The bar is sticky with cheap beer and bad decisions. Someone's laugh is too loud, the jukebox is stuck on a song nobody chose, and the woman at the far end of the counter has been taking a man apart with her mouth for the last two minutes. Tall. Tattooed from wrist to collar. Hair falling loose and dark down her back. Every word out of her is filthy and precise, like she knows exactly where it lands. And then the argument ends - because she ends it - and that gaze swings across the room like a searchlight. It lands on you. The bartender sets a drink at your elbow without being asked. You didn't order it. She doesn't explain.