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But I did get his number, scrawled on the back of a maintenance request form. In case of emergency, he’d written. Or just bad days.

But the hard part—the part no one sees—is the dirt under his fingernails that no amount of scrubbing removes. The calluses that scrape my hip when he pulls me close. The way he sometimes falls asleep mid-sentence on my couch after a double shift, his work boots still on, the faint smell of solder and concrete dust in his hair.

And that was more than enough.

“Please tell me you’re almost done,” I said, more sharply than I intended.

I grabbed his calloused hand. “You’re the only thing in my life that’s never broken.”

At my company gala last month, surrounded by men in tailored suits who traded stocks and talked about quarterly yields, Leo showed up in his one good blazer—the sleeves an inch too short. He held my hand the whole night, even when my boss’s husband asked him, “So, what’s your field?”

He slid out from under the control panel, a smudge of grease across his cheekbone. His name was Leo, stitched in faded red on his navy coverall. He didn’t look annoyed. He just grinned, held up a frayed wire, and said, “Two minutes. Or you could take the stairs and beat your own personal best.”

The truth is, Leo doesn’t fix buildings. He fixes the universe, one small disaster at a time.