Marcus pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The house was quiet. As always.
It looked exactly the way it always did. Polished, spacious, expensive. But somehow it still managed to feel empty. The faint scent of his cologne lingered in the air from the morning, mixed with the sharp trace of alcohol that clung to his clothes.
He walked past the living room without turning on the lights. The moonlight coming through the wide glass windows was enough.
The furniture sat untouched. Perfect. Like a showroom display rather than a home where someone actually lived. He'd been here for weeks now, but nothing about this place felt like his. It was just somewhere to sleep. Somewhere to exist between the hours he spent at work.
When he reached the bedroom, he sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled slowly, staring at nothing.
Ryan's face was still in his head. The sound of his laugh, that careful way he smiled like he wasn't used to doing it often. The way his eyes had looked when they'd kissed in the car. Wide. Vulnerable. Open in a way that made Marcus's chest ache.
Marcus leaned back, pressing a hand over his eyes. He wasn't sure what he was feeling. Just that it was too much. The alcohol had loosened something he usually kept under lock and key. Something that should have stayed buried.
He'd gone out with Ethan, and had drinks after a long week. Nothing unusual. But the conversation had turned to relationships. To dating. To the person Marcus had been seeing.
Ethan had asked questions. Too many questions. And the alcohol had made Marcus answer them. Made him say things he normally wouldn't. About how Ryan made him feel. About how much he thought about him. About how it was different this time.
Ethan had just watched him with that knowing look. The one that said he understood more than Marcus wanted him to.
And now Marcus was home. Alone. With nothing but the echo of his own voice in his head and the weight of feelings he didn't know what to do with.
He reached for his phone. The screen lit his face, too bright in the dim room. Ryan's chat was already open.
He typed a few words, then erased them.
I miss you.
Delete.
Can't stop thinking about you.
Delete.
I want to see you tomorrow.
Delete.
Nothing felt right. Nothing sounded like something he'd actually say sober. Everything came out too raw. Too exposed. Too much like the truth.
He stared at the blinking cursor for a long moment. His thumb hovered over the keyboard. His heart was beating too fast for someone who was just sitting still.
Then he pressed the voice message button before he could think twice.
"Ryan..." His voice came out rough, quiet, heavy with exhaustion and alcohol and something else he couldn't name. "You've been on my mind. I'm going crazy."
The words hung in the air for a moment. He could hear his own breathing in the recording. Could hear the slight slur in his voice that gave away how much he'd had to drink.
He didn't even listen to it. Just sent it.
The message went through. A small checkmark appeared beside it.
He dropped the phone beside him and lay back on the bed. The ceiling above him blurred. The world tilted slightly. His arm slipped off the mattress, hanging toward the floor.
The phone buzzed once, but he was already half asleep, too far gone to care. His eyes closed. The darkness pulled him under.
Morning came slow and sharp.
Marcus woke to sunlight bleeding through the blinds and a headache pounding behind his eyes. His mouth was dry. Cotton thick. His shirt was still half unbuttoned, wrinkled from sleeping in it.
He sat up slowly, pressing his fingers to his temples. The pressure built behind his eyes with every small movement. The taste of whiskey still clung to the back of his throat, bitter and stale.
It took a few seconds for his mind to start putting things together. Fragments of memory. The bar. The laughter. The drinks that kept coming. Ethan's face across the table. The walk home through empty streets.
Then Ryan.
The voice message.
Marcus froze.
His stomach dropped. That sick feeling of dread that only comes when you've done something you can't take back.
He reached for his phone so fast it almost slipped from his hand. The screen lit up. There it was. His message, sitting in the chat window like evidence of a crime.
Played.
But not replied to.
The timestamp said Ryan had listened to it at two in the morning. Hours ago. And said nothing.
For a long time, Marcus didn't move. Just stared at that small "seen" mark beside the voice note until the shame started crawling up his spine. Slow and cold and impossible to shake.
He pressed play, hoping maybe it wasn't as bad as he remembered.
It was worse.
His own voice filled the room. Unsteady, too open, almost pleading. The vulnerability in it made him wince. He shut it off halfway through and tossed the phone onto the bed, dragging both hands over his face.
"Fuck," he muttered into his palms.
