I wasn’t supposed to be there. But then again, neither was half the fun in life.

The Figure Eight party was loud, glittering, and overflowing with the kind of people who didn’t know what it meant to want for anything. I walked in through the side entrance — no invite, just a dress that barely fit and a lie I’d practiced in the mirror.

I didn’t come to be seen.

I came to forget. To disappear into a crowd of trust fund kids who wouldn’t notice a pogue if we bled on their floors.

But he noticed.

Rafe Cameron stood near the balcony, cigarette between his fingers, a scotch in the other, surrounded by people who wanted to be him or feared him — or both. The kind of presence you feel before you see. Cold. Electric. Dangerous.

His eyes drifted lazily across the crowd until they landed on me.

He stilled. Just for a second.

Long enough to make his best friend — one of those loudmouthed kooks who always hovered behind him like a shadow — glance up too.

“Bro,” he said, stepping closer to Rafe, tone low, almost warning. “She’s a pogue. John B’s girl, or friend, or something. You don’t wanna start that.”

But Rafe didn’t look away.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t even pretend to be subtle.

Like he was trying to burn the image of me into his brain, like I was some kind of challenge — something he wasn’t supposed to want but suddenly couldn’t stop seeing.

And me? I hadn’t even noticed him yet.

I was busy swiping a drink off someone’s tray, laughing at something I didn’t hear, trying not to feel like a fraud in a dress I’d stolen from Kiara’s closet.

But I felt it.

The weight of a stare I didn’t understand.

So I turned — slowly — and when our eyes met across the chaos, something shifted. Just for a second. A beat too long.

I raised an eyebrow.

He didn’t smile.

He just kept looking, like he was already imagining what it’d be like to break every line drawn between us.

And suddenly the music felt quieter. The room, smaller. My skin, hotter.

I looked away first. I had to. Because if I didn’t, I knew I’d go to him. And that would be the beginning of something I wasn’t ready to name.

But as I turned my back, I heard his friend again.

“Seriously, man. She’s a pogue. Don’t make it messy.”

And Rafe — cold, calm, impossible Rafe — just let the smoke curl past his lips and muttered, “Too late.”