Trying to sleep. Didn’t work. Too much in my head. You ever get that?
Always, Peach. Always.
But not for the reasons she thinks. I start typing the truth.
Yeah, Peach. More than you’d think.My thumb hovers over send. Feels too naked. Too honest. Toomine.I erase it. Replace it withYeah. Happens.My lies aren’t big. Just soft omissions. Silence shaped into something safer.
She sends a tinymhmmemoji—the quiet kind—like she knows I’m hiding something and she’s choosing not to push. Not yet.
The room is too quiet. The kind of quiet that lets old ghosts climb out of their corners and sit on the edge of your bed.
I strip down, push into the cool sheets, and the emptiness hits me with unnecessary force. The penthouse is spotless—Mei’s work—everything folded and turned down, towels fluffed, candles replaced, the faint scent of lemongrass and starch in the air.
I’ve slept in worse. Cargo ships. Airport floors. Offices with nothing but a jacket for a pillow.
Success never shook those habits free. Poverty stays branded into the muscle.
I built the company piece by bloody piece risk by risk, contract by contract, lie by measured lie. Freight. Logistics. Ocean transport. What started as a single emergency run up the coast has turned into one of the fastest-growing private carriers in Australasia.
Everyone sees the clean numbers. The tailored suits. The handshake deals.
No one sees the crates I hauled barefoot. The docks I worked until dawn. The storms I slept through. The fires I waded into to save what little was mine.
Death taught me how to build. Fear taught me how to keep it.
But she—
She softens something I didn’t think could thaw.
My phone buzzes again.
Miss your smartass comments. Even your mail complaints. You on another route or something?
I laugh quietly. Jesus. She makes it too easy to fall.
Nah. Not a route. Just busy. Been dealing with mail like it’s Christmas rush. You’d think people were mailing gold bars.
Her reply is instant.
Bet you missed me complaining about it for you.
God. I can hear her voice. The way she leans into sass like it’s armour she doesn’t realise is see-through.
I type before I can stop myself.Miss the stairwell too. And the cool air. And you.I stare at the last line.
My thumb hovers. Coward. I deleteand you.Replace it with
Miss the cool air.
She sends a small heart the shy kind like she’s dipping her toe into meaning.
I want to tell her where I am. Why I’m here. That I’m coming home the second I finish what needs doing. But I don’t. Not yet.
Instead, I open my laptop the new Australian expansion contracts glowing on the screen. The man who held the deal before me died last week. Heart attack. His son wants everything rushed. Too fast. Too eager. That’s always a sign something fucking stinks.
Work has always been easier than people.
But tonight? I’m thinking about her more than the numbers. Thinking about her scrolling back through our messages, replaying them, wondering what I meant. Thinking about her lying on her side, hair fanned out, breathing uneven.
