrey murmured. He didn’t let go immediately. He brushed a thumb over the fabric of Lenny’s cheap coat, as if testing the material.
"I’m okay," Lenny said, though his heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his sternum. "Just… dizzy. Standing up too fast."
"Malnutrition and cold exposure," Jeffrey diagnosed, stepping back but keeping one hand on Lenny’s elbow to guide him. "We are getting the magma chocolate."
"It’s on me," Lenny said, falling into step beside him. "Since you saved me from hypothermia."
"Acceptable," Jeffrey said. "But I am buying you a better scarf. That thing is a crime against textiles."
"Hey! It was five dollars!"
"It shows."
They walked out of the park, leaving the bench behind. The wind was still biting, the sky was still a oppressive gray, and the towers still loomed like judgment day. But as they walked, Lenny noticed that Jeffrey stayed on his left side, shielding him from the wind. He noticed that their elbows brushed with every step.
He realized he wasn't shivering anymore.