Jordan 

The door clicked shut. In the hall, Jordan heard the faint sound of the elevator hum to life, low and metallic. A closing curtain. 

He exhaled slowly, letting the breath escape like steam from a kettle taken off the flame. He crossed the room in unhurried steps and bent down to pick up his pants and shirt, both left crumpled on the floor near the couch. He shook each item out in turn, then folded them neatly, setting them aside with quiet care. His eyes slid to the half-full glass on the table. He picked it up and took a sip, not out of thirst, but for motion, for the small comfort of doing something. 

The silence folded itself around him like a weighted blanket, almost affectionate. It knew him well. It asked for nothing, it never overstayed. Jordan liked things that didn’t ask.

Nice kid, he thought. Talented.

The night had been pleasant enough. Jordan liked to approach pleasant the way one admired a painting in a gallery: with interest, but from a distance. One step too close and you might smudge the glass or disrupt the frame. Ruin the illusion. And Jordan preferred the illusion intact. 

He’d said some nice things. He’d meant some of them too, in the moment. That was the key. He was always honest in the moment. He just never carried any of it with him afterwards. The words lived where they were said and died as soon as the room emptied. 

Nico was earnest in that rare, unprotected way some people were before the world worked its teeth into them. Open-hearted, with eyes that silently begged to be held in place by someone who wouldn’t flinch at the weight of him. Soft, and unfiltered belief. He had looked at Jordan like he was something fragile, not in a patronizing way, but in the reverent one. Like Jordan was some rare bird that might fly away if startled. There was a kind of awe in that gaze, one Jordan recognized instantly.

He’d seen it before. More times than he could count.

People were always projecting things onto him. That was the curse of being composed, of knowing how to hold still and quiet long enough for other people to fill in the blanks. They saw in him whatever they were hungry for. Safety, escape, stability. Something to orbit around. It never really had anything to do with Jordan. 

He knew better than anyone it wasn’t just the way he carried himself. It was the name, the money, the success. Fame had a way of distorting everything. It made people more desperate to touch something they thought meant something. Jordan was rich, so he must be capable. He was wanted, so he must be worthy. He was famous, so he must mean something. 

They pinned ridiculous hopes to him like he could fix things they didn’t even have the language to name, as if Jordan could offer something permanent. As if he had anything left to give.

He used to try to correct them. Used to explain, gently at first. A well-placed boundary, a hint of disinterest, a polite refusal to don the mask they held out to him. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time, it didn’t. For a while, it had felt necessary to push back and draw a line, even righteous. Like he owed it to himself to be honest.

But honesty got tiring.

Now, he didn’t bother. People didn’t want truth, not when the illusion was softer and easier to hold. It was easier to play the part and smile at the right moments. Say something that sounded tender or profound, even when it was hollow, and let them fill in the rest. Let them walk away feeling like they’d touched something rare. A moment they could shape into meaning, a version of him that fit inside the narrative they were already writing for themselves.

Jordan had become good at that. A perfect cocktail of charm, mystery, and just enough self-deprecation to seem approachable. A mirror polished so well it looked like light. 

He wasn’t lying, not really. He was just performing. Offering the appearance of vulnerability without the risk of being known. 

And there was power in that.

But sometimes, not often, it made him wonder if there was anything left underneath the part he’d been playing for so long. If the real version of him still existed, the one who didn’t like people, who didn’t trust them, who’d long since stopped believing in the good they claimed to carry. The one so bitter and angry at the world, so quietly resentful of everything it had taken and twisted, that he genuinely didn’t have anything left to offer. Not love, not comfort. Not even kindness that wasn’t rehearsed. He didn’t know if that part of him had been buried or replaced somewhere along the way. 

As he scratched idly at his chest, his gaze landed on the rug. 

Ivory wool. Handwoven. Imported from somewhere that charged by the thread and spelled “rug” with an accent. 

A sprawl of red had settled into the fibres, dried now and dark at the edges where it had soaked in deepest. The shape of it was uneven, organic, like something ruined slowly instead of all at once. 

The cleaners wouldn’t be able to fix it. If they scrubbed, the texture would fray. If they bleached it, the tone would warp. There was no solution that didn’t ruin what was left. He’d have to buy a new one.

Shame. He liked that rug.

Nico had already left Jordan’s mind by the time he reached his bedroom. Not in a cruel way,  just clean. Like deleting a file you were finished with, no need to double-check what had been saved. Jordan had never been one to dwell. People moved through his life like weather, and he’d learned early not to chase clouds.

