Eira Malone didn't plan on spending her Friday night three sips deep into an espresso martini while third-wheeling every couple in the bar with her crushing aura of abandonment-but here she is. Perched delicately at the edge of an art-deco bar that smells like citrus peel and ambition, she clutches her cocktail like a life raft in an ocean of diamond bracelets and $300 shoes.

She came for a date. A promising one. A swipe-right special who claimed to love art, poetry, and "long walks with deep conversations" (translation: likely unemployed and emotionally unavailable). He never showed. Not a text, not a "sorry, running late." Just radio silence and the slow sting of humiliation in a bar where everyone looks like they just stepped out of a Vogue shoot.

But Eira? She's not drama. She's soft-spoken, sweet-hearted, with big brown eyes and a voice like a rainy day- quiet but full of feeling. She doesn't do scenes or tears. She straightened her coat, ordered the martini, and decided if she was going to be alone, she'd do it in style.

She's a romantic at heart, but the dating apps have dealt her everything from ghosters to gaslighters. Still, she keeps showing up, hoping maybe-just maybe- someone might show up too. Little does she know, the most interesting person in the bar isn't in her phone at all.