My eyes were fixed on the screen so intently that I grabbed a pencil instead of my fork. I caught myself before I stabbed another piece of microwave macaroni and brought it to my lips.

“Jesus, Charlie,” I mumbled under my breath. “Way to go. Give yourself lead poisoning and you’ll definitely lose the project.”

I wasn’t even sure if it was supposed to be breakfast, lunch, or dinnertime. I was pretty sure it was evening—people around me in the office had come and gone, but I was still here, trying to match the client’s exacting specs.

Thank God the building regulations in Singapore were much better than Hong Kong. I’d just come out of a few months of tearing my hair out. Another project like that and I wouldn’t have much left by my fortieth birthday.

Not that it was a problem. Unlike many of my peers with trophy wives or cute boyfriends and dogs waiting at home, I was… well, the singleton of the office. They’d long since given up making fun of me for it, at least. A few well-timed comments about my past and everyone had shut up, which suited me fine.

My current project was my baby, just as they all were. An architect had to be good at letting go once it was out the door and grabbing the next opportunity with both hands.

I was in that wrestling stage of trying to see not only what the client wanted to be there, but what wasn’t there, and what was there but shouldn’t be.

And that meant a lot of microwave mac and cheese, staring at notebooks and computer programs and material samples, and pacing around the office, staring into space. I did that best when the office was empty of other people talking and walking around and being generally annoyingly present.

I shoved the pencil safely into the pencil cup near the back of my desk, found my fork, and kept mindlessly eating my pasta.

My eyes were getting heavy, so maybe I was adjusting to this time zone after a day back in the city. I largely ignored my computer clock—God only knew what time zone it was set to at any given time. I wasn’t constantly on the road like some of my colleagues, but I often used it to keep track of the time zone in another state or country where I had a project.

I looked around to give my eyes a break, but they were still tired, and now I was just staring aimlessly at my coworker’s framed picture of his kids and cats. Ugh. Even if it wasn’t like seeing kid photos, it was still something else that normal people had. But even cats needed company, and I was always in the office.

I knew myself pretty damn well after five years at this firm. Staying too late at night when my creative well ran dry would only make me burn out and need a few days off. It was smarter to go home, rest, and get back to it in the morning. Or evening. Whatever.

“Done,” I told myself and shut the laptop. I’d leave it at the office for once and treat myself to a whole eight hours without it.

Maybe I’d stop by somewhere for a bite to eat on the way back. The mac and cheese wasn’t hitting the spot; I wanted comfort food, but not this kind. Singapore had spoiled me. Now I wanted hawker food from a cart. Bah kut teh, or maybe durian. God, I really had no idea what I wanted, did I?

That was the jet lag talking, then, and I needed sleep.

I pushed myself back from the desk, shrugging on my jacket automatically. April was still chilly at night in New York City. The edge of spring, green creeping back into the parks and cracks of sidewalks, but biting at night for the unsuspecting tourist.

I’d lived here since I was eighteen and fresh-faced, off to college for my architecture degree. By now I was used to the rhythms of the seasons, and I wore a light jacket through May. Outfit choices aside—and those mainly mattered because of client first impressions—I tried not to bore myself with many details of mundane life. That was easier when I had no such life to speak of.

There were advantages to my strategy—like being able to do my job. I didn’t like to take risks, and my safety was one thing I refused to compromise. Too many countries were already off-limits to me. I’d relented on Singapore, but Dubai? Moscow? No way.

Even if it meant passing up the incredible project in Dubai. They’d only wanted me, and my boss had tried to tell me that there was a thriving underground gay scene in Dubai that would make it safe for me to travel to, as long as I didn’t…

And there was the rub. As long as I didn’t. As long as they didn’t spot me and want an excuse to execute me, I told her. She hadn’t had an argument for that. They did give a shit about me here at the company, at least.

All these extra considerations straight people didn’t have to take into account before traveling the globe for business. Thank God my firm was understanding, and it hadn’t held me back, but…

Well, being gay was more of a theory for me than reality after this many years.

I took an Uber home, so tired I barely registered it. I only snapped to when I walked through the door and caught myself wondering for a moment what it would be like to come home to someone again.

