The office space in Brooklyn was perfect. 

Good location, good transport links, a coffee shop across the street and a deli on the corner. Better still, despite the building's historic value, it had recently been re-wired for superfast broadband. And it was quirky, with arched windows and red brick walls to provide a contrast with all the modern equipment they would need. 

They'd found it. This was the place.

Oscar felt it with the same rock-solid certainty he knew he had to tell Callie what was happening sooner, rather than later. He'd been unable to resist kissing her, but he wouldn't sleep with her before she knew who she was sleeping with. 

Might seem arrogant to assume they were headed that way, but with chemistry like theirs...

He'd thought of little else in the hours since he left her, his subconscious providing numerous erotic images of them together as he dreamed. Making the switch from friends to lovers was risky but felt right, like something ended so something new could begin and the time they'd spent apart was simply the pause in-between.

While wandering around the empty office space, his thoughts returned to how she would react when he told her. 

Some guy who worked in a cubicle with little hope of advancement before he turned fifty would never be good enough for her. She deserved someone with ambition and goals, and though he wished it had been part of his motivation to succeed, truth was, he hadn't thought of it that way.

In the beginning, it was simply a fun thing to do, one of the geeky projects she would tease him about. Callie didn't get code the way Oscar did and he gave up trying to explain his passion for it a long time ago. She didn't see the beauty in it or get the rush he experienced when he manipulated it to do something new. But that was okay, each to their own as his dad used to say, and over the years it gave him a better understanding of her work. 

He stopped resenting the times she was so lost in a project she was late for whatever they planned to do or didn't show up, at all. He knew what it felt like to be driven by the desire to create something unique, time slipped away. When they lived together –

Whoa, there. When they lived together, not if?

As Harry made plans for the layout of the office furniture and Jasper added to the list of the equipment they needed, Oscar walked over to an arched window.

He was raised to believe when a guy met the woman he was supposed to be with, he knew. It was that way for his parents and until the car accident which ended his dad's life, they were nuts about each other. There were countless times they embarrassed their son with public displays of affection, but as he grew up, he realized he wanted what they had and wasn't prepared to settle for anything less. 

He wasn't 'there' yet with Callie. Who the hell was after one kiss? But he thought it was possible and he wanted it to work with her. 

He just wished it felt like a safer bet.

Callie was an all-in, cards on the table, girl. She threw herself unreservedly and wholeheartedly into everything she did, regardless of the number of times she was dealt a losing hand. In contrast, Oscar kept his cards close to his chest and could bluff like a pro. He took a more cautious approach to the game, weighed up the odds. When he didn't, he got burned. 

It was a lesson he learned early in life. One Callie taught him. 

He'd bet on her before, had shown his hand. And she'd incinerated him.

The sound of raised voices caught his attention, making his brow furrow as he turned around.

"What difference does it make to anything but people's comfort if the fucking desks are two feet further from the wall?" Harry argued, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, obviously suffering from a massive hangover. "Tracking cables across the floor isn't the end of the fucking world."

"It could be the end of the world if someone trips, whacks their head on the corner of one of your pretty little desks and sues us." Jasper argued back. "You never think ahead or consider the effect your actions could have on others. Like buying that apartment and throwing a big party to show off. You didn't give a shit if people wondered where the money came from. All you cared about was getting laid."

Oscar didn't react for a moment. He was too stunned by the way Jasper spat the accusation in Harry's face. It wasn't the first argument they had, nor would it be the last. Creative differences and clashes of personality were par for the course. But he couldn't remember a time when something so trivial warranted such a vicious attack.

"Time out." He made the appropriate hand signal, stepped forward and deliberately placed himself between them, his gaze moving from one strained face to the other. "If this is an interior design issue, I know people who can help with that."

When Harry nodded and walked away, Oscar focused his attention on Jasper. Something was definitely off with him, and whatever it was went deeper than handing out conflicting advice or arguing over the positioning of desks. 

The last time he ignored the warning signs in Jasper's erratic behavior, it cost them dearly, and Oscar swore he would never make the same mistake again.

"Talk to me."

Jasper scowled and stayed silent.

"Come on, man." Oscar pressed. "We both know this isn't about desks. Walk me through it."

He saw Jasper's gaze slide across the room to the realtor who was hovering by the elevators, talking on her cell-phone.

"Harry." Oscar waved him back over and lowered his voice. "We all agree this is the right space in the right location, yes?" There were nods of assent. "Okay, then. I'll get the realtor to draw up the papers. Harry, go find painkillers for your hangover. We'll meet you at the coffee shop across the street. Jasper, wait here."

