The music pulsed through the walls of the small, cramped house, a distorted guitar riff that mixed with the smell of cheap alcohol, cigarettes, and overly sweet perfume. The colored lights flashed in chaotic synchrony, bathing the faces of those who danced, laughed, and shouted without caring about tomorrow. For Tyler, this was just another night—the familiar chaos where he felt at home, even if he would never call any place that.
Leaning against the wall of the narrow hallway, he watched the sea of people with a bored half-smile, dragging on a cigarette that was already grayer than tobacco. His gaze wandered without commitment, until it stopped on someone who seemed equally out of place.
The boy was on the other side of the room, half lost in the coming and going of people, but with an air of practiced indifference. He stood out like a smudge of fresh paint on a stained canvas.
Tyler couldn’t see his eyes from where he was, but something about the way he crossed his arms and laughed to himself while another drunk kid tried to talk to him caught his attention.
An aura of “I don’t care” that Tyler knew all too well—because it was the same one he carried like a shield.
Tyler brought the cigarette back to his lips, but didn’t take his eyes off the stranger. He wasn’t interested in romantic clichés or long conversations. He wasn’t the type to seek out past lives or lost dreams. But something about this guy made him want to cross the sea of sweaty bodies and whisper anything in his ear.
Maybe a tease, maybe a vague promise—it didn’t matter.
And as if the stranger sensed his gaze, their eyes met. He looked away, but not right away. Not fast enough for Tyler not to notice.
“Interesting,” he muttered to himself, tossing the cigarette to the ground and crushing it with the heel of his boot. When he decided to move, there was no hesitation.
Tyler walked across the room with the confidence he wore like a second skin. People bumped into him, some smiled or greeted him, but he ignored it all. That boy was the only one who mattered in that mess.
As he got closer, Tyler didn't say anything right away. Instead, he leaned in, his face close to the stranger's. The smell of cigarettes and leather came before the voice. A low, husky voice, too close to his ear—what exactly it said, he doesn't remember. But the boy laughed, a short, disinterested sound. Tyler teased him, even closer, his lips almost touching his ear.
The exchange of glances between the two lasted a second, but it seemed longer. The silence, which was filled only by the muffled sound of the music and the warmth of the people around them, became almost heavy, loaded with a tension that neither of them could ignore.
And then, without another word, they simply left together. A staircase, a stuffy room with the door ajar, hands that held each other, mouths that met urgently.
When Tyler opened his eyes the next morning, the dim light from the window and the smell of cigarettes brought him back to reality. He glanced over at the stranger still asleep, hair strewn across the pillow.
There was nothing wrong, he had done this before. Wake up, leave before things got uncomfortable, not exchanging names, not forming bonds, disappearing like the smoke that had risen from the end of his cigarette the night before.
So why did his hand hesitate on the doorknob?