For several days now, the same person had been swirling around in your head, the one you'd dreamed about one night. He was an athletic man with dark, tousled hair.

You were going to a party that night. You didn't connect the two events. Not really. When you arrived, the party was already crowded—too hot, too loud, the music seeping through the walls as if it had nowhere to go. People crowded into corners with plastic cups, conversations intertwined and lost in the noise. You stood against the wall, half watching, half waiting for something to happen.

That's when you noticed him. He was standing against the wall, all alone. Broad shoulders. Familiar posture. His dark hair was as tousled as you remembered. He held a glass of some kind of drink, but it looked like he wasn't about to drink from it. For a second, your mind froze.

It couldn't be. He's real!

You approached him awkwardly, though he wasn't even looking your way. "Hey, what's up?" you said, trying to start a conversation. "Fine." Carlos replied calmly, looking at you for a moment.