The clock had inexorably struck three in the morning, and the club had sunk into that thick, sticky state where euphoria begins to give way to a heavy hangover even before it has set in. The bass thudded against his chest, vibrating in time with his pulse. Only the most resilient were letting loose on the dance floor, squeezing every last drop of energy out of themselves under the strobe lights, while the rest, exhausted, simply sat at the tables, mechanically finishing off the last of their drinks and shouting meaningless phrases over the music.

Lucas sat in the center of his usual circle, lazily bringing the bottle to his lips. It was already his sixth beer of the evening. He had never been a fan of hard liquor. Strong alcohol blurred his control, and control was more important to Lucas than air. That incident a year ago, when some stranger in a bar slipped something into his glass, taught him the golden rule: trust only your instincts. The only thing that saved him back then was that he knew the smell of his favorite lager all too well, and as soon as he caught a faint whiff of a foreign chemical note, he flung the contents into the nearest pot with a palm tree. Since then, he had been reluctant to let new people into his circle, preferring tried-and-true, predictable friends.

Life was buzzing all around him, and he was its undeniable center. Mia sat on his lap, as if on a throne. With her entire demeanor, with every curve of her body, she made it clear: this night belonged to her. Lucas held her around the waist, but a strange, cloying feeling was growing inside him. He felt like that very baton being passed in a relay race, only he wasn't running toward the finish line but endlessly changing stations. He was in his element: loud music, laughter, drunken glances directed at him, a thirst for attention. He liked it so much that he could have lived here, in this eternal Friday haze spilling over into Saturday morning. The thought gave him a brief, false joy.
But Mia kept fidgeting on his lap, and it was starting to get on his nerves. She was beautiful, yes. Flawless hair, neon lips, tanned skin. But her smile, too wide, too eager, sometimes provoked an inexplicable, dull irritation in him. She constantly reminded him of someone or something. No, not someone. Rather, her very existence underscored the absence of someone else. The one whose cold, reserved smile made Lucas's blood truly boil.

"All right, enough," he decided to himself. He'd promised to spend the night with her, and that's exactly what he'd do. A one-time thing. Nothing new, just biology and closing the loop after a disastrous week. But the girl was so persistent, her fingers clinging so tightly to his jacket, that it seemed to him he wouldn't be able to shake her off that easily. 

She was already making plans for the morning. And she'd even suggested some kind of camping trip. Bullshit.

"Time to go."

Lucas stood up abruptly, forcing Mia to lean hastily on his shoulder so she wouldn't lose her balance. He tossed a quick "See you later" to his friends and, ignoring their goodbyes, took the girl—who hadn't stopped chattering—by the hand and dragged her toward the exit. He needed to speed things up, warm her up, and do without any further foreplay or talk of feelings.
The cold night air hit his face like a slap, washing the smell of sweat and cheap alcohol from his skin. Before they even reached a taxi, Lucas turned into the first dark, narrow alleyway, squeezed between the brick walls of old buildings. It was quiet here, except for the distant hum of the city.
Lucas spun Mia around abruptly and pressed her back against the wall. His kiss was incredibly demanding. A rough, insistent, tenderless kiss. He roughly parted her lips with his mouth; his tongue forcefully penetrated inside, setting a fast, mechanical rhythm, as if trying to squeeze the spark he needed from this situation by force.

Mia, caught off guard by such a sudden advance, gasped right into his mouth. Her body reacted instantly to his dominance: her knees buckled treacherously, her fingers clung desperately to the lapels of his jacket, and she began to slide slowly, limply down the wall, letting out a quiet, vibrating moan.
But this movement annoyingly threw Lucas off his rhythm. The weight of her body pulled her down, breaking the comfortable angle and making the kiss awkward.

“Stand still,” a thought flashed through his mind with undisguised outward anger.
His hands shot to her waist. His fingers dug harshly, almost painfully, into her soft flesh through the thin fabric of her top. With a sudden jerk, without any caution, he pulled her back toward him and pressed her shoulder blades hard against the solid wall, pinning her firmly in place.
He resumed the kiss, now even more fierce, trying to overcome his own irritation. But instead of the expected surge of passion, his taste buds were struck by something else. He hated the taste of her lipstick to the point of nausea. That sticky, chemical film instantly coated his tongue. The synthetic aftertaste of cherry and petroleum jelly was so fake that it instantly sobered him up, turning the kiss from an act of passion into a dirty job.

Suddenly, a soft, unexpected moan tore them apart.

Startled, they froze, looked at each other first, and then slowly turned their heads toward the depths of the alley, from where that vibrating sound had come.
Seven paces away from them, in the dim light, a scene took shape that instantly made Lucas’s throat go dry. A man, holding a girl close to him as she sat on the edge of some broken wooden table, was devouring her with wild, frenzied passion. One of his hands had confidently and greedily slipped beneath her short skirt, sliding across her skin, while the other gripped her hair tightly, almost roughly, forcing her to tilt her head back and expose her neck to his lips. You could sense a hunger and an absolute, undivided possession emanating from these two, exuding such a primal, overwhelming force that the air around them seemed to become electrified. It felt as though he and Mia had accidentally wandered onto the set of an expensive porn film.
Lucas would probably have just snorted and gone back to what he was doing, if not for one “but.” He was too stunned to move. His brain refused to process the visual information, but his body already knew the answer.
That masculine figure, that sharp, commanding arch of the back, that way of holding his partner... That figure was painfully familiar to him.

Adrian.