The night air outside the club was cool, humming with leftover energy from the music inside. Cigarette smoke drifted through the dim streetlights, wrapping the crowd of people waiting for cabs or lingering just to be seen.

Aurora stood off to the side with her friends, her back against the wall. She was in a black mini skirt with a gold belt and ankle boots, her top dipping open down the middle and held by a single clasp that caught the light every time she moved. She didn’t look like she cared to impress anyone — maybe that’s what made her stand out.

Tom noticed her before she noticed him. He’d stepped outside for a smoke himself, half-listening to Bill and Georg joke around. But when Aurora flicked her lighter and leaned in to shield the flame from the wind, his focus shifted entirely.

She exhaled slowly, her gaze somewhere distant.

“Got a spare one?” he asked, nodding toward her cigarette.

She looked at him — calm, unreadable — then handed him one without a word.

He leaned in, lighting it from hers. “Thanks,” he said, smoke curling between them.

“Sure,” she replied, voice soft but steady. Her accent wasn’t local. “You always ask strangers for cigarettes?”

“Only the interesting ones.”

That earned him the smallest smirk, the kind that almost didn’t reach her lips.

He tilted his head. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Seventeen,” she said simply, lighting another cigarette. The lighter’s spark caught the gold at her waist again.

Tom blinked, a quiet laugh escaping before he could help it. “Didn’t expect that.”

“Why?” she asked. “You thought I was older?”

He hesitated, caught between honesty and charm. “Maybe. You don’t exactly look like a kid.”

She raised a brow, studying him for a moment. “And you don’t exactly look like someone who should be staring.”

He followed her gaze down, realizing too late that his eyes had drifted. When he looked back up, she was already smirking.

“My eyes are up here,” she said.

Tom laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “You’re sharp.”

“Just observant,” she replied, taking another drag. “You seem used to girls staring back.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But not like that.”

Her lips curved again, barely. “You talk like someone who gets away with a lot.”

“Maybe I do,” he said, his tone low, teasing. “Maybe I don’t.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward — it was loaded. Her gaze lingered, just a second too long, and when she finally looked away, he smiled to himself, cigarette still burning slow between his fingers.