Close enough to Touch

Behind the Mask

"Sometimes the people who know us best have never seen our face."

Lucas

Most people thought being CEO meant power.

They imagined corner offices.

Private flights.

Magazine covers.

Control.

They were wrong.

Being CEO meant responsibility.

It meant waking before sunrise because Europe was already halfway through its workday.

It meant making decisions that affected thousands of employees before I'd finished my first cup of coffee.

It meant carrying problems no one else ever saw.

The title looked glamorous.

The reality was exhausting.

By six-thirty that evening, I'd sat through four meetings, approved a multimillion-dollar infrastructure proposal, handled a supplier crisis, and listened to two vice presidents argue over a budget that should've been settled a week ago.

My assistant appeared in the doorway, another folder tucked beneath her arm.

"You still have these to review."

My eyes drifted from the stack of paperwork to the clock.

7:12 p.m.

"I'll do them tomorrow."

She blinked.

Tomorrow?

I almost smiled.

Around here, tomorrow usually meant I'd be back before anyone else had finished breakfast.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"Everything's fine."

The answer came automatically.

It always did.

She nodded, then quietly closed the door behind her.

Silence settled over the office.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked downtown Detroit, the city glowing beneath the fading sky. Years ago, that view had filled me with pride.

Now...

It mostly reminded me how many lights stayed on after everyone else went home.

Mine included.

---

The penthouse greeted me with silence.

Not peaceful silence.

Empty silence.

The kind that echoed off expensive walls.

I dropped my keys onto the kitchen island and shrugged out of my jacket.

The quiet hadn't always bothered me.

Lately...

It stayed with me longer than it should.

I changed into gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt before padding barefoot into the kitchen.

Coffee.

Every night.

Most people drank coffee to stay awake.

I drank it because rituals were comforting.

Coffee.

Music.

The mask.

Those three things reminded me there was still a version of me that existed outside the boardroom.

People assumed Nocturne was about anonymity.

It wasn't.

Not entirely.

The mask wasn't there to hide me.

It was there to protect the version of myself that success had almost erased.

Behind it...

I wasn't responsible for quarterly earnings.

I wasn't expected to solve everyone's problems.

I wasn't Lucas Bennett, the youngest CEO in Crane & Rogers history.

I was simply...

Lucas.

The man who still loved old records.

Who found peace in rain against the windows.

Who wrote thoughts he'd never say out loud.

---

Notifications crowded my screen.

Hundreds of them.

Business questions.

Networking requests.

Dinner invitations.

People asking for money.

Women flirting with a voice they'd never heard and a face they'd never seen.

I dismissed almost all of them without opening a single message.

Then one stopped me.

Not because it stood out.

Because it didn't.

Hi... I know this is random, but I came across your profile and wanted to say your posts are beautiful. They feel... honest.

Honest.

I read the word again.

Then a third time.

When was the last time anyone had called me honest?

Successful?

Frequently.

Driven?

Constantly.

Brilliant?

Too often.

Honest?

I couldn't remember.

Curious, I opened her profile.

Amy Carter.

No perfectly curated aesthetic.

No endless selfies.

No carefully crafted image.

Pictures with friends.

Engineering textbooks.

Coffee.

Rainy afternoons.

A graduation countdown.

Then I found the photo.

She stood outside Titan Engineering College wearing safety glasses, laughing so hard her eyes were completely closed.

Not smiling for the camera.

Laughing.

Really laughing.

It caught me off guard.

I found myself smiling too.

She looked...

Real.

I kept scrolling.

She wasn't trying to become famous.

She wasn't pretending life was perfect.

She looked like someone who worked hard, loved deeply, and forgot she was worth photographing unless someone else insisted.

Then I noticed something else.

Engineering.

Interesting.

I hesitated.

For three years, I'd lived by one rule.

Never start conversations.

Reply when it felt appropriate.

Never encourage more.

Boundaries kept everyone safe.

Especially me.

I locked my phone.

Turned on the record player.

A Miles Davis album filled the apartment with warm trumpet notes.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Her message refused to leave my mind.

They feel... honest.

I picked up my phone again.

Maybe one reply wouldn't change anything.

I typed.

Deleted it.

Started again.

Too formal.

Deleted that too.

Finally, I stopped trying to sound like someone else and wrote the only thing that felt true.

Thank you, Amy. That means more than you know.

Before I could overthink it, I hit Send.

The message disappeared.

I leaned back against the couch as the music drifted through the apartment.

Outside, Detroit shimmered beneath thousands of lights.

For the first time all day...

I wasn't thinking about Crane & Rogers.

I wasn't thinking about shareholders.

Or budgets.

Or tomorrow's meetings.

I was thinking about a twenty-one-year-old engineering student who had somehow reminded me there was still a man beneath the suit.

I didn't know why she'd written to me.

I didn't know if she'd ever send another message.

But for the first time in years...

I found myself hoping she would.