Chapter 1

On his very first day as our new department head, my boss rejected my proposal three times.

The fourth time I was called into his office, I finally lost my cool.

"Mr. Vance, is there something wrong with my proposal, or is there something wrong with me?"

Garrett Vance stayed silent for two seconds. Then, he slowly turned his monitor toward me.

It wasn't feedback on my work. It was a screenshot of a speech-to-text transcription.

The last voice note I had ever sent to my online boyfriend five years ago.

Back then, the voice recognition glitch had butchered my words.

What I meant to say was: "The wind is crazy tonight. Drive safe on your way home."

What actually got transcribed and sent was: "Let's break up tonight. Never contact me again."

And right below the text was my old gaming username.

Garrett looked up at me, his eyes cold and unreadable.

"Chloe."

"Five years, and your hearing hasn't improved one bit."

My fists clenched tight at my sides.

The online ex I had supposedly ghosted out of nowhere was now my direct boss.

And worse, he looked ready to settle every single score from the past five years.

I slunk out of his office, clutching the rejected proposal to my chest.

The moment the heavy door shut behind me, I let out a long, ragged exhale.

One look at my face and Zoe knew everything had gone to hell.

She rolled her chair over and whispered, "Rejected again?"

I threw the binder onto my desk. "Fourth time."

Zoe gasped. "Is this guy insane?"

"I read your proposal! It's solid! What the hell does he even want?"

I scoffed bitterly. "He's just an evil corporate overlord."

Still pissed off, I made a slicing motion across my throat. Zoe cracked up, clutching her stomach.

Just then, Garrett walked past our cubicles, flanked by a cluster of senior managers on their way to the conference room.

As he walked by, he cleared his throat out of nowhere.

His cold gaze swept over my face, completely devoid of emotion.

Zoe winced. "I think he heard you."

I swallowed hard. "God help me. Please don't let him fire me."

Before the words fully left my mouth, a company-wide Slack pinged on my screen.

All hands meeting in Conference Room 1. Immediately.

In massive meetings like this, low-level grunts like us were just background noise.

Sitting in the back, I stared at the man commanding the room from the stage.

My chest ached with a strange, bittersweet nostalgia.

Five years had passed in the blink of an eye.

The Garrett Vance standing up there looked like a completely different person from the grainy photos I remembered.

Back then, he had messy black hair, wore oversized graphic tees, and had a silver stud in his ear. He always had this lazy, reckless smirk.

He wasn't a bad guy, but he was definitely a rebel who broke every rule in the book.

Now? His hair was sharply styled, the earring was gone, and his tailored charcoal suit made him look ruthlessly commanding and sophisticated.

Five years ago, Garrett and I met in an online co-op game.

I was a complete rookie, and my gameplay was an absolute dumpster fire.

After a brutal match, the rest of the team rage-quit. Only one player stayed behind. Username: "G."

He typed in chat: "First time playing?"

I acted tough: "Is it that obvious?"

He replied: "Not really. You only shot your own teammates three times."

After that, he carried me through matches for days.

Gaming banter turned into personal chats. Strangers turned into friends who texted every single day.

Until one late night, he texted: "Chloe, do you want to be my girlfriend?"

I stared at the screen for a long time before typing a single word back.

Yes.

And just like that, I fell into a two-year online relationship with a man I had never met in person.

Everyone told me long-distance e-dating was a joke, destined to crash and burn.

Especially with an absurd beginning like ours. It felt like playing house.

Yet six months in, Garrett still texted me good morning every single day without fail. He wanted to tell me every little detail of his life, down to what he ate for lunch.

His passion never cooled off.

I couldn't help teasing him once: "Don't you ever get tired of this?"

His reply was faster than a rocket:"What's that supposed to mean? Are you getting sick of me?"

Me: "Never."

Garrett: "Then shut up and wait for my call tonight."

Garrett had a quirk: he hated typing and preferred calling whenever he could.

Which was pure torture for me.

Every time I picked up his calls, I had to concentrate with every fiber of my being.

My brain worked overtime trying to piece together the muffled syllables I couldn't hear clearly, all while frantically trying to come up with normal replies.

Inevitably, things like this happened all the time:

Garrett would ramble on excitedly for five minutes.

My brain would freeze, completely unable to squeeze out a single word.

Whenever I truly couldn't make out what he said, I could only bite the bullet and shout: "Say that again!"

"Wait, give me one second."

On the screen, Garrett ducked down to mess with something, and the video feed dimmed.

A second later, soft, warm fairy lights flickered on one by one.

He sat under the golden glow with a small cupcake in front of him.

"I wanted to wait until midnight to show you."

He smiled softly into the camera.

"But I couldn't wait."

"Chloe, happy birthday."

I stared blankly at the screen, my heart aching with an overwhelming warmth.

In a panic, I let my hair down, desperately covering the side of my face.

Terrified that he would catch a glimpse of the clunky, ugly hearing aid stuck in my ear.