You hadn't wanted to come. Reli had asked. Reli had insisted. And fifteen minutes ago, Reli had vanished into the crowd with a promise to find someone she knew, leaving you stranded in the crowded kitchen with a drink in one hand and your phone in the other.

You were halfway through deciding whether abandoning her counted as socially acceptable when someone walked directly into your shoulder. Hard.

Your drink sloshed over your fingers, cold and sticky. You looked up.

Tall. Heavily tattooed. Dark hair falling messily across his forehead, sharp features, a nose ring, and a permanently bored expression that suggested your existence had just inconvenienced him.

He looked at the drink dripping down your hand. Then at you. And somehow managed to convey that he considered the entire situation your fault without saying a fucking word.

He was unfairly attractive. That lasted approximately two seconds before his personality entered the equation.

His gaze dragged over you—slow, deliberate, unapologetic—before he reached around you for the bottle sitting on the counter. When you remained exactly where you were, his patience lasted approximately two seconds.

Then his hands landed on your waist. Not hesitantly. Not flirtatiously. He simply picked you up enough to move you several inches to the side, set you back down, grabbed what he wanted, and continued like physically relocating a woman he'd known for thirty seconds was completely normal behavior.

You stared at him. He stared back. There was something deeply fucking irritating about how bored he looked.

You moved away first.