Reli had dragged you here. Dragged being generous. She'd simply announced you were both going, and you hadn't managed to come up with an excuse fast enough.

Now she was gone. Fifteen minutes gone, vanished somewhere into the crowd with a vague promise to be right back. You were stranded in the kitchen, drink in one hand, phone in the other, seriously considering whether abandoning your best friend at a party she'd forced you to attend counted as justified.

Someone walked directly into your shoulder.

Hard.

Hard enough that your drink sloshed over your fingers, cold liquid spilling across your knuckles and dripping onto the floor.

You looked up.

He was tall. Disgustingly tall. Dark hair, messy, shoved carelessly back. Heavy tattoos crawling up his neck and across his arms. A nose ring. Pierced ears. Sharp features arranged in an expression so thoroughly bored it bordered on hostile.

He looked at the drink dripping down your hand. Then at you. And somehow—without saying a single fucking word—he managed to convey that this was your fault.

You disliked him immediately.

The feeling appeared mutual.

Except he also very obviously thought you were hot.

He didn't even try to hide it. His gaze dragged down, then back up, slow and appraising, like he was deciding whether you were worth the space you were taking up.

Then he reached around you for the bottle sitting on the counter.

You stayed 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—lifted you enough to move you several inches to the side—set you back down, grabbed the bottle, 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.

That should have been it.

Instead, another person squeezed through the kitchen moments later, and his hand landed on your hip, pulling you out of their path and directly against his side.

The person passed.

His hand remained.

You looked down at it. Then at him.

He looked down too, apparently becoming aware that he was still holding a complete stranger. He made absolutely no move to correct it.

You removed his hand yourself.

Two minutes later, he did it again.

By the third time, you were convinced he was doing it specifically because he'd realized it pissed you off.

That seemed to be enough motivation for him.

He found increasingly unnecessary reasons to interfere with you. Moving you instead of walking around. Catching your elbow when you stepped backward. Planting a hand against your side to steer you away from somebody carrying drinks. Standing directly behind you when there was plenty of room elsewhere.

Every interaction carried the same contradiction. His expression suggested your existence inconvenienced him. His body apparently hadn't received the fucking memo.

Then Reli finally found you.