Sweet Romance10 min read
Summer On-Air and Other Accidents
ButterPicks13 views
Part One — The Voice, the Boss, the Trash Can Plan
"I can't believe you were lip-kissing your hand in the office," I blurted, trying to laugh it off.
Gage Smirnov stood in the doorway like a storm. He didn't usually stand in doorways. He stood in the center of rooms and made the air colder. His face was poker-still, but his eyes were not. "Spring makes people nostalgic?" he said.
"I—" I pressed my palm to my damp cheek and felt ridiculous. "Minister, I was sleepwalking. You believe me, right?"
"You think I look like a fool?" He folded his arms like he was doubling the walls of a fortress.
Gage was my planning department boss: exact, blunt, a little cruel with words and very handsome. He had caught me the night before, alone in the silent office, practicing voice lines for a kiss scene. I had been kissing my own hand to mimic a mouth and practicing my breath until it sounded like longing.
"I thought the building was empty," I said. "The cameras were probably off."
Gage found the surveillance and watched the clip with me. He didn't snicker—he gave notes. "The cry was good," he said. "The breath changes there were perfect."
"You're joking," I whispered.
"No." He was serious. "If you want, I can help with the department."
"Help...?" My head buzzed. "You're offering to help me with what—voice acting?"
He leaned in, only a little. "We could start a dubbing department. You know this side of things, and I need someone who does the work. Do the plan."
I swallowed. I was a graduate, top of my class once, now one of the small staff with a small paycheck and two side hustles. I had been recording at night in the empty office because my roommate heard everything and my apartment was like a bell. I had moved my cheap mic quietly and had practiced lines until my cheek ached.
"Why me?" I asked.
"Because when I listened to the samples you left online," he said, "I thought there was something there. And because—" he looked at me for a heartbeat longer than proper— "I think you can build it."
"Fine," I said, and the trapdoor I had not seen opened. "I'll try."
"A show of gratitude then," he said, with that small smile that nearly always meant consequence. "Your first task: build the plan."
I spent nights on that plan. I called other voice actors. I wrote scripts. I drew up budgets in the pale light of the office. Gage called in his favors. Garrett Lundberg—older, a studio veteran who everyone called "Uncle Garrett"—said yes to cooperation. Several small-name actors came. We built a two-person department and called it the dubbing unit.
"You'll be head of admin," Gage told me one night, pushing a stack of files across my desk. "And you will pick the signing list for the first campaign."
"You mean I'm permanent?" I had to say it out loud. I thought he was joking again.
"Not a joke. Your face keeps showing up in my notes."
I tried to be brave, but there were rumors. People in the hallway whispered: "She rose fast." Someone hissed: "She rose by pleasing someone." The slurs made my stomach cold. I wanted to work hard to kill the rumors.
Gage never explained every move. He taught me with tiny sticky notes. He brought me coffee in the night. He did things that did not compute—like showing up on my livestream once and saying one sentence to twenty thousand fans. The chat exploded. I turned the camera to him. He simply said, "Hello." The chat went wild. The fans called him "Mr. Voice." My followers exploded. But my life got busier. I answered emails for twenty people, organized recording sessions, negotiated contracts. Exhaustion lived under my eyes like a tenant.
One evening, exhausted, I fell asleep at my desk. I woke to find a folded blanket and a note: "Don't sleep in the office without telling security. Dangerous. —G."
"Thank you," I murmured into the empty room. He walked me to the subway that night like it was the most normal thing in the world. I hated him. I loved him. I hated that I loved him.
"Will you try if I ask?" he said once, when we were in the small booth to record a hotel romance. The lines were sticky-sweet and I had to be delicious and vulnerable.
"I will try," I said.
He tilted his head. "Don't lie to the audience. Add a little real taste to it."
He moved closer, and his hand brushed the script. "Maybe I should help with the real thing," he said softly.
Part Two — Hotel Sleep Trials and Accidental Boyfriends
"I woke up hungover and the floor was surprisingly warm under my face," I told my friend later. "And there was a very quiet, very handsome young man on the floor."
"You mean you had a mystery man," she said. "God, Kayla. You flirt with trouble."
"His name is Callen Kiselev," I said. "He says he is the new manager here."
"You're kidding," she said. "You're actually the one who kicked him from the bed?"
"I probably did." I pinched my arm. "He said, 'You! You kicked me.'"
Callen was exactly the sort of trouble my phone drooled over: long legs, rose-colored cheeks, mischievous in a way that made my knees go soft. He opened his phone and said, "I am the manager. I'm supposed to be testing the rooms, too."
"Manager," I squeaked. "I am a hotel sleep tester—we stay for free and write the reviews."
"Perfect," he said. "Would you like me to drive you to your old place so you can get your things? Or should I take you to mine?"
