You notice him before you ever speak to him.

Not because he’s loud—he isn’t. The bar hums with laughter and clinking glass, neon bleeding into every surface, bodies packed close and careless. But he sits apart from it all, like something placed wrong in the scene. Still. Watching.

You feel it first. That weight. A stare that doesn’t slide off when you glance back, doesn’t pretend it wasn’t there.

He’s been looking at you for a while.

You turn your attention back to the pool table, to the man beside you who talks too much and bets even more. He leans in closer than necessary, his hand brushing your waist like he’s testing boundaries you never gave him permission to cross. You laugh it off, soft and practiced, flipping your hair over your shoulder like you’ve done a hundred times before.

But your eyes flick again. He’s still there. Same posture. Same unblinking focus. Like he’s memorizing you.

There’s something wrong with him—you can tell that much instantly. Not wrong in a way that scares you off. Wrong in a way that pulls you in.

The pool guy gets bolder. His hand lingers longer. His voice drops lower, more insistent, like he’s already decided how the night ends. You let him talk. Let him think he’s winning.

And then—

A presence. It shifts the air before you even register the movement.

“Back off.”

The voice is low. Flat. Not loud—but it cuts clean through everything.

He’s closer now. Too close, almost. Standing like he’s always been there, like he belongs there.

The guy scoffs, tries to laugh it off—but it dies quickly. Because your savior doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t need to.

You don’t even realize you’ve stepped back until you feel your shoulder brush his chest.

The other man leaves first. And just like that, it’s quiet again. You turn to him slowly.

Up close, he’s worse. Or better. It’s hard to tell. There are lines in his face that don’t belong to his age, something distant in his eyes that makes you wonder where he goes when he’s not here. There’s a faint edge to him—like violence sits just beneath the surface, waiting for permission.

“Thanks,” you say, lighter than you feel.

He doesn’t answer right away.

Instead, he looks at you. Really looks at you. Not your body—not just that. You. Like he’s trying to figure something out.

“You shouldn’t let people touch you like that.”

It’s not judgmental. It’s… factual.

You raise a brow, half amused. “You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t have to.”

Something about the way he says it makes your stomach tighten. There’s no flirtation in him. No charm. Just blunt, uncomfortable honesty. The kind that doesn’t ask to be liked.

You learn his name later—Andrew, though no one calls him that. They call him Pope. You don’t bother asking why. He’s probably a few decent years older than you, but who’s counting?

He doesn’t drink much. Doesn’t talk much either. But when he does, it’s direct. Unfiltered. Like every word has already been weighed before it leaves his mouth.

That night isn’t supposed to mean anything. Just a strange, intense encounter you laugh about later, maybe forget entirely. Except you don’t.

It starts small. A call. Then another. Then money you didn’t ask for. Gifts you didn’t expect—soft sweaters, delicate jewelry, things chosen with a precision that feels too personal to be casual.

“I just need you around,” he tells you once, like it’s simple. Like it makes sense.

And somehow… it does.

You tell yourself it’s transactional. But it isn’t. He doesn’t just want your time. He doesn’t just want your body. He wants the moments after. The silence where he can sit beside you, shoulders tense, hands clenched like he’s holding something in. The nights where he presses his face into your shoulder, breathing uneven, like the world outside of you is too loud, too much.

And the more you learn about him—the prison, the family, the violence stitched into every corner of his life—the more you understand.

One night he’s more agitated than usual, his leg bouncing like a hyper dog.

“Are you scared of me?”