Chapter Text
Alex is living the dream. His life is absolutely stellar.
Okay, so his dating life has been kind of a chaotic mess, and he recently moved into his own apartment because his sister, June, moved in with her girlfriend, Nora, who happens to be Alex’s ex-girlfriend—case in point for his dating life being a chaotic mess—and it’s not like his salary enables him to afford a great place, but. But.
Alex finally has his dream job. He’s going to be an editor. He still has to work up to it, of course, but Alex is an assistant editor for Rafael Luna at the (relatively) young and exciting Waterloo publishing house in New York and he’s on track to become an editor by the time he’s thirty. He’s got prospects and a promotion in his future, and he’s living in New York City, which is—after Austin, naturally—the best place in the world to live, even if his apartment is a crappy shoebox with temperamental heating.
He gets along with most of his work colleagues, he’s found a small weekend lacrosse league, and the bar around the corner from his apartment serves his favorite whiskey. His divorced parents have eased up on their fighting in the last few years now that June is settled in a job and Alex has left his unhealthy school habits behind, and their latest family Christmas was almost civil. Even his dating life is looking up since June set him up with one of her acquaintances. Amber might not be the love of his life, but she’s fun and they get along so well that they’re five dates and one sleepover in, and Alex is pretty sure he hasn’t fucked it up yet.
Life is finally good.
And then Henry fucking Fox-Mountchristen ruins it all.
**************************
Alex is fighting with the office’s most erratic—but also nearest to his desk—coffee maker when Amy and Cash come into the small kitchenette. They’re Alex’s favorite coworkers, because they’re both extremely competent—Cash is probably the most efficient managing editor to ever live and Amy is a marketing genius—and not only when it comes to keeping titles on schedule and convincing people to buy their books. Case in point: Alex’s struggle with the coffee maker. Amy just gives him a pitying look, slaps the coffee maker in that magical spot on top that Alex never manages to hit right that makes the espresso come out smoothly, and doesn’t even stop her conversation with Cash to do it.
“And I think I’m going to do whales next. When it comes to sea animals, Tara prefers dolphins, but the book is called When the Whales Sing.”
During meetings, Amy knits scarves, socks, and other clothes for her wife, and her patterns and colors are usually inspired by the books she’s working on. It’s disgustingly cute.
“You could choose a whale species that’s more dolphin-shaped,” Cash suggests, practical as always. “It doesn’t have to be something like a humpback, right?”
“Technically all dolphins are whales, though not all whales are dolphins, so you could just do dolphins,” Alex adds while he puts a second cup under the coffee maker. This time he’s getting the espresso without fuss.
When he turns around with two cups full of the strongest stuff the office coffee maker is able to produce, Amy and Cash are staring at him.
Alex shrugs. “Wikipedia rabbit hole.”
“Well,” Amy says after a moment, “I guess dolphin pattern it is.” She’s already taking out her phone, presumably to look up dolphin knitting patterns on Pinterest or however that works. Alex doesn’t really know anything about crafts.
“Enjoy the office knitting while you still can,” Cash says glumly. “I heard Mountchristen has a much stricter office policy.”
Amy’s brows draw together. “You really think they’re going to try to implement their English office policies here?”
At that, Alex stops on his way to the door. The old, traditional, and, most notably, English publishing giant Mountchristen Press bought Waterloo Publishing months ago. Waterloo was struggling financially, so the investment from Mountchristen was welcome. Mountchristen had been looking to expand into the US market for a while, but their own satellite offices never managed to be real competition for American publishers. A few years ago they’d switched their strategy to buying smaller publishing houses. Their reputation isn’t great—they value more traditional titles, don’t take chances on anything more experimental or risky, and reject remote work culture, even after COVID—but Raf assured Alex it wouldn’t be that bad.
Had he been wrong?
“An old buddy of mine works at Sandringham Books,” Cash says while making his own coffee. “Right after the takeover, everything was business as usual, but last year one of the Mountchristen sons came over for a while and he made a lot of changes to increase productivity, and people don’t like them. They rolled back most of the work-from-home agreements and ended several programs they had supporting libraries.”
“Fucking colonizers,” Alex mutters.
Cash hums in agreement and Amy worriedly looks back down at her phone.
