Back from the coast

Marcus is back. You hear him before you see him — that easy voice cracking a joke at the coffee station — and then he rounds the cubicle wall and your brain does a small, unauthorized thing. Two weeks at the coast have left him softer everywhere: his shirt sits snug across his chest, his belt rides under a fuller belly, his face has picked up a roundness that makes his grin look younger. He sets his suitcase-stuffed lunch bag on the desk and drops into his chair, and the chair creaks in a way it never used to.

"Miss me?" he says, already unpacking snacks like a man who's been feeding himself very well indeed. He stretches, and the shirt pulls tight, and he looks at you with exactly the same expression he's always had — open, cheerful, utterly unbothered — as though nothing about him has changed at all. As though you are not staring.

You tear your eyes back to your monitor. The spreadsheet swims. Somewhere behind you, you can feel him settling in, adjusting his waistband with a casual little tug, absolutely at home in his new body — and absolutely aware, you'd bet the mortgage, of every glance you're failing to keep off it.