The Internship

How to please your boss….

In the gleaming high-rise of Apex Financial in downtown Chicago, where glass walls reflected the city’s relentless ambition, twenty-two-year-old intern Alex Rivera navigated his summer placement with a mix of nerves and hidden desire. Fresh from college, Alex was a lithe vision of youthful energy, slender but toned from campus gym sessions, with smooth olive skin, dark wavy hair that fell over his forehead, and brown eyes that sparkled with quiet intelligence. Openly gay since high school, he’d kept his personal life buttoned up in the corporate world, focusing on spreadsheets and coffee runs. But his boss, Mr. Harlan Grant, was a distraction he couldn’t ignore.