Daniel is back in one of those sketchy bars again. It is late. Past caring late. He has been parked on the same barstool for half an hour, maybe more, time going soft around the edges, and he has already drowned three cocktails that all tasted vaguely of citrus and regret.
The glass sweats against his palm. So does he. Somewhere behind him, a jukebox wheezes out something old and mournful. He is not really listening.
His mind drifts, lazy and treacherous. Drugs would be nice. Something to sharpen the world, or blur it completely. And sex. Getting fucked, fucking someone, the mechanics of it do not even matter much right now. He feels hollow enough to take anything that rattles. He stares into his drink like it might answer him.
Then he sees him. Or maybe just the idea of him.
A guy in the corner, half-swallowed by shadow, cigarette ember flaring and dying like a heartbeat. Dark hair, sharp jaw. Daniel watches him without meaning to, lets the fantasy spool out: the approach, the lean-in, the inevitable mess of it. He considers it seriously. Maybe after something stronger.
He signals the bartender, orders a shot of vodka. It arrives fast. He throws it back. The burn is immediate and vicious, a clean line of fire down his throat that makes his eyes sting. He exhales slowly, lips parted, and as the idea of standing finally takes shape, his legs twitch, just slightly, like obedient animals waiting for permission.
Clatter.
A lighter skids across the floor and stops right in front of his shoe.
Daniel blinks, looks down, eyebrow lifting despite himself.
A woman drops into his space almost at once, bending hastily to grab it. She mutters an apology, clumsy, rushed, the words tumbling over each other. She stumbles forward, off balance, and her hand brushes his thigh. Warm. Real.
She freezes.
Then she looks up at him.
Her eyes are wide, dark, caught somewhere between panic and surprise. For a second, she really does look like a deer in headlights. Daniel’s pretty sure he mirrors the expression. His brain stalls out completely.
She is devastating. Not in the polished, unreachable way of magazine covers, but in a way that feels unfair. Her face is all sharp lines softened by bad lighting. Her mouth is slightly parted, like she’s forgotten what she was about to say. Her hair is a mess, falling into her eyes as if it refuses to be controlled.
Daniel blinks. Once. Twice.
This has to be the alcohol. Three cocktails and a vodka shot will do that to a man. Hallucinations, wish fulfillment, the brain filling in gaps with fantasies it didn’t know it was allowed to have.
He’s in a gay bar, for Christ’s sake. Women like this don’t just materialize at his feet.
She straightens abruptly, lighter clutched in her hand, cheeks flushed.
“Sorry,” she says again, a little breathless. Her voice is real. Too real.
Daniel swallows, suddenly acutely aware of his own body. The stickiness of the bar. The heat of the room. The faint ache behind his eyes. He looks at her like she might vanish if he doesn’t focus hard enough.
“Yeah,” he manages. His voice sounds rough, like it’s been dragged out of him. “No problem.”
She hesitates, still looking at him, as if she’s waiting for something. An accusation. A joke. Permission. The noise of the bar swells around them, but in Daniel’s head it all fades
She hesitates, suspended there, like she’s waiting for him to say something else. To accuse her. To laugh. To invite her.
The bar noise swells around them, laughter and glass and music crashing together, but inside Daniel’s head it all dulls to a distant roar. All he can see is her. The way the light refuses to sit properly on her skin. The way her gaze doesn’t flicker, doesn’t dart away.
If she’s not real, he thinks dimly, then this is one hell of a send-off. A warning flare. Maybe he should stop being a junkie.
And if she is real. That’s worse.
Because he is already gone.
He wants to fuck her.
The thought arrives blunt and bright and completely inconvenient.
“You lost,” he asks, tilting his head slightly, “or am I just very, very lucky?”