I hadn’t had those kinds of thoughts in a long time.

I cut those thoughts off as I closed the door. The living room stretched out to the right, flowing into an open-plan kitchen and dining room. A cute little powder room and a study completed the downstairs, and upstairs were two bedrooms and a huge bath.

Everything was the right size and look for me, though I could live pretty much anywhere. A cozy, brightly-painted cabin? High-rise in Manhattan? Meh, same difference.

Brooklyn suited me pretty well. There was an up-and-coming little gayborhood here—cafes, bookshop, bar, diner, and all. I felt safe and comfortable in the neighborhood as well as my home.

Man, I needed to dust. This was a gorgeous little place, but I mostly kept it for meetings with clients, dinner parties, occasional cocktails with the few friends who put up with me—that kind of stuff. I certainly didn’t sleep here as much as I ought to, and not because I was sleeping in anyone else’s bed, either. Long days at the office blurred into one long… week? Month? Season?

I could probably do with more sleep. I didn’t want to end up looking fifty before I even turned forty.

Not that I needed a reminder of how many years I’d spent drifting along, ignoring my romantic life, pouring everything into work.

“Enough of this thinking crap,” I muttered to myself, rubbing my forehead. I still didn’t even know what I wanted to eat, but the pizza place around the corner sounded awfully tempting. Why my craving was for cheese on a pizza and not in macaroni form was an unimportant question.

I turned around and headed back out, ducking through the jangling shop door a minute later. Late evening or not, this place was always open and always a little haven. It wasn’t like anyone wanted to hang out in a pizza place, but when nothing seemed appealing?

Yeah, pizza was what I’d been craving. Nowhere else in the world was quite like New York. Sure, there was great pizza in Chicago, but deep dish always felt like eating a tire filled with tomato sauce. Flat, thin, foldable crust was the way to go. Big as a man’s head. Cheap as a MTA ticket.

“What can I get for you?” The kid behind the counter had already started moving for the cheese pizza even as she asked. Hey, there was nothing wrong with routine. Routine had flown me around the world ten times or more by now, and gotten my name attached to big projects.

And, apparently, had gotten me known in at least a couple places in the city. Brooklyn could be big and lonely without anyone to know your name. Not that she even knew that, but my order was kind of my name.

“Cheese pizza, can of Coke,” I said automatically. “Thanks.” I handed over the cash in exchange for the flimsy paper plate. I was already licking my lips at the grease that soaked through and onto my hand.

The pizza was gone within two minutes flat, even if my burnt tongue was going to be pissed off at me for a few days. Wasn’t like I had any better use for it. My job was a whole lot of “shut up and do crap on the computer” sometimes, and this project phase was one such time.

But I wasn’t at work, and goddamn it, I was going to try to go eight hours without thinking about it. So I shelved work in my head and dragged my thoughts to the only other interesting thing in my life: who was going to drag me out for my monthly socialization.

I was pretty sure Hugh’s family and my college buddies had all set up some secret group to make sure someone was taking me out every month.

I couldn’t have asked for a better second family than my late boyfriend’s. Hugh’s parents were the kind of parents who’d known their son was gay before he’d even told them, and they’d welcomed me like a second son. Even after the fatal single-car wreck that had taken him from us, they’d been as close as my own family—closer, in many ways.

Once I was back in my own house, I checked my texts, and sure enough, there it was.

It’s been a while! Wanna hang out?

I appreciated the check-ins from Ben, my college roommate. His All-American sporty look had contrasted my nerdy engineer type, making us great wingmen for each other our freshman year. We covered a great range of guys, so if they weren’t interested in one of us, they might want the other. Many a gay bar in the New York City area had seen us in action.

That was, until I met Hugh.

Five years after his death, I could have dated again, but… why bother? I had too much else going on in my life to devote proper care and attention to a relationship. Plus, the idea of meeting someone new sounded awful right now.

On the other hand, I reflected, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to hear someone else’s breathing in the dark when I crashed in bed. The silence of my house was almost maddening. But loneliness was a bad fucking reason to start dating someone.

At least I had a new problem to figure out… in the morning, when the jet lag didn’t make me want to simultaneously run a marathon and sleep for a year.

Thankfully, sleep won.