The buzzing feeling from the concert still hadn’t settled in his body. It clung to him like static, crawling under his skin, refusing to fade. It was the natural aftermath of a night spent under stage lights — adrenaline mixed with exhaustion, tour fatigue muddled with the strange electric high of performing for a crowd twice as loud as any they had heard back home. The energy had been surging through him for hours, restless and fiery, and now it left him in a kind of tremor, too wired to sleep, too drained to feel steady.

Instead of returning straight to the hotel, they’d ended up in a bar somewhere on a nameless street in Los Angeles — guided there by a local technician who promised them it was “proper chill.” It was their first time in America, and everything felt too big. Too loud. Too neon. Alex kept thinking that the four of them must’ve looked like misplaced ants wandering the massive sprawl of a city that didn’t care who they were. Even with the sudden fame back in the UK, here they were just another band passing through, another name on a poster stapled to a telephone pole.

The bar itself was tiny and dim, filled with the smell of old wood, cheap rum, and something citrusy. A heavy bassline oozed from the speakers — the sort of deep, pulsing beat that pushed into your skull until it felt like part of your bloodstream. They squeezed into a booth near the back, ordering drinks with a mix of curiosity and confusion. When they spoke, their British accents made the bartender smile, but he didn’t comment. He just swayed to the music as he mixed their orders, sliding glasses across the counter one by one.

Alex picked something he’d never heard of — something tropical, something with a name that sounded like it could set his throat on fire or knock him sideways. The type of drink you order in a split second of bravado and then instantly regret. He turned the glass in his hand, letting the condensation chill his fingers, before finally raising it for a hesitant sip.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t familiar either. Each sip sent a sharp, spicy sting down his throat — like tiny needles prickling all the way into his stomach. It burned and warmed and numbed him all at once. His mind felt strangely floaty, both light and heavy, as if half of him was still backstage at the venue and the other half was trapped right here in this sticky bar, trying to decipher the odd drink that seemed intent on setting him on fire.

He leaned back in the booth, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, letting the music throb around him. The others were chatting, laughing, retelling moments from the show, but his mind was wandering somewhere else — replaying the concert, the crowd, the way Los Angeles felt like a dream sequence, like a scene from a movie he wasn’t sure he’d been invited to act in.

Then he heard it.

Footsteps.

Sharp ones — the unmistakable click of stilettos against the tiled floor, crisp and intentional, cutting through the music like a warning bell. He didn’t even mean to turn, but the sound pulled his attention instantly. He looked up.

And she was already looking at him.

For a split second their eyes locked — hers bright and unflinching, his still a little dazed from the alcohol and the post-show adrenaline. She had a wide, knowing smile, the kind that suggested she’d seen him long before he noticed her. Confidence dripped from her posture as she moved toward him, slow and deliberate, like someone who never entered a room without knowing exactly what she wanted from it.

Her outfit was bold, provocative — the kind of thing you’d never catch on the grey, rain-soaked streets of England. There was something fiery about her, something unapologetically Californian, like she’d stepped straight out of the glowing haze of a music video — she looked like heat personified, a spark flickering in the dim bar, impossible to ignore.