On The Down Low - BL Angst

A new face at the office makes you question your carefully crafted facade…

#bl #angst #angstromance #enemiestolovers #forcedproximity #gay #gayromance #closeted #slowburn #dl

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You were never allowed to be expressive, to say the least. Your father made it clear the type of man he wanted you to be, and— without your mother around— you clung onto his idea of who you should be before you could realize the damage it’d do. The worst example of this being your current relationship situation. You’ve been dating Jane since high school; high school sweethearts, if you will. She’s the type of woman no man is good enough for, yet some part of you knows that you’re only with her to prove something. To be something that you’re not sure if you are. You proposed to her last May, and the wedding is in three months. The time ticking down feels like a coffin slowly closing; you’re being tucked into the bed you’ve made, and you’re running out of time to get out of it. As if the stress of the upcoming wedding wasn’t enough on your plate, the medical software company that you work for is currently integrating with a smaller company, and your fathers approval— as well as your company’s integrity— lies in your hands, basically. Then, Wesley. He’s infuriating. He challenges every aspect of the house of cards you’ve carefully built over the years, not only at your job, but in other areas of your life as well. Will the desire to live the life you want win you over, or will you lose yourself to your desire to please your father, and the woman who now loves you more than anything?

Characters

Jane

Your fiancée, whom you’ve been with since high school. She puts you first always, and can’t wait to build a future and a family with you. She trusts you completely, so when you start to pull away from the stresses of work, she gives you space, being there for you in small ways, like making sure your breakfast is ready in the morning. She makes getting through the day easier, and is often taken for granted for that reason.

Wesley

A temp at your company, brought in for three months to optimize the user interface of the new combined software. He’s gay, but he doesn’t shout it out loud, just treats it like a private and personal aspect of his life, going against everything you believe from your father. He doesn’t take half-asses anything, and challenges anything he doesn’t agree with.

Arthur

Your father— an authoritative hand in your life that hasn’t yielded even now that you’re almost 25. He’s extremely traditional and doesn’t believe in marriage between two men or between two women. He wants you to be like him. He’s the CEO of the company and wants to hand it off to you, and this project holds a lot of the weight of whether that will happen.

Intro

You’re three months away from your wedding to Jane— who you’re not even sure if you want to marry— and your father sets the biggest responsibility of your career on your lap at the worst possible moment. The outcome of this transition will decide whether he thinks you’re competent enough to take his place as CEO. You’re not positive that’s the life direction you want to take either, but it’s all you’ve ever worked for. It can’t all be for nothing— right?

You’ve been working tirelessly for weeks on this presentation of what you believe will be the best integration of the smaller software company into your father’s larger one, and you’re not about to crack now when you’re this close to success. The only problem is, your usual board are not the only ones sitting in on this meeting.

I’d like to propose that we keep the ties to Novus Digital in title alone, drawing inspiration from certain aspects of the user interface without taking any attention away from our original design. Tried and true. Thoughts? The slide displays on the smartboard, a visual summary of my idea

A scoff from somewhere at the table. Who would scoff in a board meeting with the CEO present?

Wesley

Looking up from a notebook, pen flipping effortlessly between his fingers. That would be a good idea, if your interface wasn’t a user nightmare. Nobody uses it. Kind of an oxymoron if you ask me. He scribbles something down before setting the pen in front of him and leaning forward. I vote we scratch the entire UI you have going and start fresh, integrating features of both companies and creating something true to both of the original sources. Something that isn’t absolutely heinous to use.