There were other things to focus on now. A call with his publicist in a few hours. Two interviews lined up. A book deadline he hadn’t touched in nearly a week. He could get a few hours of sleep before the day pulled him back into orbit. Just enough to function. 

He was halfway to the bedroom when his phone lit up on the table, buzzing with a soft insistence that already irritated him. Jordan didn’t move at first. He already knew who it was.

Only one person had the gall to call before five in the morning and expect an answer.

Verena.

He considered letting it go to voicemail. But Verena wasn’t the kind of person who gave up. She was the kind who called again. And again. And again, until you either picked up or changed your number. 

With a sigh that came from somewhere ancient in his bones, Jordan pressed the answer key and brought the phone to his ear.

“It’s four-thirty in the morning,” he said flatly.

“You’re always up at this hour,” Verena’s voice was crisp and indifferent, like the hour was his problem, not hers. “I need a quote from you. Just a line. Something literary. Moody. A little broken-soul chic. You know—your brand. We’re doing a fall campaign and I thought I’d throw the press something elevated.”

“Try Wikipedia.”

“You’re the writer,” she said, ignoring the jab. “Be useful.”

Jordan closed his eyes and leaned against the doorframe. Her voice always did this to him, pulled a tight string at the base of his neck, like an allergic reaction. They shared blood, but nothing else. Not affection, not closeness. 

Verena had been a bitch since they were children, and the years had only poured acid on her edges. Polished the cruelty into something elegant. Everything about her was sculpted for show; the curated smile, the interviews, the Vogue spreads with her faux-philosophical captions beneath photos of fur-lined boots and rain-drenched cobblestone. The fashion world adored her. Jordan knew better.

“I’m not your marketing team.” 

“No,” she said coolly, “You’re just my pretentious little brother with a fanbase of sad women. You write books about feelings, Jordan. Don’t confuse that with having any. Now, are you going to give me a quote or should I misattribute Nietzsche again?”

Jordan would’ve rolled his eyes if he’d had the energy. “Fine. Here’s one: ‘The leaves fall because they’re tired of holding on. I wish more people were like that.’”

There was a pause.

“That’s awful.” 

“I know. Use it anyway.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“I’m not a dick. I’m just not interested.”

Verena’s sigh crackled through the speaker. “God, you’re exhausting.” 

“How’s the fiancé?” Jordan asked it casually, like the thought had just wandered into his mouth. It hadn’t. He didn’t ask because he cared, he asked because he knew exactly where to aim. 

And there it was, barely half a second, Verena’s breath catching just slightly. It was a small thing, but Jordan caught it and it landed with the quiet satisfaction of a blade sliding exactly where it was meant to. 

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped.

“Still cheating then. Unless fucking someone else’s wife counts as philanthropy now.”

“You read tabloids now?”

“No,” Jordan replied, drifting further into the bedroom, “but they keep shoving his face in mine. Hard to ignore a man with a Rolex and his mistress’s lipstick on his collar. Classy, by the way. Very on brand for you.”

“Stay out of it.”

“Why?” He sat down on the bed and flicked on a bedside lamp. Warm light spilled across the hardwood floor. “I’m invested. He’s practically family. Besides, I was starting to wonder, does he fuck around out of boredom, or just because he knows you’d never have the guts to leave him? Wouldn’t look good in the press, would it?”

There was a sharp inhale on the other end. Then her voice, venom-thick: “You think you’re so clever, Jordan, but you’re pathetic. You're a psychopath. You want to talk about image? You’re so empty you can’t even make the delusional whores you parade around stay past sunrise.”

“Thanks for the psych evaluation. Really helpful.”

“I don’t need to diagnose you,” Verena hissed. “You’re not that complex. You’re just sad. Alone and sad in your expensive cage, pretending it’s a choice.”

A beat passed, sharp and final, before Verena added, “Just send the quote to my assistant. I’ll have them clean it up so it sounds like you meant it.”

The line went dead.

Jordan stared at the phone for a second before setting it down, too carefully for how much he wanted to throw it against the wall. 

Verena’s voice clung to the inside of his skull. He hated the sound of it. She spoke like everyone in their family did: crisp, cruel, and proud of it. Jordan was not only used to it, he spoke it fluently too.

He reached for the bedside lamp again, halfway through turning it off when something softer surfaced. Not quite a memory, just a tone. A tenderness that didn’t belong in this house. 

Nico, talking about his dad, like sorrow wasn’t something to hide but hold with both hands. 

Jordan hadn’t meant to remember that.

He didn’t linger on the why. Just pulled the blanket up over his chest and let the dark finish what he couldn’t.