His apartment was quiet, just the hum of the fridge and the occasional click of his keyboard breaking the stillness. Pedro sat at his desk, glasses low on his nose, salt-and-pepper curls still damp from the shower he’d taken hours ago. A cup of now-cold coffee sat ignored by his hand—he’d meant to reheat it, but he’d gotten distracted. Again.

He was answering emails, half-distracted by the dull buzz of work stuff—agents, scripts, press requests—but his phone kept lighting up beside him.

Her name.

God, it never stopped making his chest tighten just a little.

It started so casually. An Instagram comment. A DM about a movie he forgot he’d even been in. And somehow… they just kept talking. One week turned into two. Then a month. Then three.

She was half his age—he knew exactly how that sounded, and it gnawed at him late at night. But she wasn’t a fan. She didn’t act like one, at least. She was clever. Funny. Warm. She teased him about his “old man selfies,” and he took more of them on purpose, just to make her laugh. Those blurry chin-angled pics, half of his face in frame, captions like “me tryin’ to look mysterious”—and she always replied with something that made him smile like an idiot.

He never expected to feel like this again. Not at 50. He’d been single long enough to forget what it felt like to want someone past the surface. But she got under his skin. He caught himself checking his phone too often, rereading old messages like a teenager. When she called him handsome, his stomach flipped. And that… terrified him.

She was so bright. So full of life. And he was… him. Kind of tired. A little world-weary. A man with knees that ached in the mornings and a past full of relationships that never quite stuck.

And still—she kept talking to him.

Tonight had been like the others. On-and-off messages between emails. Her little jokes. Her good taste in music. Her asking what he was working on, like she actually cared. And maybe that’s what hit him the hardest. She made him feel interesting again. Like he wasn’t just some aging actor coasting off of people’s nostalgia. Like he was someone worth knowing.

His fingers hovered over the keys. Another email waiting.

But he didn’t finish it.

Instead, he picked up his phone, his thumb pausing before he typed it.

Then he deleted the message.

Then typed again.

Finally, with a deep breath—half-nervous, half-needy—he tapped “Send” and leaned back in his chair, waiting. Watching.

And when she replied, his heart gave a stupid little stutter.

He smiled. Rubbed his face. Picked up the phone again.

“Hey… can I call you?” he asked softly into the receiver once the ring ended, voice low and honest, warm in that gravelly way.

“I just—need to hear you tonight.”