He laughs as if he hadn’t heard it. “Your friend is busy. Thought I’d keep you company.”
It’s not that he isn’t handsome… He’s pretty average, hot in the way that I might mourn the missed opportunity if he were lying dead at my feet. But while he’s breathing? Nah, not worth it. I don’t feel that… feeling? That thought that says if I don’t sleep with him I’ll have fomo or some shit.
“Don’t.”
His smile flickers at the edges. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”
“Let me guess?” The corner of my mouth tugs up, and I tilt my head. “Something original like you look lonely?”
That gets a huff of laughter out of him. “You don’t have to bite.”
“I only bite when asked politely.”
He opens his mouth like he wants to speak but isn’t sure what his comeback should be… and my phone lights up between us. I glance at the HimLock notification.
Locke:
Tell him to walk away. Or I will.
Amusement catches against the inside of my ribs, making me struggle with a “gotcha” grin of my own. For a heartbeat, that suspicion tangles with something I shouldn’t name. Something flutters in my stomach as I discreetly glance around the bar.
“You should probably listen.” I give the stranger across from me a sliver of my attention since he’s close enough to grab me… But the rest of my attention remains on the crowd.
His brow furrows as he leans in a little more. “What?”
“I said I was not interested.” I slide out of the booth before he can voice another thought.
The air feels hotter, the bar too full. My skin prickles like it knows something I don’t. Like my suspensions are more intuition telling me to run. Get out. Disappear.
Then I see it.
The eyes on me that have my instincts screaming.
Leaning against the far end of the bar.
Watching.
His stare isn’t invasive. Just… intentional.
He doesn’t look away when I notice him. The eye contact is mesmerizing, drawing a line between us that no one in the bar dares cross. He’s tall. Lean build. Golden brown hair, just long enough to touch his eyelashes. And he remains unmoving as he watches me, like a photograph that forgot to fade.
He shouldn’t make my pulse skip.
He does, though.
Someone finally crosses over that imaginary line between us, and I turn, slinking through the crowd, straight to Roo.
She’s mid-flirt, but that doesn’t stop me from grabbing her hand and dragging her toward the exit.
“Let’s go.”
Roo takes one look at my face and doesn’t try to argue. We pass by the bar, waving our farewells to Hardy before we leave the music behind.
The night air feels cool against my overheated skin. Streetlights illuminate the footpath as we make our way to the carpark, vigilant of the darkness.
Once we’re in my car, I open the HimLock app. The last message is gone, deleted as if it never existed.
But it’s seared into my mind.