Alex wants to say something reassuring or uplifting, but then he spots Hunter coming down the corridor with his ostentatious Harvard mug, so he flees toward Raf’s office. There’s only so much of Hunter’s snide pretentiousness that Alex can take in a day.
Raf is waiting in his office for Alex and—probably more importantly—the coffee. Raf is almost as much of a caffeine addict as Alex.
Currently, Raf is on the phone, so he just makes grabby hands for the mug and Alex hands it over before plopping down on the couch on the other side of Raf’s office. They always do their morning meeting in the seating area, with Alex bringing coffee and Raf picking up pastries from the bakery close to his apartment. If Alex didn’t run to work in the mornings, he would’ve put on ten pounds by now.
“No, I know this isn’t ideal, but there’s really nothing I can do,” Raf says, sounding harried, and takes a big gulp of coffee, sputtering soundlessly at the heat but taking another sip anyway.
That does not sound like a good call.
“Yeah, I know I said this wouldn’t change anything, but I had a call with them this morning, and I just—Oliver, I can’t. And we’re really just moving up the timeline, so… Yeah. Yeah, that’s…” Raf closes his eyes, opens them again. “You’re a fucking miracle, you know that?”
Raf ends his phone call with a “Yeah, I’ll call you later with more details, Alex is here, love you,” and then inhales the rest of his coffee, which is a lot, even for him.
“Everything okay?” Alex asks.
Raf sighs. “Unfortunately not.”
Alex’s stomach sinks.
“I quit,” Raf says. And after a beat, “And my cup’s empty.”
Alex is staring at him in shock.
“Yeah.” Raf stands. “You know what, I’m gonna get myself a new cup, and then we’ll talk.”
He leaves the office and Alex keeps sitting on the couch in absolute shock, speechless for maybe the first time in his life. He never thought Raf would actually quit.
Sure, when the news first spread that Mountchristen was buying Waterloo, Raf grumbled and groused and talked about leaving before he’d submit to the rule of their English yoke, but once the details of the deal trickled through and Raf had a talk with one of their sons—Alex forgot which one, they’re both exceedingly blond and English—Raf assured Alex he would stay. But apparently that’s changed.
Fuck.
Raf has been his mentor for so long—hell, he was the one who offered him the job in the first place and gave him a purpose when Alex’s life went up in flames after he crashed out of law school. Alex can’t imagine Waterloo without him.
Raf has been the publisher at Waterloo for the last four years. He oversees everything Waterloo puts out while also still working with his own authors. And the entire time, he’d mentored Alex on his path to becoming the best damn editor he could be.
**************************
Reading wasn’t Alex’s first love—that was probably arguments or outdoor sports—but it was what got him through his parents’ divorce.
When Alex’s parents started fighting and it got loud in their house, books helped Alex escape.
When he got back from summer camp and the house was suddenly quiet because his dad had moved out, books helped distract him.
When June left for college and the house got even quieter, books helped fill the empty space.
When his mind ran in five different directions at once, a good story pulled his focus back in. A bad one did too, a mental red pen always ready to correct, suggest, and improve. He joined his high school’s paper, wrote and edited, learned how to shape an article or a story, learned the technical ins and outs of building a story arc, how to engage the readers’ interest, and how to use punctuation in a way that was not only correct but also helpful for the reading experience. He fell in love with the em dash while the semicolon became his mortal enemy.
The passion took a back seat when he went to college, when he had to decide what he really wanted to do with his life. And what he knew was that he wanted to change people’s lives for the better. He still minored in English, still joined the university student paper, but he was on the pre-law track. He was going to follow in his parents’ footsteps, he was going to work hard and become a lawyer or a politician, or maybe even both. He’d make real change.
It took four years of college and one year of law school for Alex to realize that he was not his parents and that the way he threw himself into his work without ever taking a breather wasn’t getting him anywhere but to burnout by twenty-three.
His salvation came in the form of Rafael Luna. Luna was an old friend of Alex’s dad and Alex had done an internship in high school at the small publisher Luna had worked for in Austin. By the time Alex was at NYU, Luna was working for Waterloo in New York, and when Alex was deliberating his future at law school one hot summer evening, Luna called him up.
They met at a Five Guys downtown, just like in the days of Alex’s internship in Austin.
“I talked to your dad and he mentioned you’re reevaluating what you want to do with your life,” Luna said.
