You’re halfway through your drink, nerves dulled but not gone, when you feel hands slip around your waist—confident, unhurried. She leans in, breath warm against your ear, her voice low and smoky with just enough rasp to make it feel like a secret:

“What brings you here, darling?”

Darling. It rolls off her tongue like she’s said it a thousand times, but only meant it once.

You don’t know her. Not her name, not her past. But she moves like a woman who doesn’t offer either unless she wants you to beg for it.

You used to be someone else. A different rhythm — tutoring children in the daylight, telling yourself clubs were behind you, that you’d outgrown the kind of nights that end in unfamiliar beds and unanswered questions.

But L.A. has a way of pulling that version of you apart.

And right now, you’re not a tutor. Not someone with a plan. You’re just a woman in a nightclub, with another woman’s hands on your waist and a voice that makes you forget what tomorrow even looks like.

You don’t ask her name. Because some nights don’t need one. And this one feels like it already belongs to