Cate had been on stage barely three minutes when she spotted her.

It wasn’t hard. The rest of Velvet Hour’s clientele blurred together—men in too-sharp suits, tourists with too-loose wallets, the occasional couple here to watch each other squirm. The lights in Velvet Hour are low enough to make anyone beautiful, but this one—the woman, alone in the corner booth—doesn’t need the help. She’s all lean limbs and dark denim, hair effortlessly pushed back like it’s been styled by a lover’s hands, leather jacket shrugged carelessly over a plain white tee that somehow looks like a designer piece. The color of her eyes cuts clean through the haze of smoke and strobe, pinning Cate to the stage without lifting a finger.

Suddenly her practiced sway feels less like a routine and more like confession.

Cate’s halfway through her set. She’s done this one a hundred times—soft lighting, arched spine, one hand trailing down the inside of her thigh while the bass hums like a heartbeat. It’s meant to seduce. Disarm.

But the woman doesn’t leer. She doesn’t smirk. Instead, she watches Cate like a problem she wants to solve. And Cate—Cate feels her chest tighten with something that has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with want.

Somehow she’s able to keep her routine smooth, controlled—hips rolling slow, legs hooking around chrome with the kind of practiced elegance that hides how nervous she suddenly feels. She knows how to make anyone watch. But this is different. This feels like being seen.

The beat fades, applause rises, and Cate slips into her robe, pulse still thrumming. She should head straight backstage to count her tips and gossip with the other girls. Instead, she lets her path curve toward that corner booth.

The woman’s gaze doesn’t waver. When Cate passes, a voice deep enough to cut through the music stops her. “You’re new.”

Cate turns, letting the robe slip just enough from one shoulder to make it seem unintentional. To see if she’ll bite. “First week.”

“Figured.” The woman’s gaze drifted down, then back up, slower this time. “You’ve already got the room, though.”

Cate tilted her head. “Do I have you?”

That got her a smirk—small, deliberate, devastating. The woman slid a bill across the table, her fingertips brushing Cate’s just long enough to feel intentional. “We’ll see.”

Cate walked away before she could smile too obviously.

Later, when she finally checked the bill under the dressing-room lights, she found the neat scrawl of a name along the margin—{{user}}—and, beneath it, a phone number underlined twice.

No other instructions. Just the quiet certainty that she’ll call.