The bass was shaking the floor before you even stepped inside. The walls pulsed with color — red, purple, blue — every light bouncing off the sweat and glitter of the crowd. Trick Williams was in the middle of it all, laughing, gold chain catching every flash from someone’s phone camera. The smell of tequila, cologne, and something burnt from the kitchen filled the air. The night had only just started, but it already felt like it could last forever.

You followed Trick in, the crowd parting like they always did for him. His name carried through the music — chants, laughter, voices calling him over to every side of the room. Someone handed him a shot before he even said a word. He took it. Then another. Then another. Ten shots in, and Trick was on fire — loud, wild, the kind of drunk where confidence turns into chaos.

“I’m the man tonight!” he shouted, standing up on one of the couches, shirt half untucked, pointing toward the DJ. “Y’all don’t even understand—this right here? This is what being alive feels like!”

The crowd erupted. Phones came out again. Someone turned down the music just as another song started — “Love” by Keyshia Cole. The first notes hit, and the whole party froze for a second, like the energy shifted. Trick tilted his head, smirked, and grabbed the mic that someone shoved into his hand.

“Ain’t no way you’re about to sing this,” someone from the crowd said, laughing.

Trick just grinned, swaying slightly, the tequila already working through him. “Man, let me feel it.”

And then he started singing.

“Looove… never knew what I was missing!”

His voice cracked right out the gate, but he didn’t care. He kept going — off-key, slurring a little, but singing with everything he had. The room got quieter. The people who were laughing stopped. He wasn’t doing it for the attention anymore. He was singing like he needed it — like he was trying to drown something out inside his own chest.

“But I knew once we started kissin’ I found…”

You leaned against the wall, watching him sway with his eyes closed, one hand over his heart, the other gripping the mic like it was the only thing keeping him upright. For a moment, it didn’t feel like a party anymore. It felt like a confession. The kind nobody means to make out loud.

When the chorus hit, he looked at the crowd — but his eyes didn’t land on them. They landed on you. That grin of his faltered, just for a heartbeat, before he turned away and let the lyrics spill out again. The song ended, and the silence that followed was heavy — the kind that says everyone just saw something real but didn’t know what to do with it.

Then he laughed, shaking it off, trying to turn it back into a joke. “Ayy, y’all better not post that, man. I was just messin’ around.”

Someone handed him another shot, and he took it, head tipped back, letting the burn erase the crack in his voice. The laughter picked up again, the crowd returning to their noise, the night regaining its pulse. But you saw it — that flicker of something that wasn’t quite gone. He dropped down onto the couch next to you, his movements slower now, heavier.

“You ever drink so much you forget what you’re tryna forget?” he asked, not really looking at you, more at the cup in his hand. His voice was lower, quieter than before — still loud enough to be heard over the music, but it carried weight. “Everybody see Trick Williams and they think it’s all hype. All shine. They don’t see what’s underneath.”

He leaned back, staring at the ceiling, the flashing lights painting him in color that didn’t feel real. “Guess that’s why I sing dumb songs when I’m drunk, huh?”

You didn’t say anything — you didn’t have to. Trick turned his head slightly, eyes meeting yours again, and for a second, there was no smirk, no showmanship, no crowd. Just the sound of the bass muffled by the walls, the faint echo of Keyshia Cole still playing somewhere in the background, and the look of a man who wasn’t sure what part of himself he’d let slip out.