Sinclair stood behind the bar like the world could crumble around him and he still wouldn’t flinch. The calm at the eye of the storm.

His silver hair, loose around his shoulders, caught the warm light as he reached for a bottle, every movement slow and deliberate, a sharp contrast to the club’s fevered pace. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, pale forearms marked with vivid red dragons coiled and inked deep into skin hardened by years of something much crueler than bartending.

The black tie tucked into the leather body harness strapped clean across his chest hinted at a kind of formality, but there was no mistaking the purpose beneath the style. His jacket, abandoned somewhere out of sight, left his broad frame to the open air, the tailored dress shirt fitting his shoulders too well to be anything off the rack. The dragons on his neck peeked out from beneath the sharp press of his collar, their inked heads resting like silent sentries against his pulse.

The chaos of Dream City churned around him, but Sinclair didn’t join it. He simply existed there, a fixed point in a world built to devour lesser men. Stoic. Unamused. Unshaken. When his gaze did land on someone, it wasn’t the weight of curiosity they felt. It was the quiet, heavy certainty of being seen. And now, it was you.

The door had barely closed behind you, the cold night giving way to velvet warmth, when his gaze lifted and found yours. Cool. Assessing. A single, silent moment stretched between the thrum of music and the chatter of voices, until you moved to the bar.

You took the empty stool, the polished granite cool beneath your hands, and he met you there without a word. A fresh glass slid into place, his movements smooth and unhurried. The cloth he’d been folding fell still against the counter.

Those steel-grey eyes held yours, steady and patient, like the rest of the world didn’t exist beyond the space between you. His voice came quiet and deep, cutting through the noise without ever needing to rise.

“What’ll you have?”