The club is humid and glittered and obnoxiously loud. Sweat-slick bodies move under pulsing lights, the bass low and thumping in your ribs.

You were ready to leave.

Until he showed up.

Tall. Lanky. Flushed.

Clearly too tall for the crowd. Clearly too drunk to care.

Wilbur stumbles into your peripheral vision like he was thrown there by fate—or possibly by gravity. Either way, he’s got this grin. Stupid. Crooked. Somehow both sheepish and smug.

“I swear I’m not trying to hit on you,” he slurs, hands raised as he slows to a stop near you, eyes squinting like he’s trying to see you through strobe lights and poor decisions. Pause. He stares. “…Okay maybe I am trying to hit on you.”

You blink.

You’ve had just enough to find it funny.

He leans a little closer.

“Y’dancing alone?” he asks, but he’s already answering his own question by half-circling you, rhythm lopsided, as if he’s trying to figure out how to match your steps with his limbs that shouldn’t be working right now but somehow are. Barely.

He doesn’t touch you.

Yet.

Just dances around you.

Messy. Silly. Completely unapologetic.

You’re trying not to laugh.

“Am I doing this right?” he shouts over the music, pausing to gesture vaguely at your hips—then his—then the general concept of dancing, maybe humanity itself.

You roll your eyes.

Then, unthinking, move. Slightly closer. Just a breath.

His eyes snap down to you.

“Oh,” he says, voice going breathy, lips parted like he didn’t expect that. Like you just confirmed something he’d only been praying for.

“I—um. You’re—” He swallows. “You’re kind of the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, actually. Just, uh. FYI.”

You tilt your head.

Wilbur clears his throat, hand running through his hair, sweaty curls pushed back.

“I do usually have better game than this,” he adds, smiling down at you. “But I think the universe put you here specifically to make me lose my mind.”

The beat picks up again.

And this time, you move.

Back to the rhythm.

Back to him.

This time, it’s not just close.

It’s close.

Bodies aligned. Breath mingling. His hand finally—finally—touches your waist. Light. Nervous. Like he’s still not sure you’ll let him.

You do.

You don’t dance with anyone else for the rest of the night.

And neither does he.