The silence that followed felt unbearable. Heavy. Like the walls were pressing in.
What had he been thinking? What had possessed him to send something like that? Ryan would think he was desperate. Clingy. Too much too soon.
Or worse. Ryan had heard it and decided this wasn't worth the trouble.
Marcus stood up too quickly. His head spun. He steadied himself against the bedpost and closed his eyes until the dizziness passed.
He showered, dressed, and left for work early just to do something. Anything other than sit there thinking about it.
The water had been too hot. Almost scalding. But it hadn't washed away the embarrassment. Hadn't cleared his head the way he'd hoped.
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror afterward, staring at his own reflection. He looked tired. Older. The kind of tiredness that sleep wouldn't fix.
He dressed mechanically. Suit. Tie. Watch. The routine of it was comforting in its simplicity. At least this part made sense.
The elevator ride up to the sixth floor felt longer than usual. He stood alone in the small space, watching the numbers climb. Trying not to think about his phone in his pocket. About the message sitting there, unanswered.
When the doors opened, Ethan was already there, a cup of coffee in each hand and that too bright grin he always had after surviving a hangover.
"Morning," Ethan said, handing one over. "You look alive. Barely."
"Thanks," Marcus muttered, taking the cup.
Ethan followed him into the office. "Last night was brutal. I haven't seen you drink like that before."
"Yeah."
"You disappeared right after I ordered that last round. I figured you went straight home before you started singing again."
Marcus shot him a look. "I don't sing."
"You tried," Ethan said, smirking. "Didn't go well."
Marcus sank into his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Please stop talking."
"Fine." Ethan grinned and set the reports on the desk. "Meetings start at ten. Coffee should help. Or maybe it won't. Depends how drunk you actually were."
Marcus didn't answer. His mind was already somewhere else.
When the door shut behind Ethan, the quiet returned.
He looked at his phone again. Still nothing from Ryan.
He set it face down on the desk and tried to focus on the papers in front of him. Budget reports. Campaign proposals. Things that should have mattered but felt completely meaningless right now.
He buried himself in work for the next few hours. Meetings. Emails. Budgets. Signatures. His body moved through it automatically, but his mind didn't follow.
Every time he reached for his phone, he told himself it was the last time. Every time, he ended up doing it again.
The screen would light up. The chat would be empty. And the shame would come back, fresh and sharp.
By lunch, the coffee had gone cold. Papers were spread across his desk, but none of it made sense anymore. The words blurred together. Numbers that should have added up didn't.
He picked up his phone, thumb hovering over Ryan's name.
Maybe he could fix it. Maybe if he just said something normal, it wouldn't feel so bad.
He typed.
Ignore what I said last night.
He stared at it. Too defensive.
He deleted it word by word, the letters disappearing one tap at a time.
Then he tried again.
Sorry if I made things weird.
He read it twice. It sounded worse.
He erased that too, until the chat box was empty again. The blinking cursor stared back at him, waiting.
Marcus sighed, dropped the phone onto the desk, and leaned back in his chair.
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, the silence of the office pressing against his ears.
Maybe Ryan was busy. Maybe he just hadn't had time to respond. Maybe he was working and couldn't check his phone.
Or maybe he'd heard the message and decided Marcus was too much. Too intense. Too fast.
Marcus opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above him.
He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd ruined something before it even really started.
When evening came, the office started to thin out. The sound of heels and chatter faded down the hallway. Doors closed. Elevators dinged. The building slowly emptied around him.
Marcus stayed behind, staring at his screen until the words started to blur.
He shut the laptop and sat there for a long time, unmoving.
His phone was still on the desk beside him. Still no message. Still the same quiet chat window that had been haunting him all day.
He picked it up once more and turned it over in his hand, the glow of the screen reflecting faintly on his cufflink.
He thought about what he'd said. The sound of his voice. The small pause before he hit send.
He could almost feel the weight of that moment pressing against his chest now. Heavier than it had been last night when the alcohol had made it feel easy.
There was nothing left to say. Nothing
that would make it better. Nothing that wouldn't make him sound more desperate than he already did.
But he wouldn't leave things that way.
He powered off the phone and slipped it into his pocket.