"Your—?" I stammered. The night had two ghosts: my ex, who had been seeing my roommate; and Callen, who was now driving me. He kissed lower air near my mouth and made a show of astonishment.
"You don't have to be brave," he said as he drove. "He doesn't deserve your time."
"He cheated. Of course he doesn't," I said. "He left my stuff in the hall and didn't lock the door."
"That's audacity," Callen said.
We stood at my old door. My ex, Lin Heng, came to the peephole and flung me a line. "You brought company? Bring him in. We'll test loyalty."
"Callen," I said, "pretend to be my boyfriend."
"On it," he said. He leaned forward and kissed me as if for show. Lin Heng watched and went pale. "So?" he said, stunned.
"I have all these things to collect," I said. "Can you... take them to your address?"
Callen smiled and gave Lin Heng a business card. "Send them to me," he said.
That was the beginning. We drove like conspirators. He bought me food in crisp paper boxes and called me "sister" like it was a pet name. When Lin Heng later called to demand his stuff back, Callen answered with a slow, arrogant "No. We will keep it."
Later, when the cheating story spread, Lin Heng's life unspooled. He had thought taking someone else's apartment and sleeping with my roommate was clever. He did not expect the hotel manager to stage a quiet, controlled reveal.
"You're making a scene," the roommate said on a live video for the hotel's reopening.
Callen put his hand on my shoulder. He looked at the camera and said, "We have proof. This is who has been dishonest."
He pulled up a set of messages Lin Heng had sent, the woman he had been with, and the timeline of how my things had been blocked at his old door. Lin Heng, live on camera, tried denial.
"You're lying," he stammered. "I didn't—"
"Then explain this," Callen said, and played Lin Heng's messages asking the roommate for secrets and a scarf. The chat flooded with condemnation. Lin Heng's expression changed: surprise; then denial; then panic; then despair. People around held up phones to record.
"Look at him now," someone in the crowd said. "Look at his face."
He tried to gather himself: "I—this isn't fair. I mean—"
"From our public records and private messages, you tricked someone into moving out and started dating another person behind her back," Callen said into the microphone. "You took advantage, and you thought you'd get away."
The room filled with a chorus of voices. People who had once spoken kindly to Lin Heng now shook their heads. Someone shouted, "Disgrace!" Others recorded, uploaded, and shared. Lin Heng dropped to his knees, for effect and defense. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he cried, the scene echoing on social media the next morning.
"This is your punishment," Callen said. "Not the courts. Not the police. The world sees you now."
He was right. In our small circle, the punishment was worse than an arrest. On a public livestream watched by tens of thousands, Lin Heng's charm dissolved and his reputation broke when people watched his messages and heard his clumsy excuses. That scene lasted a long time. He begged. He pleaded. People laughed. People scolded him. Someone took a photo and the comments filled with contempt.
Later, in private, Lin Heng tried to explain. "I didn't know it would go so far," he said, pale and trembling.
"You didn't think, Lin Heng," I said, and my voice was clear. "You treated someone like a convenience. Now everyone knows."
He had to reapply for jobs. He lost customers. He walked in the street and watched people point. The day he tried to reclaim some pride, friends turned away. He had been publicly shamed in a way that made every dive bar and street kitchen refuse him, and for that moment I felt a cold sense of justice.
Part Three — The Office Kiss That Led To a Promotion
"We'll do a game," my teammates shouted at the year-end party. "Loser kisses someone!"
"Fine," I said. "I can do that."
"Don't look at me," Eamon Pettersson said from the far side of the table. Eamon was barely older than me. He had a shy brightness and a pair of deep dimples. I had teased him in school. Now he sat across from me at work. He was new, quiet, odd, and my world had just to do with him.
"You lose," the hostess pronounced. "You must kiss one random man at the table."
I spun and, drunk with the room, grabbed Eamon's face, drew him down and kissed him.
When I looked up, the room was a crater of silence. Eamon's laughter broke the quiet.
"Please tell me you remember this tomorrow," I begged.
Eamon smiled, rubbed his mouth, and said, "Actually, I do."
"What?" I said.
"I'm your boss now," he said easily. "I start tomorrow."
The air rushed out of me. He had always been the quiet boy who followed me in college to help carry things. Now he was my boss. Worse, he said it like a joke.
"You're my new boss," I said, then, "Eamon, seriously?"
"Yes," he answered. "My mother is the chair. I wanted to learn from the ground."
"I kissed my boss in public," I said.
"Weird start," he said. He tilted his head and laughed. "So?"
Now he had space. He took the job seriously. He promoted me, but those whispers down the hall grew teeth. "She slept with the boss." "She must have."
They were petty, stupid, cruel. I heard them in the lunchroom, in the elevator, beneath the potted plant where two women shared gossip like a ritual. I kept quiet. I did my tasks.
