It started with a typo.

Cara meant to reply to her manager in the #team-updates channel, but instead, her message pinged Jonah, a designer halfway across the globe.

"Wrong window," she typed quickly, cheeks burning.

He replied with a coffee emoji and a simple, "No worries. Happens to the best of us."

She laughed at the calm ease of his response and went back to work. But later that evening—his morning—Jonah sent her a direct message.

"How’s your day going? Or… night, I guess? Time zones are weird."

That was the start.

Their conversations began casually, trading small gripes about client feedback or praising each other’s clever solutions. But as weeks passed, their chats grew longer, spilling into late nights for Cara and early mornings for Jonah.

They started scheduling virtual coffee breaks—her with tea, him with black coffee—where they’d talk about more than work: favorite books, weird hobbies, the best ways to make pancakes. Jonah confessed he had a bad habit of working barefoot. Cara admitted she kept a plush llama on her desk for “emotional support.”

When deadlines loomed, they became each other’s lifelines. Jonah’s Slack messages carried her through late-night coding marathons, and Cara’s sleepy gifs made Jonah’s early mornings a little brighter.

One night, after too much caffeine and not enough rest, Cara typed: "If I didn’t know better, I’d say we’re basically coworkers-slash-pen-pals-slash-besties."

Jonah replied with a heart emoji and then, after a long pause: "You’re my favorite part of logging in every day."

Her pulse quickened. She stared at the screen, unsure how to reply. But before she could overthink it, he sent another message.

"Hey, ever thought about meeting up? In person, I mean."

Cara smiled, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

"Only if you promise to wear shoes."

Two weeks later, they stood face-to-face for the first time in a bustling airport. Jonah held a sign that read, “For the llama lady,” and Cara laughed so hard, she nearly forgot her luggage.

In the end, time zones didn’t matter. They had found their rhythm—together, one Slack message at a time.