Alex shrugged, trying to hide how much talking about it stung. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You know, they’re promoting me next year when my boss retires,” Luna said over burgers and fries, “to the executive publisher.”
“Congrats. That’s awesome, man.” Alex knew what this meant for Luna. Luna was born in the US, but his parents had barely made it here from Mexico. Luna had a passion for stories, yes, but he also had the fight in him to diversify the business, to bring in more Latino authors, more queer voices, to tell more diverse stories. As a brown kid who grew up with a white mother and a Mexican father, Alex understood. And Luna getting this opportunity was amazing, not that Alex didn’t know how hard Luna had worked for this.
Luna watched him shrewdly. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I’ll even get to hire a new editorial assistant.”
“Stellar. Finally someone else to feed your Five Guys addiction.”
Luna snorted. “It’s not like a personal assistant, of course, but an editorial assistant who’s mainly going to work directly for me. Someone I could mentor.”
Alex nodded along. That sounded pretty cool, even though he wasn’t sure why Luna was beleaguering the point.
“You interested?”
Alex almost choked on his coke. “What?”
Luna shrugged. “I always thought you’d be good at this job. You’re driven, and you have a passion for it, you know, a true love for stories. Now, don’t get me wrong, you’re gonna have to earn it,” Luna said, pointing a fry at him in warning. “Start at the bottom of the ladder. This isn’t getting a job because of who your daddy knows. But I have a feeling you’ll do well enough for a promotion. No promises, but a possibility.”
And Alex thought about it. “I’ve always wanted to help people,” he said. “Law school seemed like a good way to do that, you know? Go into politics maybe. Really change people’s lives.”
“And you think a book never changed a life? You think books don’t help people?”
Alex thought back to all the books he’d escaped into as a teenager.
“I don’t know… Editing seems kind of far away.”
Luna shook his head. “Every book is a collaborative effort. Sure, authors can do it alone, but most of the time you need an editor to get them there. And it’s not only about the ones who already made it. It’s about picking the right book out of the pile, about knowing what’s just a bunch of written pages and what’s a story. Trust me, kid, you don’t need to be a creative genius to be part of the process. Play to your strengths.”
So Alex really thought about it. Thought about how much fun he’d had in his internship. Thought about his strengths: the research he could do, his focus on improving anything he read, spotting everything from typos to plot holes, his organizational skills, and his ability to charm the pants off of almost anyone.
Alex applied for a job as an editorial assistant. He started work at Waterloo three weeks later.
Luna took him out for burgers after his first week. He toasted Alex with a fry and said, “Call me Raf. This is gonna be fun, trust me.”
And Raf was right. It was fun and hands-on, giving Alex something to do, with visible results, instead of the endless studying of law school, and Alex excelled. He’d excelled in law school too, at least when you only looked at his grades, but he’d never known when to stop. When he’d studied enough. But with editing, he knew when the work was done. Most importantly, no matter how stressful the work got, Alex never passed out from it again. The occasional all-nighter was between him and his coffee machine.
After a year in the business, he had a whole new appreciation for how good Raf was at his job. Raf had published some of the most successful books at Waterloo in the last few years. He had an excellent taste for boundary-pushing novels that raked in award nominations and won some of them, even if they didn’t always become bestsellers. At least they didn’t disappear into the bargain bins.
And when Raf was promoted to publisher, Alex was promoted to assistant editor. He still worked for the other editors—Waterloo was small enough that each editorial assistant supported two or three editors—but Alex mainly worked for Raf.
Raf let Alex shadow him on all his important meetings, took the time to go over the work Alex had done on his drafts, and listened when Alex pitched books from the endless pile of submissions that made it to Alex’s desk.
Alex was learning from Raf even when he was scheduling his calendar and running errands because Raf always took the time to impart his vast knowledge to Alex. He had story after story about the publishing world, told him about the politics of publishing houses, the diplomacy of working with authors, and the shrewd tricks to make more money, like when it was worth it to invest more in a cover and when something simple would be enough. Raf valued his input too, and on one memorable evening opened a bottle of whiskey and asked Alex to explain the whole TikTok thing to an old man like him. Raf wasn’t that old, only somewhere in his forties, but he didn’t know TikTok—he barely managed Instagram—and Alex was a pro.
And when Alex acquired his first few books himself, Raf was there to support him while still letting him take the lead, always there with advice without putting on training wheels.
