Late Nights
438 Words
Chapter 11
Maya laughed before she could stop herself.
It surprised both of them.
She was leaning over the conference table, hair falling
loose from its tie, eyes burning from hours of revisions.
Alexander sat across from her, sleeves rolled, jacket
draped over the chair like he’d forgotten it existed.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head, still smiling. “I just realized we’ve
been here longer than my last relationship.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s… concerning.”
“It lasted six months,” she said, tapping her pen against
the page. “This project is winning.”
They fell into a comfortable silence after that papers
shifting, keyboards clicking, the building breathing
around them. Outside the windows, the city dimmed into
scattered lights, less demanding than it was during the
day.
Alexander stood and stretched, wincing slightly. “You
always work like this?”
“Until it’s right,” Maya replied. “You?”
“Until it stops making noise,” he said.
She looked up. “Noise?”
“The expectations. The opinions. The version of me
people think they’re entitled to.”
The honesty landed softly, unexpectedly.
Maya closed her laptop halfway. “And does it ever
stop?”
He considered the question. “Not usually.”
She studied him then, not as a client, not as a problem to
solve. Just a man sitting across from her at midnight,
tired in a way money didn’t fix.
“I grew up in small places,” she said suddenly. “Rooms
where you could hear everyone breathe. Silence meant
something was wrong.”
Alexander leaned back, listening. Really listening.
“I grew up in noise,” he said. “Meetings. Voices.
Pressure. Silence was the only thing that felt like
control.”
Their eyes met. The space between them felt smaller
again not physically this time, but in the way words had
cleared a path.
“Have you ever missed it?” she asked. “The previous
version of you?
He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was
quieter.
“I don’t know who that is anymore.”
Maya nodded, as if she understood too well.
Her phone buzzed on the table. She ignored it. So did he
when he followed a second later.
Outside, dawn threatened the horizon, faint and
inevitable.
Alexander broke the silence. “We should stop.”
Maya didn’t move. “We won’t.”
The truth of it hung between them soft, dangerous, and
unfinished.
Neither of them noticed the time pass.
And neither of them said the thing that was already
changing everything
- Writer
