Terms and Specific Conditions

Okay, quick context before I throw you into “chapter one,” which is actually like chapter three emotionally.

Hi 👋 I’m Evie on the forum. I'm a chronic oversharer, overthinker, and a walking hazard sign for indoor voices…I'm also extremely loud about being obsessed with my boyfriend who is a para and uses a wheelchair. At some point my brain went, “this is probably a lot,” and instead of calming down I started writing it all down like a feral little court stenographer.

I started writing in real time during the “are we just friends or are we already doomed” limbo. Every time he said something annoyingly honest or did something competent in his chair and my whole nervous system lit up, I took a snapshot so my head didn’t explode.

The chapter I’m posting first is actually from before all those real-time meltdown pieces. The first six "chapters" were written in retrospect, from that brief, delusional period where I flirted with making it a Proper Plot and then immediately lost interest in being disciplined. So technically, this is the “first” chapter only because I never managed to write the actual origin story properly. I tried to do the Official Meet-Cute Chapter with the acquisition and the first day and the “who’s the new girl at the pod” moment and just… could not get it out right. My brain kept going, “Okay, but what if we skip straight to the part where you’re already in too deep.”

So after that, it just turned into vignettes of our life together. Little moments that were too loud not to write down. Funny bits. Intense bits. Braindump bits from 1 a.m. when he’d say something devastatingly honest and my only options were:

a) implode
b) write it down before my head exploded.

I picked b. Repeatedly.

So what you’re getting here is not a neat, structured novel with acts and arcs and sensible pacing. It’s more of a stitched-together scrapbook. Same two idiots, different situations. Emotional continuity instead of big plot twists. You’ll see us at different stages: friends, “friends,” absolutely-not-just-friends, fully gone--sometimes out of order. The through-line is basically: two idiots trying to figure out how to be honest with each other without spontaneously combusting.

Set-up so you’re not lost: we work in tech. Think: campus the size of a small airport, kombucha on tap, nap pods that look like high-end coffins, and at least three internal apps you have to use just to book a meeting room. My small company got swallowed by his enormous one, and in the corporate Hunger Games of “synergy,” I got dropped onto a project he was managing.

Jack is a project manager. Wheelchair user, sleeves pushed up, talks with his hands, annoyingly good at herding engineers without making them want to die. By the time this “first” chapter starts, we’ve already met. I’ve already done the whole oh god, he’s hot and funny and extremely competent. We’ve had a few weeks of casual work banter. I’ve done the “accidentally” sit near him at lunch thing more than once. 

That’s where I’m starting you: not at the origin story, but at the point where the ground is already a little unstable, and neither of us has admitted out loud that we’re standing on it.

It started with lunch.

Or more accurately, it started with both of them showing up at the same taco truck on the same Tuesday, pretending it was a coincidence. The first time, it probably was.

By the third Tuesday, Penelope caught Jack already parked at their usual corner table by the alley, and she didn’t say anything when he ordered her favorite without asking.

She just gave him a look.

He shrugged. “I was here first. You snooze, you end up with dry carnitas.”

She leaned on the table, chin in her hand. “You like ordering for people. Is this a power thing?”

He handed her a horchata. “It’s a flavor thing.”

Their elbows bumped as they unwrapped tacos, both hunched over the flimsy tray like it was sacred. A car honked nearby and a gull screamed overhead, but Jack was mid-rant about a product manager named Leo who thought every design issue could be solved with “more whitespace,” and Penelope was genuinely crying laughing.

Not polite, muted office laugh. Real laughing. The kind where her whole face crumpled and she had to press a napkin to her eyes while he kept talking just to make it worse.

After that, it was a thing.

Shared coffee walks that somehow lasted longer than they should. Slack threads that started about tickets and ended in unhinged memes. The way her desk… migrated… one monitor at a time until, mysteriously, it lived next to his in the bullpen.

He didn’t stop her.

One Thursday, Penelope wandered into the break room and found him maneuvering his chair with his phone balanced on his thigh and a granola bar in his mouth like a cigar.

She took one look. “Rough morning?”

He spat the bar into his hand. “I’ve been in back-to-back calls since 8:15. I think I blacked out during the last one and said yes to joining a committee.”

“Godspeed.”

She slid him a fresh cup of coffee from the communal pot. He caught it one-handed, a little too pleased with himself. She hopped up onto the edge of the counter next to him, her knee brushing his forearm.

Neither of them moved.

“So,” she said between sips, “what’s our cover story today?”

He blinked. “Cover story?”

“For why we’re loitering in here for forty-five minutes talking about nothing.”

He tilted his head up at her, the corner of his mouth pulling. “We’re doing essential cross-team collaboration.”

“Oh good,” she said. “I was worried we were wasting company time.”

He nodded solemnly. “No, no. This is… synergy.”

She laughed and threw a stir stick at him.

Over time, people stopped asking if they came to meetings together.

Penelope would walk in, lean against Jack’s chair, and toss him a protein bar before the presentation even started. He’d flick the corner of her notepad and scribble across the bottom: Penelope is trapped in a meeting. Send snacks. Or help. But preferably snacks.

Sometimes he’d lean back to murmur a joke and she’d automatically crowd his space, elbow hooked over the rim of his wheel like she lived there now. Sometimes she’d perch on the edge of his desk to explain something, talking with her whole body, hands flying so wildly he’d start laughing and push off the desk an inch just so he didn’t get smacked in the face.

Nothing flirty. Nothing serious. Just easy.

Like they’d known each other longer than they had.

Like he didn’t have to think about pulling up beside her desk, phone already out, asking if she wanted to “accidentally” grab lunch again. Like he hadn’t quite clocked the way he always shifted to give her space before realizing she never took it.

One Friday after hours, Penelope found him alone in the shared lounge, spinning slow, lazy circles with a single push over the carpet.

“You look like you’re contemplating corporate espionage,” she said, dropping into the chair beside him.

Jack looked over. “Only a little. You ever wanted to steal a Keurig?”

She huffed. “That’s your rebellion?”

“I’m a man of simple tastes.”

“Steal a whole espresso machine and we’ll talk.”

He looked at her, eyes warm. “Okay. But only if you’re the getaway driver.”

She leaned her head back, smirking at the ceiling. “You planning on making a habit of me?”

There was a pause--not awkward, not heavy. Just… charged enough to notice.

He didn’t look away. “Too late.”

It landed harder than either of them had aimed for. Penelope blinked, caught off guard by the softness, and he must’ve felt it too, because he nudged his rim and spun his chair again like he hadn’t said anything important at all.

She didn’t move.

She let her knee knock gently into his as he came back around, left it there this time.

He slowed the circle without meaning to.

And neither of them bothered to come up with a cover story for why they stayed like that.