They were a well-oiled team and Alex knew that with just a few more years of learning, he’d be able to be as good as Raf.
At least, that was the plan.
**************************
When Raf returns to the office with his coffee, Alex blurts out, “What do you mean, you quit?”
Raf makes a face and sits back down on the couch. “It was a mutual agreement.”
“Why? I thought you were happy with what Mountchristen wanted to do?”
“I was.” Raf pauses. “But I didn’t have all the information. Or rather, Mountchristen didn’t share all the information.” He scoffs. “According to them, they took a closer look at our recent publication history and think we should course-correct and closer align ourselves with traditional and successful Mountchristen values to increase our sales.”
Raf leans back on the couch and nurses his coffee.
“That’s some bullshit,” Alex says angrily.
“Yeah. I have no intention of following traditional Mountchristen values. Besides, Oliver and I have been talking about opening our own queer press for a while now and this is the push I needed.”
“Take me with you then,” Alex says immediately.
Raf sighs. “Kid, that’s not what you want.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because we’re going to be small potatoes for a while. Trust me, as a career move, staying is so much better. Here, you can actually get promoted. Oliver and I won’t be able to hire another editor for years. Besides, do you really want to relocate to Cali?”
Alex snaps his mouth shut. He really doesn’t want to move again. Leaving Texas was hard enough, but he fell in love with New York, and now that June and Nora are here too, Alex doesn’t want to start over somewhere else.
Raf is unfortunately also right about his career and where he wants to work. A small queer publishing house would be amazing, but Alex needs to learn everything he can about the business, and for that, a more established press is much better. Waterloo is no Penguin, but they’re big enough that Alex can learn everything he needs to and get promoted sometime soon. Of course, that was Raf’s promise to him. Who knows what Mountchristen is going to do.
“Not to detract from your news—and I’m thrilled for you and Oliver—but since you brought up my promotion…”
“Don’t worry,” Raf tells Alex. “I talked to my replacement and told him you’re on track for editor. You’re almost there—I was actually going to talk to you about it after the summer, get you promoted at the end of the year. He agreed to it, provided you bring him up to speed and keep working for him for a few months until he’s settled here.”
Alex almost falls off his chair. “Fuck, Raf, you’re promoting me this year?”
“You earned it, kid,” Raf says nonchalantly but Alex can hear the pride underneath.
“Fuck yeah.” Alex is laughing, barely refraining from a fist pump, because fuck, he’s getting his promotion, Raf thinks he’s ready, editor before he’s thirty, fuck yeah.
“Now, I can’t promise you that Mountchristen is going to promote you this year,” Raf says, “but if you keep doing your job as well as you have been and make a good impression, I don’t see a problem. He agreed that we needed more editors sooner or later anyway, and he said he’d follow my suggestion.”
“You know me,” Alex says seriously. “You know how hard I work. And I can be a fucking professional.” Alex grins. “I can even stop swearing if I have to.”
“You’re gonna give yourself a fucking hernia,” Raf says dryly, and fuck, Alex is going to miss him.
But he’s going to be an editor. He’s back on track, the failure of law school finally fully in the past because he’s made it. He’s floating on cloud nine, seeing rainbows and unicorns everywhere, and whatever other trashy metaphors he has to regularly cut out of overwrought prose, because Alex is in love with his job and, right now, his entire life.
Yeah, it sucks that Raf is leaving, but Alex will be editor, he just has to get whoever is coming in settled, and—
“Wait, your replacement? You already know who it is?”
“Oh yeah.” Raf nods. “They’re sending one of their own to make sure things go smoothly here. The new publisher will be Henry Mountchristen himself.”
Well, that’s a letdown. “Great. And what am I supposed to learn from a nepo baby?”
“Look, I get that, but you should give him a chance.”
Alex snorts. “Why?”
“I talked to him.” Raf pauses, deliberating what to say next. Eventually, he shrugs, but there’s something in his eyes Alex can’t quite read. “And, I don’t know, there was something about him. His grandmother and his older brother made it very clear what their vision for Waterloo is, but Henry actually listened to what I said. And he was not averse to working with the new authors we brought in the last few years, even if his brother said to reevaluate their contracts.”
