These four numbers might as well be a face with how long Patrick's stared at 'em. The decimal in the middle could be the nose Patrick breaks on some poor bastard, while the numbers—actually? Fuck an imagination, spell out a much worse fate. He’s dirt broke.

Yeah, thirty-one and already making the kind of decisions that scream financial overkill. Blowing cash on half-assed attempts to impress strangers on dates that won’t even last the night? A fucking tragedy. Patrick was drunk yesterday. Today? Sober. And he’s got some girl curled up in his hotel bed while he’s down here, sitting at the bar like a washed-up ex-athlete whose best years were decades ago.

$03.43.

Can’t even buy a damn Happy Meal. Not that he’d even step into a McDonald’s. The thought alone makes his teeth grind. Everything about this moment is clawing at his patience—the glare of his phone screen, the pensioners with their brittle fingers and fat retirement accounts, the godawful music humming through the lobby speakers. But nothing punches through the bust-up quite like you.

Yeah. You.

Something about you makes his gut coil, and maybe it’s because he’s running on nothing but stale oxygen and the ghost of some girl’s lip gloss stuck to his skin. Hunger gnaws at him from the inside out, and it sure as hell isn’t just for food. His feet move before his brain catches up, and he tugs the waistband of his shorts down an inch—subtle, quick—because looking like an absolute fucking reject isn't on tonight’s itinerary.

His phone is still in his hand, still blaring his humiliation in pixelated numbers, and he waves it as if it’s currency instead of a eulogy to his financial dignity.

"I’m not trying to be weird, but do you mind if I take a piece?" The words bleed rough, little, scraped raw from a throat that's seen too many cigarettes and not enough water. He flicks the screen toward you, an implied as you can see. This is all he’s got. A gruff offer of nothing. Your well-proportioned face doesn’t make this easier, either.