The one he used to pour without asking. Black Doris cider on tap. Lime slice. Salted rim.
It arrives, and I sip slowly. Watching. Waiting. Studying him. And God… Blake is everywhere.
He moves like he owns the night, like every beat of music belongs to him. He glides through the packed crowd, slow, confident, masked, dangerous. Women turn when he passes. Men shift aside like they know better. Blake’s charm is a living thing, prowling with him, wrapping around whoever stands too close. And he’s hunting. For me. For Pandora. I watch him from my booth, heart pounding with a thrill I don’t want to admit. He steps behind one woman, his hand lightly touching her lower back, his head dipping to whisper in her ear. She shakes her head. He tries another fingers brushing her arm, leaning close enough that his breath stirs her hair. Another shake. Another. Another. Touching their hips. Their wrists. Turningthem gently to face him. A hand cupping a chin. A thumb grazing a pulse point. Soft murmurs to each masked face. Each rejection sharpens the edge of his focus. He’s searching for his mystery woman. He’s searching for me. His online obsession. His Pandora. His wife. And I sip my cider and watch him look for a woman who is right here, above him, drenched in the music and anonymity he thinks will protect him. A smile curls under my mask. There is power in being unseen. Power in being the ghost that haunts him. The bar staff slide my third drink onto the counter below, and Blake materializes there before they can deliver it. He grabs it without looking, without asking. Like muscle memory. Like instinct. He walks it up to my booth. I don’t move. I don’t breathe. Not until his shadow covers my table. My smile curls under the mask.
There is power in being unseen. Power in becoming the ghost that haunts him. I don’t move.
“Fourth?” he asks, setting it down. His voice is a sinful whisper. Familiar. Unaware.
“Third”, I say seductively.
“Well…someone’s thirsty tonight, Pandora.” Our fingers brush. The zap is immediate. Sharp. Electric.
“Pandora?” I question, twisting a long piece of hair and sweetly looking up at him.
His body reacts before his mind can catch up chest tightening, breath hitching, stance shifting. Recognition flickers just a fraction. He feels me. Somewhere deep. Somewhere old. But he pretends. Blake always pretends.
He offers a hand. “Dance with me, Pandora.” A command dressed like a question.
I tilt my head. “Let me freshen up first…Casanova.” His groan is low, hungry.
I slip past him, fingertips brushing the place on his waist I know is sensitive. His breath stutters. His jaw locks. Heat rolls off him in waves as I walk away, leaving him swallowing fire.
The bathroom is a sanctuary. The mirror reflects a stranger. A woman who looks like a secret. Lips plum-dark. Eyes sharp beneath her mask. Dress hugging every curve she forgot she had.
Once, Blake made me small. Quiet. Agreeable. Forgettable. But Pandora? She holds the wildness. The voice. The hunger. The me I buried to survive him.
My phone buzzes. Dane. My heart twists painfully. Would he worship this version of me. He wouldrecogniseher. He’s the memory clawing through the fog Blake built around me. But tonight is not about Dane. Or love. Or healing.
Tonight is about purging Blake from my soul. I step back out. The bar hits me like heatstroke.
Blake’s waiting. Hand extended. Eyes blown wide behind his mask, chest rising like he’s starving.
I place my hand in his. The dance devours us.
His hands grip my waist like a lifeline. Our bodies slide together in a rhythm older than our marriage. Heat coils between us—unwanted, chemical, undeniable. His breath ghosts my throat. Mine catches.
We move like magnets, trying to break and bind at the same time. He whispers in my ear, filthy, needy, unhinged:
“Pandora…”
“Don’t run…” “Stay with me…” “You’re driving me insane…” His lips graze my neck. Memory claws up through my spine. Three songs. Three lifetimes. Three different versions of us burning down.
I laugh a sound wild and sharp, a version of myself I haven’t heard in years.
Then
Carrie bursts onto the floor like a neon hurricane. Her eyes lock on me. She grins feral, proud, wicked.
I’d texted her earlier:
Tonight, I’m burning it down. Tonight, I end him. Tonight, I choose myself.
She cuts between us with a cackle. Blake growls. She winks.
We swirl me, Blake, Carrie, heat and tension and rebellion twisting through us.
Carrie leans in. “God, this is delicious. Burn him alive, babe.”
