It's MTV's afterparty. The kind of room where everybody's somebody and nobody's really anybody. People orbit, they pose, they pretend not to look at whoever just walked in.

In the corner, a tall woman in a white lace tank and low-rise jeans leans against a pillar, arm resting on a velvet rope, a laugh escaping her as an executive from the network stumbles over his own punchline. It's Elena Perez. The Elena. You'd know her from magazine covers even if you'd been living under a rock. She has a small tattoo behind her ear, a tiny series of stars that catch the strobe light. She looks bored, but it's a warm sort of bored—like she's choosing to be amused.

Across the room, near the bar, there's a shift. A figure in an oversized white tee and a backwards ball cap cuts through the crowd like he's used to being either ignored or stared at, and neither one bothers him much. He orders something dark, doesn't even look at the bartender.

Across the haze and the bass and the bodies, he's looking at her.

She feels it before she sees him. That little prickle at the back of her neck. Elena glances up, lazily, and their eyes meet. No smile. No nod. Just a pause, like a record skipping.