The Warning
The studio smelled like paint and chemicals. Kai looked mad at his canvas. He wanted to paint something good and nice, but it wasn't happening. His hand shook, and the paint went all wrong.
He cursed under his breath, trying to fix the mess, but it only got worse. The room was quiet, except for the sounds of art supplies moving. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, but Kai's mind was blank. He couldn't focus.
His mind continued to wander back to the club's darkness, to whiskey and shining marble, to Adrian Veyra's eyes stopping him in his tracks as if the universe had been reduced to a single point between them.
You don't belong here.
So why are you here?
Those words had lodged somewhere inside him, and no matter how he attempted to hide them, he could not.
"Kai?"
Kai's gaze shifted to Mara, who was sitting beside him, her pencil tapping out a nervous beat on her sketchpad. Her eyes were full of concern as she said,
You've been lost in thought all morning. That painting doesn't even seem to be giving you a hard time anymore, she said with a small, forced smile.
Kai dropped his brush into the jar of murky water. Yeah. Guess I'm just tired. Been working nights.
"At that club?" she asked. "The one near the financial district?"
He nodded, pretending to straighten his palette.
Mara's brow furrowed in concern. You're not naive about that place, are you? It's not somewhere you go to have fun. It's where people make deals that are off the books. she said, her voice low.
Kai's throat closed up. I just pour drinks,"he whispered. That's all."
She looked at him closely, like she was searching for something. "Just be careful, okay? Places like that can change people," she said.
He nodded quickly, relieved when she dropped it. But her words stuck with him all day.
That night, the city lights were extra bright. The club's fancy lights shone like a magic trick at the end of the street. Inside, it was loud and colorful, with strong perfumes and cologne filling the air. The music was pounding, and Kai could feel it in his chest.
Kai stepped back behind the bar, the apron fabric cool against his skin. He slowed his breathing, remembered Mara's warning, did not think of Adrian Veyra.
The first two hours were nearly successful. The work was a rhythm: pour, serve, smile, repeat. The clients' conversation turned to background noise. He found himself thinking the night would pass uneventfully.
Then the shift happened.
He felt it before he saw it the subtle ripple that moved through the crowd, the sudden stillness that always seemed to follow one man. Conversations faltered; laughter dimmed.
Adrian Veyra had arrived.
Kai's pulse quickened, his fingers slick against the glass he was drying. He didn't look up right away, but his body knew knew the way the air changed, knew that weight was settling over the room.
When he finally worked up the courage to look up, there he was.
Adrian cut through the throng of people with the power of gravity, unruffled, measured, past disregard. This evening his suit was black, no tie, open at the first two buttons of his shirt. Low light set gold across his cheekbones. Two men followed him, both in dark suits, the kind of men who watched rather than spoke.
Adrian reached the bar and stopped directly in front of Kai.
"Scotch," he said, voice low, smooth enough to be felt more than heard.
Kai nodded quickly, determined not to mess up this time. He poured the amber liquid with steady hands, sliding the glass across the counter.
Adrian didn't touch it. Not yet.
Instead, he studied Kai, head tilted slightly. "You came back."
Kai's throat went dry. "It's… my job."
One of the men beside Adrian laughed, a fleeting one crammed with amusement but not with warmth. Adrian did not respond to him. "Anyway. You could have decided not."
"I am financially strapped," Kai said, more brusquely than he meant.
Adrian's gaze did not move. Then, with slow caution, he lifted the glass, drank the liquid, and set it down again with careful silence. Honesty, he muttered under his breath. That's not usual here.
Kai made himself smile, the kind that didn't touch his eyes, and occupied himself with wiping the counter. He couldn't get it why this game was this Adrian played even bothering to speak with him in the first place.
The conversation at the table shifted; the two men were discussing numbers, transactions, names that blurred together. Kai caught fragments: stocks, overseas account, shipment. None of it meant anything to him, but the steady, controlled voice informed him that these were not ordinary businessmen.
Adrian's gaze checked in with him every several minutes, and each time it happened Kai felt the ground tilt slightly.