Raf makes a face at that because usually author contracts are iron-clad and they’ve published less than stellar books in the past because the author had a multi-book deal. To try to renegotiate requires a lot of very mean lawyers.
None of this sounds particularly good and Alex makes a very skeptical sound.
“Just see how it goes,” Raf says. “If you absolutely hate it, you can still quit and come to Cali. Be my eternal assistant and spend the next ten years getting me Five Guys and coffee.”
Alex slumps back into the couch. “This is going to suck.”
Raf nods. “Probably. But you still have some things to learn if you want to do this job. And hey, if Mountchristen is terrible, at least you’ll learn what not to do.”
Alex makes a face.
“But I’m not leaving yet. We have another month until he gets here, and in the meantime, we’re going to strategize a pitch meeting with Quinn McCasey. They’re working on a novelization of their webcomic and I don’t care that their agent is talking to Macmillan, that would be a great catch for us.” Raf pulls out his phone. “They made a cryptic post on Instagram that everyone is going crazy over, please explain to me what this means.”
Alex scoots closer on the couch and focuses on the problem at hand. He can cry later about Raf leaving when he’s barging into June and Nora’s apartment and raiding their ice cream stash. For now, he’s going to help Raf decipher McCasey’s Insta post so they can hopefully sign one of the most promising new queer writers out there.
**************************
Raf’s last month at Waterloo flies by. So far, there haven’t been any changes in the company; apparently everyone is waiting for the younger Mountchristen to get here.
Alex writes up summaries of all of Raf’s ongoing and future projects. They have a few books in various stages of the editing process and are in the process of wooing Quinn McCasey. That’s not going so well because they simply don’t have the same funds available to promote the book as the bigger publishers, but Raf is still working on it.
The entire floor throws Raf a going-away party. There’s cake and Raf himself brings a few bottles of whiskey.
Raf gives a short but heartfelt speech and tells them not to fear the regime change too much, there’s still hope for all of them. Considering Raf is leaving precisely because of the regime change, no one seems very optimistic, but there’s applause anyway.
Alex goes home with a hug, a slight buzz from the whiskey, and an uncomfortable feeling of dread. He’s usually an optimist, but the subdued mood at the office has really got to him and at this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if Mountchristen never promotes him. At Sandringham Books, they even fired people, Cash told him today.
He spends the weekend helping June and Nora paint their apartment because June decided the energy was off with the white walls and needed color. Alex rants half the time about his work situation before Nora shuts him down.
“We get it, Mountchristen is the devil incarnate, your promotion is unattainable now, your new boss is an incompetent, evil caricature of a tea-drinking, mustache-twirling villain, and your career is over.” She points her paintbrush at him. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I—”
“No, seriously, why not quit?”
“I can’t just quit,” Alex sputters. “Besides, I actually like working at Waterloo. We’ve really built something over the years, and we have great authors that I would have to leave behind, and I don’t think I want to work at one of the big five and become some big corporate sellout who publishes dumb drivel just because it makes it to the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list. I want to work on books that matter, on books that bring in more diverse representation, that give more people a voice.”
Alex is aware that he’s going on another rant and that he’s being a little unfair—it’s not like the Big Five of publishing are evil corporations on a level with Amazon or Nestlé—but he actually believes in the Waterloo vision.
“Well, then stay for now, see how it goes. And you don’t have to be an editor by thirty,” June says gently. “You know that there’s no clock on getting promoted, right?”
Alex does know that, of course he does. Still. He’s already quit so many dreams; he can’t give up on this one too.
“Yeah, of course,” is all he says. “But it’s not only that. We’ve been doing great stuff, working with really great authors. I don’t want to see that shut down just because it doesn’t fit into the Mountchristen agenda. And even when I get promoted, I’ll still have to report to Mountchristen and he still gets the final say over all books I want to take on.”
“So be a rebel,” Nora says. “Fight for what you believe in, et cetera, et cetera. Considering how often you’ve seen Star Wars, that’s a really defeatist attitude.”
Alex sticks his tongue out at her. He can’t just admit she’s right.
Nora still knows, because she rolls her eyes and presses the long-handled brush into his hand. “Now paint the ceiling. Miraculously, you’re the tallest one here, short stuff.”
“Five-nine is average,” Alex grumbles but takes the brush.
Nora just pats his arm, leaving mint-colored prints on it. “Sure, buddy.”