One day, during a company meeting, the office hum boiled over. A faction of people had written rumors and published them in an anonymous group. The chair of the board—Yolanda Farley—had come to inspect. She looked at me once, then at Eamon. She gave me a smile like a sunbeam. "Keep it tidy," she said. "Strength comes from skill."
Not all of them were satisfied.
So we planned something public. The gossipers had found a place to whisper: the large online board. They had spread a rumor that I had been hired at the top because I had slept with the boss and then used charm to climb. Eamon, with the quiet force that had startled everyone, called for a large town-hall meeting. He asked me to come up and speak.
The auditorium filled. Cameras were on. People settled like storm clouds waiting for lightning. I stood at the podium and felt my palms sweat. Eamon stood aside, calm, like he had always been quietly strong. "We are here to clear facts," he said.
Someone in the audience shouted, "Expose her!"
"Stop," Eamon said. "Listen."
I clicked the flash drive Eamon had handed me. Files opened. There were emails, HR reports, training logs, minutes where I had drafted the rollout plan. "These are the documents that explain my job," I said. "I wrote the plan. I called Garrett. I arranged contracts. Here are time-stamps and signatures. Here is the approval trail signed by production, finance, and legal."
"And here," Eamon added, his voice steady, "is a screenshot of the accusation thread. It names several colleagues who accused Kayla of getting promoted by sleeping with me."
A woman stood, red-faced. "That's not—" she started.
"Then explain these messages," Eamon said simply, and the screen flashed more: her colleagues urging her to say the rumor out loud; texts where she coached others to spread it.
Gasped. Phones clicked. People whispered. "Look," someone said. "She wrote the posts."
"What do you want to do?" Eamon asked. Calm. "Apologize? Or show us the truth?"
She tried to say the rumors were a joke. She stammered, "We thought—"
"Thought what?" Eamon asked. "That whispering destroys people? That your rumor was a private amusement?"
She turned red, and the room started to murmur. Her face shifted: smug to shocked; then denial; then pleading; then collapse. People records of her posts were up. HR stood by. Board members looked on with small sad faces.
The air filled with phones and quiet anger. "Why did you lie?" someone asked.
"I... I—" she tried. She cried, then tried to brave explanation: "I was jealous." That statement landed like a stone. People around her took pictures. A younger colleague said out loud, "You ruined someone's work for what—petty jealousy?"
I watched as her pride broke. She stood there, the very portrait of someone dismantled publicly. Her cheeks burned. Around her, people muttered. A handful clapped. A woman from HR said, "This is harassment. The company has policies."
She tried to speak again, "Please, I'm sorry—"
"That can't undo the damage," Eamon said. "But owning it is the least you can do. Apologize to Kayla, and to the whole team."
The woman bowed her head, sobbing small tears. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was wrong."
The crowd started to shout. Some hissed. "Record it," someone demanded, and the boy next to her took a phone out and pushed it closer. The apology was posted instantly. The comments streamed in. People praised Kayla for speaking up. People sided with the boss, with truth. The woman had to stand before everyone and say she would take responsibility. She was assigned a performance review and required to sign a public statement about professionalism. She had to attend counseling. For a week, the office watched her come in and feel the weight of each look. She had wanted social attention and had gotten a much harsher consequence than she had imagined: isolation and the slow repair of trust. She had to earn back respect with months of steady, visible work.
"And Lin Heng?" a voice asked.
Callen had not let it go. At the hotel reopening many weeks before, he had caught Lin Heng and forced a public confession. Lin's social life had been wrecked. He had been stripped of posts. He had to write a public apology and return the items. The room had recorded him begging, laughing, trying to charm, and ultimately being left alone.
I stood at the microphone then and looked at the woman who had started the rumor and at the people who had spread it. "Words can cut and can't be taken back," I said. "We are better when we protect each other."
The auditorium applauded. The woman pressed a hand to her mouth. There was no single punchline of revenge. Instead, there was accountability and the slow dampening of a cruel rumor. The woman learned humility in front of many eyes.
After that day, the gossip ended.
"How did you—" someone asked Eamon later, privately.
He shrugged. "I believe in proof," he said. "And in not letting people get away with public cruelty."
We continued to work. Gage and I finished our recording. Callen kept being ridiculous and kind. Eamon and I learned to survive small storms together. The fans called our recorded kiss "authentic" because, perhaps, a little truth had been in the breathing. The department grew, and my life, weird and messy and loud, found room to be gentle.
At the end of a long summer, Gage whispered one late evening at the recording room door.
"Stop tricking the audience," he said. "This part—you should mean it."
"Do you mean that?" I asked.
He smiled, very small. "I mean it now."
He leaned in, and we both let the script go. The microphone recorded something we could no longer fake. It caught the honest breath and the slight hitch in Gage's voice.
"I will," I said, and the line felt like a promise for once.
The End
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