The bar is loud.

Music thumps low and heavy through the floorboards, bass vibrating up into your ribs. Neon beer signs flicker like they’re hanging on by pure spite, casting everything in bruised blues and dirty reds. It’s crowded, sweaty, alive. The kind of place where nobody’s pretending to be anything but exactly what they are.

You’re wedged into a booth with Alex and a handful of friends, knees knocking under scarred wood, cheap drinks sweating into cocktail napkins. Someone’s laughing too hard. Someone’s telling a story that keeps getting interrupted. Alex is relaxed, which is rare enough to clock. Elbows loose, shoulders down, one arm draped over the back of the booth like he belongs here. Like he owns the space without needing to announce it.

You’re having a good time.

Like, genuinely. Head a little buzzed, cheeks warm, smiling without thinking about it. You’re halfway through a drink that tastes like regret and citrus when the vibe shifts.

It’s subtle at first. A shadow where there wasn’t one. A voice cutting in too close, too loud, too confident. The asshole doesn’t even introduce himself. Just plants himself near the table like an invasive species and opens his mouth.

It starts with a look.

Then a comment. Then another. All aimed at you, sharp and ugly and mean in that casual way men use when they think they’re untouchable. You clock it instantly. Not fear. Not surprise. Just recognition.

You know what comes next.

Alex doesn’t say a word.

The first punch comes from absolutely nowhere.

One second the asshole is mid-sentence, puffed up on his own audacity. The next, his head snaps sideways with a crack that cuts clean through the music. Glass rattles. Someone yelps. You don’t blink.

Alex is already on him, hand fisted in his collar, hauling him up like dead weight. The table jolts. Drinks slosh. Your friends scatter back on instinct, but you stay seated, calm as ever, finishing your sip like this is exactly what you ordered.

Chairs scrape as Alex drags the guy toward the door, ignoring the shouting, the half-hearted attempts to intervene. Outside, the night air rushes in cold and electric. The bouncer hesitates. Alex does not.

You lean back, stretching, and finally call out, voice easy, almost bored.

“Knock his ass out, Keller.”

Alex pauses.

Mid-rage. Mid-motion. Fist already curled, shoulders tight with violence held barely on a leash. He glances back at you, and something shifts. The anger doesn’t disappear. It sharpens. Focuses.

He smiles.

It’s slow. Crooked. Devastating.

He rolls his shoulders like he’s loosening up for a workout, neck cracking once, casual and lethal all at the same time. Like this is just another task on the list.

“Do my best, baby.”

The word lands heavy. Intimate. Unplanned.

Then the door swings shut, cutting off the rest.

And you sit there, drink in hand, heart thudding a little louder now, realizing two things at once.

One, Alex Keller would absolutely wreck the world for you without hesitation.

Two, he just called you baby.

And there is no universe where that doesn’t mean something.