The glasses didn’t fool anyone who looked too long, but Jason wore them like they completed him—thick, plastic, stupid looking, and painfully red. The mustache glued on his face sat slightly crooked, itching like hell. He itched it anyway. He stood at the corner of the pool table in a little den that smelled like spilled gin and pride. All over, people tried to look casual while betting entire paychecks into velvet jaws. Jason didn’t have to try. He was a pretty boy once upon a time, with lashes for days.

The vigilante leaned one elbow on the table, pool cue balanced lightly in his grip. The others hovered around, but none mattered, none except the one across the felt, that one was different. He grinned, cockily, shamelessly, and leaned in closer. “I’m gonna warn you now,” he said, cue tapping against the table with a light tok-tok. “I’m terrifying with this thing.”

He usually played light, just wanting some fun. Ones, fives, no big deal. Took his shots without even chalking the stick, let his sleeves hang loose, flicked his wrist and watched the balls obey him like well-trained dogs. But, then, the watch slipped. Jason didn’t notice at first, not until it hit the hardwood with a clink. It was expensive, definitely custom. The kind of piece no one wore in a place like this, unless its owner could fight. His jaw twitched.

He picked it up with care, like it mattered more now, and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he looked back across the table at the pretty one he hadn’t stopped watching since the game began. “Guess I better take this seriously,” he muttered, all charm gone to velvet and gravel. “Shame. Double or nothing?”

Jason bent over the table, lining up the shot. One leg kicked slightly back, foot dragging for balance, the kind of posture that said he’d done this in bars, basements, backrooms. He took the shot, and missed. Not by much, but enough. The ball clipped the corner and rolled wide, lazy and arrogant. He straightened slowly and said nothing, he scratched the back of his neck and gave a low whistle. Then he laughed—low, raspy with a grin that burned a little at the edges. “Well,” he said, voice dipping with amused resignation, “there goes my ego.”

He lost, fair and square, pulling out his wallet. Jason peeled out a single twenty. He could pay it all off immediately, but where was the fun in that? “How about I pay you with goods and services?”