I couldn’t ignore the zing that ran up my leg when his knee hit my thigh.

“Sorry for invading your space,” he said with a grunt, his face twisted in discomfort. “My legs are killing me from work today, and there were only, like, five seats over there.” He adjusted in his seat again and gave me a once-over that had my skin hot all over. His gaze broke when the bartender brought him his drink, watching him intently as he took a test sip and gave a thumbs-up.

They chatted a bit, and I looked back at my phone at the empty text to Duncan, my original plan to bounce put on hold.

“Out of your element too?” the man asked, his attention back on me.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and reached out to spin an abandoned cocktail napkin. “Kinda, yeah. I only know a couple of people, but they’re far more popular than me.”

“Hey, you’re lucky. I don’t know a single person here,” the man said, tilting his head toward the ceiling. The light shined over his face, making the silver hoop in his nose more noticeable. Jesus, even positioned under the worst lighting he was hot. He looked at me with a smirk and said, “Well, except for Destiny, but everyone here knows Destiny.”

“She roped you in too?”

The man hummed and took a sip of his drink. “She’s very persuasive.”

I snorted. “Ain’t that the truth. But she’s known for throwing a great party.”

“I’m beginning to learn.” The man half spun toward me and rested his arms on the table. My gaze roved over his black tank top and the several necklaces settled on his lean chest. When I looked back up at him, he extended a hand. “Micah.”

I took it, my fingers clasping around his. His palm was cool against mine. “Nik.”

Micah ran the tip of his index finger up the side of my wrist as he briefly squeezed my hand before letting go and running the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip. The tingling in my hand went all the way up my arm and into my chest.

I cleared my throat. “So, what kind of work do you do that has you make up for the gym leg days?”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who deadlifts?” Micah asked with a dramatic wave of a hand in front of him. I snorted, and his lips twitched as he attempted to keep his face serious. “I’m a delivery driver. Not terribly exciting, but the pay is good, and the benefits are too. What about you?”

“I work at the co-op off Whittle.”

Micah paused, his drink halfway to his mouth, his eyebrows flying up. “Really? That’s on my new route. I’m surprised I haven’t seen you there before.”

I slipped the pad of my thumb along the condensation beading on the side of my glass and bobbed my head in consideration before looking up at him through my eyelashes. “Maybe you don’t remember.”

Micah’s gaze flitted over me, slow and deliberate, one side of his mouth tilting upward. “Trust me,” he said, his voice dropping to a murmur. I looked up to find that crystal-blue gaze locked on me, heated. “I wouldn’t forget seeing you.”

There was interest there, and it wasn’t just friendly.

I wet my lips, my heart knocking my breastbone as Micah’s mouth parted. He started to reach out to me, but then he stopped and clenched his hand.

Something rumbled under my skin, and it had nothing to do with the music.

I studied the tattoos covering his arm and up to his neck. Color and swirls of shapes covered his skin, but one caught my eye—a jar filled with fireflies labeled 27 Club.

If there was one thing I took away from recovery, it was that everyone had a story, and the ways they told their stories were endless. Some people kept it closer to the chest; others made groups and organizations to share their stories to build community. Even after five years, I hadn’t quite figured out where I stood on that. I’d been surrounded with either people who saw me before death almost snatched my ass or people who were in recovery with me.

Micah had a story too. And I wanted to hear about all of it.

“Hope you got past the club,” I said, looking up to Micah. “Otherwise, that’d be damn disappointing.”

Micah looked down at his arm, running the back of his knuckles over the jar of fireflies. His eyes flicked up to me, the confident flirt fading a little. “It’s not for me. But yeah, they just turned this year, so hopefully it works out.”

“Bro, I couldn’t have said it any better,” I said and lifted my cup, and Micah joined me, our glasses clinking. An urge I hadn’t felt before rumbled inside of me, taking on momentum until it was boiling so intensely, I couldn’t stop myself from saying something.

“There came this point in my life recently that I finally understood how sad it is to grow up. All that innocence we had as a child, to go about freely and enjoy the little things, is all gone. One bad day, bad week, whatever, and your whole life will blow up.”

I ran my fingertip through the wrinkled napkin under my glass, watching as the thin tissue pulled back another layer. “And I ain’t saying there ain’t kids out there who don’t got it bad, because there are. They gotta grow up faster than they should, but damn, they got some hope, you know?”

Suddenly realizing how I’d just verbally vomited to a total stranger, a fucking hot one at that, had my head jerking up in alarm, ready to apologize. Damn, I couldn’t even use being drunk as an excuse. Hopefully I could get out of this without making myself look like an absolute fool.

But the apology stuck in my throat when I saw Micah’s face.

The heat that flared in his eyes was obvious, even to me, who hadn’t gotten laid in over a year. He wasn’t freaked out at all. Far from it.

Micah looked over both his shoulders as if we were in a room full of people and he was checking out who was paying attention. When he leaned forward, I caught the dark scent of his cologne, and my head swam. “Look, I don’t know if I’m barking up the wrong tree, but I feel like we got something going on here, and I have nothing else to do this evening. Wanna get out of here?”

Nowhere did my routines and schedules include hooking up with a guy I met barely fifteen minutes before. Micah had confidence and sex appeal, that was for sure. But instead of arrogance, there was a softness in his stare that made me want to be impulsive.

Maybe this was what it was like to live a little.

Micah stayed silent, his finger tapping to the beat of the music in the lounge. He was waiting for me to answer, no pressure, no insistence.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” I said.

Micah’s answering smile was so radiant, my breath caught. It was so beautiful it was almost painful to look at, but if I broke eye contact, I’d risk the chance it would disappear, and I didn’t want to live with that regret.

“Good deal,” Micah said, listing to the side. He pulled out his phone and slid it across the table. “Give me your number, and I’ll text you my address.”

It wasn’t until we were heading toward the exit that my body finally caught up to what was happening. I couldn’t fool myself that the buzz in my ears was from the chaos of the party or blame the hammer pounding against my chest on the music. This encounter had woken up a part of me I thought I had buried a long time ago. I was running back into unfamiliar territory, and one wrong turn could land me in a world of shit.

It was scary as hell. It was thrilling. It was spontaneous. That wasn’t a word I ever used, but it felt right. It was like jumping off the side of a building and wondering if the parachute was gonna work. I’d fucked around with my life like that for years. Now I knew that if this all went tits up, I still had my house, Duncan’s cooking, and a bunch of dumb videos to watch to go back to. I’d land on solid ground.

Micah stopped at the end of the sidewalk and nodded his head to the side. “I’m parked over there.”

I hiked a thumb over my shoulder in the opposite direction. “I’m that way.”

Micah’s eyes flicked toward the lot I’d parked at and back to me. He bit his lip and ran his index finger down my sternum, watching the trail he drew toward my belly button.

He barely touched me, and I still felt it all the way to my cock. I bit my lip to stop myself from groaning on the sidewalk.

“Yeah,” Micah murmured, like he agreed with me. He took several steps backward and tucked a hand into the pocket of his skinny jeans. It was impressive as hell how he got it in there so smoothly. “See you soon.”

I watched him spin around and walk away. Unable to trust whether my pants concealed my body’s response, I quickly adjusted them and headed to my car, Micah’s touch still hot on my skin.

MICAH

Inviting Nik to come to my place was the perfect distraction from the hellish day I’d had yesterday. He’d caught my eye earlier in the night, alone and observing the crowd. It wasn’t as if he was being pushed away from the party—it looked purposeful.