When he was alone with Jasper again, he broached the subject a second time. "Tell me what's going on."

"Lisa broke up with me."

"What?" Oscar was shocked. "Why?"

"She started asking questions about Harry's apartment when he closed on it, wanted to know where he got the money. I tried throwing her off the scent but she kept digging." He shot an apologetic look at Oscar. "I know we agreed not to tell anyone until the company was launched but –"

"We're too far down the line now," Oscar reassured him. "So, if you want to tell Lisa -"

"I did."

The impact of his statement hit Oscar with enough force to knock the air from his lungs. "What happened?"

"I thought she'd be happy," Jasper replied flatly. "She's been bugging me forever about getting a better paid job so we could think about getting married and start setting money aside. I thought it would be a case of 'hey, honey, surprise, we can get married tomorrow if you want to' and she'd be over the moon. But she went crazy."

Oscar's stomach plummeted to the soles of his feet.

"She tossed the couples-who-love-each-other-don't-have-secrets line in my face," Jasper continued. "Said I didn't trust her and if I wanted to share my life with her, I'd share everything. She looked at me like she didn't know me, like I'd deliberately set out to hurt her. Thing is, apart from the wanting to hurt her thing, she was right."

It was so close to the fears Oscar had about Callie's reaction, he felt physically sick. 

"This is my fault."

Jasper sighed heavily. "I knew you'd say that."

"I'm sorry, Jazz."

"Don't be. It's not your fault she can't see things from our point of view."

"Did you tell her everything, right from the start?"

"Yeah," Jasper nodded. "But she didn't get it. Maybe it was naive of us to think people would. I thought our relationship was strong enough to get through anything. Maybe I was wrong." He shrugged. "Fact remains, from her point of view, I broke her trust. And as she said, it's like breaking a plate. You can glue the pieces back together but it's never the same."

Oscar looked at the office space and thought about everything they went through to get here. It wasn't a smooth ride and he'd told himself keeping what they were doing under wraps protected the people they cared about from any of the pain involved. 

But it could also be argued they robbed those people of the elation, joy and pride which came with success.

What if Callie reacted the way Lisa had? What if she felt cheated and couldn't forgive him? 

Jasper and Lisa had been a couple for more than five years. Oscar and Callie had barely been a couple for five minutes.

"Do you think she'll come around?"

"I don't know," Jasper replied honestly. "Hope so."

"Me, too. You guys are good together."

"We were," Jasper said fatalistically. "Irony is, until you started talking about everything we could do, I wasn't ambitious. I had a steady job, figured I'd marry Lisa one day, have a couple of kids, get old and die." 

When Oscar grimaced, he smiled. 

"That wasn't meant to be a dig. What I'm saying is you broadened my horizons. Same for Harry. And that's a good thing. We all need to dream big. I went from thinking in terms of a budget wedding, a mortgage I'd never pay off and struggling to put my kids through college to big wedding, fancy house, vacations overseas and trust funds."

"Then you better find a way to get her back," Oscar stated firmly. "Problem solving is your thing, my man." He reached out and squeezed his friend's shoulder. "Yelling at Harry isn't gonna help anyone, is it?"

"No. I should probably apologize to him."

"You should." Oscar nodded. "He was still pouting when he left." 

They walked to the elevator and took a last look around. 

"Though, to be fair, you probably had a point about his apartment and the party. I'm pretty sure he hooked up with the tour guide he's been chasing when we left last night."

"Just as well he got over the little crush he used to have on you," Jasper commented. "Would have made things pretty damn awkward in the office if you broke his heart."

Yes, it would. And Oscar was eternally grateful to be spared the 'I just don't think of you that way' talk with Harry. He'd hate what it did to their friendship and having so recently been made brutally aware of how bad it would feel to be on the receiving end of a rejection...

"How did it go with Callie?" Jasper asked as the lights above the elevator doors lit up in ascending order.

"Good," he replied. "Real good."

Jasper didn't need to know he couldn't have picked a worse time to break the news about Lisa. Oscar simply had to heed his own advice and find a way to fix things, to make Callie understand why he was so secretive while skipping over the part she'd played in making him that way. 

While he figured it out and waited for the right moment to tell her, he could introduce her to another of the Oscar's she hadn't met, one who spent years honing his skills in the art of seduction to compensate for the fact he wasn't shirtless pin-up material in the looks department. 

That Oscar had moves. 

The thought of unleashing them on her made him smile.

"That's great," Jasper said. "I always wondered why you two hadn't got together at some point."

Oscar shook his head as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. It was starting to feel like everyone who knew them had been polled on their opinion. 

But if the majority were in favor, he wasn't going to debate it.