Downtown Texas mornings are loud, repetitive, and easy to disappear inside. Y/n moves through them with Brooklyn and Ashton like it’s muscle memory—sarcasm, caffeine, and conversations that never fully land but somehow keep them aligned. It’s a routine that feels unbreakable because nothing in it ever changes. Until Alexander joins them. A new hire with no history in their rhythm, no place carved out yet, just presence. He doesn’t try to fit in or disrupt anything. He simply watches, learning the shape of a group that already decided what it is long before he arrived. By the time they split off toward work, nothing obvious has shifted. But something has. Quietly. Irreversibly. The kind of change that doesn’t announce itself until later, when it’s already too late to pretend it didn’t start here.