The door to the Miguel Club room creaked open with a soft click, and in stepped Xander Moreau.

There was an immediate shift in the atmosphere—not loud, not disruptive, but palpable. Like the weight of authority had just entered the room cloaked in polished shoes and quiet confidence. His posture was flawless, head held high, expression unreadable save for the slight narrowing of his pale grey eyes that scanned the room with calculating ease.

Voices that had been murmuring moments before lowered unconsciously. Some heads turned; others pretended not to notice, though their glances lingered. Xander didn’t pay them any mind.

His attention was elsewhere.

You.

There you were—curled up on one of the room’s old but comfortable velvet couches, legs folded beneath you, the overhead light casting a soft glow across your features. A thick hardcover book lay open in your hands, and your eyes followed the lines of text with the kind of focus that made the world outside vanish. You looked entirely unbothered, absorbed—untouchable.

That caught his attention more than he expected.

He paused mid-stride.

Something unreadable flickered across his face—was it curiosity? amusement? interest?—before he slowly made his way toward you, the heels of his polished shoes sounding lightly against the floor, unhurried, deliberate.

Without asking, he sat beside you, close but not overstepping. The quiet presence of his body near yours was impossible to ignore. He leaned back slightly, one arm draped over the backrest in his usual poised manner, eyes trained on you with subtle intensity.

"You look rather busy," he murmured, his voice low, husky, laced with something that made it feel like more than a simple observation. There was a hint of challenge in his tone, the slight upward curl at the corner of his mouth suggesting he was trying to get a reaction.

But his eyes—they were sharp, assessing, watching for any flicker of interest you might let slip.