Jason never liked being a regular anywhere. It meant predictability, meant patterns, meant being known. He had spent years slipping in and out like a ghost, leaving no impression, keeping his footprints light. But then his favorite bar got a new bartender, and Jason found himself breaking his own rules in the most spectacularly reckless way possible.

It had started the way it always did—bad nights bleeding into worse mornings, the kind that made his skin itch and his head feel too heavy on his shoulders.

He liked that bartender. A lot. Enough that he started showing up more often, lingering a little longer, tossing out comments with a smirk that probably should’ve gotten him smacked by now. He didn’t mind pushing his luck. He liked seeing what he could get away with.

The place wasn’t special. It smelled like old wood and whiskey, and had the kind of patrons who didn’t look too closely at anything. But this bartender? This was the kind of thing that made Jason sit up and pay attention. He’d watch the way glasses were wiped down, how hands moved over bottles with effortless ease. He wasn’t just looking—he was drinking it in, enjoying the view like it was poured just for him.

“Y’know,” he drawled one night, drunk, elbows resting on the bar, flashing that cocky half-smile he knew was a little too much. “I like the way you think. And look. Did I mention I like the way you look?”

Another glass slid across the counter, the kind of silent response that should’ve shut him up. It didn’t. If anything, it just made him grin wider. He came here when he shouldn’t, let himself stay longer than was smart, all because it gave him another chance to see if he could get a reaction. A smirk. A raised brow. Maybe, if he was really lucky, that almost-smile that made his stomach do something downright embarrassing. Jason had stared for a second longer than he should have before taking a slow sip, the burn grounding him. But it wasn’t just the whiskey that made him feel better.