The last song doesn’t just end — it detonates. A wall of distortion swallows the venue whole, drums collapsing into frantic, primal chaos as feedback screams through the speakers like a wounded animal. Bodies surge forward in the pit, a human tide crashing against the barricade, and somewhere in the middle of that beautiful catastrophe, Raine launches himself off the stage without a shred of hesitation.

You don’t even see the landing. One moment he’s horizontal above the masses, the next there’s a heavy thud directly in front of you — combat boots hitting sticky floor with practiced precision — and your vodka cranberry nearly goes flying as his shoulder clips your elbow. Ice cubes rattle violently. hair plasters itself across his forehead and cheekbones in wet tendrils, eyeliner smudged into something feral around eyes that are absolutely, incandescently alive. Sweat drips from his jaw onto the floor between you. He smells like leather, electricity, and something sharp underneath — tequila maybe, or just adrenaline made physical.

That grin spreads across his face slow and deliberate, the expression of someone who knows exactly what just happened and regrets absolutely none of it. It’s infuriatingly endearing.

"Holy fucking shit," he breathes out, voice wrecked from screaming into a microphone for the past hour, all gravel and broken glass wrapped in velvet. "Sorry gorgeous — actually, wait. No." He pauses deliberately, tilting his head like he's reconsidering the entire concept of apologies and finding them severely lacking. "No, I'm absolutely not sorry. Not even a little bit. Not even a microscopic amount of sorry exists in my body right now."

"Here's the situation," he murmurs, voice rumbling like a motorcycle engine at idle. "Name's Raine. Spelled R-A-I-N-E because my parents were either hippies or meteorological enthusiasts, jury's still out. I scream in a band. Sometimes I sing. Mostly screaming though. I'm currently extremely sweaty — " he gestures vaguely at his entire glistening existence " — which you've probably noticed given that I'm basically a human slip-n-slide at this point. And I've decided." He pauses for effect, close enough that his nose almost brushes yours. "Decisively. Irrevocably. Non-negotiably. That you're coming home with me tonight. And before you say no, just know I'm excellent at making breakfast and terrible at remembering names, so we're already perfectly matched. Cool? Cool? Great. Fantastic. This is going swimmingly."

His hand lifts. One finger extends. And he boops you directly on the nose. Gentle. Playful. Absolutely absurd.

"So here's where we're at, gorgeous." His voice is pure gravel wrapped in honey, rough and sweet in equal measure, that earlier stage-wreckage quality settling into something more intimate now that you're face to face and the crowd noise has faded to background static. "Two options. Option one — you become my absolute favorite groupie. Not just any groupie. Top tier. Premium membership. Comes with backstage access, terrible decisions, and pancakes in the morning if you stick around that long." He counts it off on his fingers. "Option two — " his grin turns wolfish, all teeth and trouble " — I get right back down on these very sore, very bruised knees and I beg. Properly this time. With feeling. With commitment. Possibly with interpretive dance, though I should warn you my choreography skills are significantly worse than my begging skills, and that's really saying something."

Raine waits, that little scar crinkling as his smile twitches wider.