The bass from the dance floor rolled through the walls like distant thunder, muted enough in the lounge corner that conversation didn’t have to compete with it. Low amber lights reflected across the glass table between them.
Phei sat back in the booth, a bottle of water in his hand, condensation sliding slowly down the plastic.
He hadn’t touched the drink nu.
The ad shoot was handled — or would be, once the Ashford Madam called Emily. But Phei wanted to ask the boys himself before Emily assigned them. They’d earned that courtesy. Landon and Brian weren’t his employees.
They were his people.
And his people got asked, not told.
That wasn’t the only reason he was here though.
Landon wanted to find himself a woman. Badly. The boy had ga but no luck, or luck but no follow-through, or so combination of the two that left him perpetually almost-there and never quite arriving.
Brian was sharper — already had a girl, two-sothing years together, but wanted more. The concept wasn’t alien in Paradise. Brian was good-looking, smart, capable of handling the logistics of more than one relationship without the whole thing collapsing into jealousy and tears.
But he wanted Phei’s presence to boost the odds for Landon’s confidence and also just to hang out.
Three boys. One night.
The simple, uncomplicated pleasure of doing nothing important with people who expected nothing from you except your company.
Phei had a bit of free ti. So why not.
The boys hadn’t arrived yet.
But soone else had.
Across from him, the woman lifted her glass of whiskey, had been studying him over the rim.
She’d been doing this for more than ten minutes. They’d greeted each other when he sat down — polite, brief, the standard exchange between strangers sharing booth-adjacent space in a crowded lounge.
A few words. Nothing morable.
Then Phei had cut himself off, ordered his water, and started watching the waiters serve bottles of wine and spirits to tables around them with the quiet interest of soone who found other people’s drinking habits more entertaining than his own.
She hadn’t stopped looking at him.
She had this expression — a brooder’s face. Dark eyes, heavy-lidded, the kind of gaze that usually pointed inward at whatever complicated machinery was turning behind a person’s thoughts. But for the last five minutes, all of that processing power had been redirected.
At him. Openly. Without even attempting to hide it.
She’d ignored the man sitting next to her completely.
The man — mid-thirties, well-dressed, clearly soone who’d been mid-conversation with her before Phei had beco the more interesting object in the room — had gone quiet.
He sat with his drink in his hand and his jaw slightly tight, looking between the woman and Phei with the particular discomfort of a man who’d been outclassed so thoroughly he wasn’t sure whether to be angry or impressed.
He chose neither. Just sat there. Shrinking by incrents.
His shoulders had dropped two inches since Phei sat down and he’d straightened his tie three tis, each adjustnt a small, unconscious admission that sothing about the boy across the table made him feel less than he’d felt when he woke up this morning.
He knew who Phei was. Most people in Paradise knew who Phei was. And knowing that only made the slow bleed-out of his own relevance feel more surgical.
He finished his drink. Set it down. Excused himself with a mumble that neither Phei nor the woman acknowledged.
He left.
The woman didn’t watch him go.
Phei noticed the look.
He’d been letting it sit — the way you let a cat approach on its terms. But five minutes was enough patience for one evening.
He broke the silence.
"Are you a brooder?"
She blinked. Slight. The micro-adjustnt of soone whose thoughts had just been interrupted mid-sentence.
"I’m sorry, a... what?"
"A brooder." He gestured vaguely with the bottle. "Soone who sits quietly, stares at a stranger, and thinks very hard about sothing about that specific stranger."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"I wasn’t staring."
"Mm."
"Alright, maybe I was," she admitted, swirling the whiskey. "But brooding implies sothing heavier."
"Does it?" he said. "You’ve had the sa expression for the last —" he glanced lazily toward the clock behind the bar "— seven minutes and twelve seconds."
"That’s very precise."
"I’m observant."
She tilted her head.
"Or pathologically detail-oriented."
He considered that for a second.
"Those two tend to travel together."
She laughed softly into her drink — genuine, surprised.
She studied him again.
"You’re drinking water."
"Yes."
"In a nightclub."
"Yes."
"You’re not waiting for soone to slip sothing into it, are you?"
"Optimistic of you to assu anyone’s coordinated enough to pull that off in this lighting."
Her mouth curved, delighted. "Oh, I think people are interested," she said. "You just look like you’re actively trying to bore them into leaving you alone."
He leaned back. Unbothered. "I hope it works"
"Yet here I am... breaking it." She said with a laugh. "Why are you here if not to charm strangers like myself."
"I ca here to wait for friends."
"And water helps with that?"
"It discourages conversation."
She lifted her glass. "Well, clearly it failed spectacularly."
He allowed the smallest smile. "Yes. Clearly."
She took another sip. Slower this ti. Her eyes stayed on him over the rim — dark, focused, the look of a woman who’d decided that whatever she’d co to this club for tonight had been replaced by a better objective.
"So," she said. "Are you always this composed?"
"Composed?"
"You’re sitting in a club like you’re waiting for your tax attorney."
"That sounds peaceful."
"That sounds like a cry for help disguised as interior design."
"Only if you require noise to feel alive."
She watched him. "You’re not what I expected."
"From what?"
"From soone sitting alone in a place like this."
"And what did you expect?" She tapped her glass against the table.
"I don’t know. Soone restless. Maybe a little desperate."
"Looking for attention?"
"Sothing like that."
He shook his head slightly. "No."
She leaned forward. Curiosity sharpening. "Then why are you here?"
"I told you."
"Waiting for friends."
"Yes."
"And until they arrive you plan to just sit there with your water."
"That’s the idea."
Her lips curved. "You’re very difficult to read."
"That might be the point."
She opened her mouth, then paused. "Can I ask you sothing slightly personal?"
"You can ask."
"And you’ll decide whether to answer."
"Exactly."
She nodded, amused by the structure.
"Are you —" she hesitated, searching for the word. "— soone who thinks a lot?"
"That’s a dangerous question."
"Why?"
"Because people usually ask it when they an sothing else."
"Like?"
He t her gaze.
"Like whether I’m lonely?"
Her expression shifted. Just slightly. "I wasn’t going to say lonely."
"No?"
She swirled the whiskey, watching the liquid turn.
"More like untouchable."
He sipped his water, "Distance is underrated."
"Is it?"
"It keeps conversations honest."
She smiled faintly.
"That’s a very elegant way of saying you don’t like people getting too close."
He shrugged.
"Or maybe I just prefer choosing when they do. And how long they’re allowed to stay."
Silence settled between them. Comfortable. Weighted.
She leaned back in the booth, studying him openly now. The pretence of subtlety abandoned. She was looking at him the way won looked at things they wanted to take ho and couldn’t justify.
"You know," she said slowly, "most n in this place would have bought a drink by now."
"I noticed you already have one."
"That’s not the point."
"I’m sure it isn’t."
She laughed quietly."You really don’t make this easy."
"I wasn’t aware there was an objective."
"Oh, there is." Her eyes brightened. A challenge forming. "I’m trying to crack you open like a particularly stubborn safe."
"And?"
She tilted her head again.
"I’m still working on it."
He lifted the bottle slightly.
"Well," he said, "you have until my friends arrive. After that the booth becos a cri scene and I’ll need it for evidence."
She raised her glass, eyes glittering.
"Then I suppose I should drink slowly."
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