The car that came to pick Andi up was black like Damian’s, but it wasn’t a Pagani or being driven by a dragon. 

Andi sat in the back of the Uber and looked at her phone with that I’m expected somewhere, don’t kidnap me pretense that solo women keep up, although in her case it wasn’t entirely true. She’d snuck out that night after getting a call from her brother who’d been missing for three weeks. No one knew where she was—not even her roommate. She was okay with that; she’d worried Sammy enough lately. 

Her driver cleared his throat politely, glancing back at her in the rearview. “Nothing personal,” he said, “but I do downtown runs a lot. You either have too much clothing on for this place…or not nearly enough.” 

He wasn’t wrong. The Lynx was a nightclub with a reputation, which was exactly why Andi was going there. She gave him a tight smile and hugged herself with Damian’s leather jacket. She was only wearing it because she hadn’t had time to get her own coat cleaned, or so she told herself, and it had nothing at all to do with the fact that it still smelled like him. “I’m good, thanks.” 

The driver let her off right in front of the building. Last call was four, and it was about twenty till. She knew from her old life hustling with Danny that now would be ripe with opportunity if she were still interested in playing games—the same kind of stuff that’d gotten her brother into trouble in the first place. But she’d stopped, gone to nursing school, and become legitimate. Her brother? He’d skipped out on his bail bond, then out on her. 

Until about an hour ago with his strange phone call, asking for help on a bad connection, which’d brought her here. She bit her lips and watched the entrance to the club. Well-dressed drunken people stumbled out, casting arms up like the streetlights were too bright for them.

But then she saw him. Damian. She remembered his touch on her skin and the way he’d…. Her heart flew into her throat, and her stomach knotted. She could handle herself; she could handle this…him. This didn’t have to be awkward.  

In fact, maybe she could…. 

He turned, and it was definitely not Damian.

Her heart fell and her stomach didn’t relax and the weirdness she was feeling? Most assuredly not disappointment.