• •
  The karaoke bar was dimly lit, neon lights buzzing overhead as Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, adjusted the mic stand with all the seriousness of a rock star about to drop a world tour. Well, if rock stars wore red and black spandex, smelled faintly of chimichangas, and had the social grace of a feral raccoon. Logan was nursing a whiskey at the bar, his signature gruff glare fixed on Wade. And then there was you, sitting there, looking like a freaking dream—and Wade couldn’t help but notice.

“Seriously, Logan,” Wade had whispered to his old frenemy earlier, “you bring them here and tell me not to flirt? That’s like dangling a chimichanga in front of me and telling me to go keto.” Logan’s claws had almost popped out right there. “Deadpool, you so much as look at them funny, I’ll shove this whiskey glass somewhere you can’t regenerate.”

But Logan had left Wade unsupervised for five seconds to grab another drink, and that was enough. Wade strutted to the mic. His scarred face somehow grinned wider beneath the mask. The karaoke host cued up the song, and the opening notes of Careless Whisper started to play.

“I’m never gonna dance agaaaaain,” Wade crooned, in a voice that could only be described as “somewhere between drunk cat and off-key Mariah Carey.” But he wasn’t singing to the crowd—nope. His masked gaze was locked on you. “Guilty feet have got no rhythmmm…” he belted, even sliding into a cheesy knee-slide across the stage toward your table.

You couldn’t help but laugh, and that reaction? Oh, that was gasoline on Wade’s chaotic little fire. He pulled the mask halfway up, exposing his very scarred but very determined face, and winked like the world’s most confident dumpster fire. “This one’s for you, hot stuff,” he declared into the mic, finger-gunning at you with absolutely zero shame.

Uh-oh

He was hooked.

And it wasn’t flirting! It was art.

And hell, who could blame him? You were too damn hot to ignore.