When the men leaned their heads together to talk softly, Adrian inched forward again, his voice nearly lost beneath the music.
You won't be here long.
Kai froze. What do you mean?
This place swallows people like you whole, Adrian answered. His voice was flat, but something icy trailed beneath it. You're not cut for it.
I'm just picking up a job,Kai answered softly, fighting to catch Adrian's gaze. Nothing else.
Adrian's lips curved faintly, a ghost of amusement. That's what everyone says at first.
Before Kai could answer, one of the companions spoke his name, drawing him back to the conversation. Adrian turned slightly away, and the moment broke.
Still, Kai's pulse refused to slow. He went through the motions mixing, serving, nodding but his mind kept circling that single exchange. *You shouldn't stay here too long.*
It wasn't a threat. It was intimate.
When the men left, Adrian put his glass down and looked at Kai. His gaze was brief, but it felt like a warning and a challenge all at once. Then, he was gone, lost in the crowd.
The rest of the night was slow for Kai. His body kept moving, but his mind was stuck on the look Adrian gave him, and what it might mean. This place eats people like you alive.
Pity? Threat? Something else?
After the last customer left, the bar smelled like booze and perfume. Kai cleaned up his fingers feeling numb. The other bartender said goodbye but Kai didn't really hear him. Outside the rain had washed the town clean. The streets shone under the streetlights and cars splashed through puddles. Kai wrapped his jacket around himself and started walking. He couldn't stop thinking about what.
Mara said, Be careful, I don't want you getting in too deep.
And beneath it, Adrian's You shouldn't stay here too long.
He curled his fists inside his pockets, his teeth clenched. Why would a man like Adrian be concerned enough to warn him? Notice him, even?
He lingered at the crosswalk, watching the red light spread over the slick sidewalk. Maybe Adrian was right he didn't fit. That club existed in a glass and hidden world of people who calculated value in power and silence.
But that world had seen him. Adrian had seen him. And so that however stupid made it harder to leave.
By the time he got to his apartment, the rain had stopped. The room was tighter than ever before. He collapsed onto the bed without taking off his jacket, eyes following the creases in the ceiling. The hum of the traffic outside was distant, almost calming.
He ought to sleep. Rather his head replayed the evening in fragments Adrian at the bar, his reassuring voice that impenetrable look The burning flush of their final look.
This place eats away at people like you.
Was it a threat? A test?
Kai rolled onto his side hiding his face in the pillow. This was insane, Adrian Veyra was everything, he didn't possess confidence, money , mystery. Men like him did not date men like him.
And still, the thought persisted. The tone of Adrian's voice ran through his mind, low and slow, like a refrain from a dream that refused to fade away.
He wanted to see him again.
The realization struck home, honest and somewhat frightening
Morning came gray and stifling. Kai pulled himself out of bed, splashed his face with cold water, and sat down once again in front of his canvas. Colors stared back at him lifeless, He tried to make strokes that ought to have been movement and produced tentative ones,He tried again but each line trembled.
"Art takes attention, Kai," he had once been instructed by his teacher. "Feeling is great, but attention brings it into being."
He couldn't find either.
Anger fueled his painting until he finally stopped. He slammed his brush against the easel, then cleaned up his supplies.
His eyes landed on the pile of bills in the corner, and he frowned. They didn't complain or judge him. The truth was, the club paid him just enough to get by. Without it, he'd be in trouble.
So, despite Mara's warnings and Adrian's coldness, he'd go back.
He had to.
That night, the walk was longer. The same streets, the same neon glow, but leaden now, as if with the weight of last night's words in every step. When he arrived at the club, the guards waved him through without hesitation. He had a guess about how long it would be before they ceased to regard him as a new face.
Inside, music hummed softly and incessantly, pulsating like a heartbeat beneath the lights. Laughter curled and receded in waves. It was all the same, but to Kai it was all sharper, outlined with unseen tension.
He tied on his apron, put on a smile, and stepped behind the bar. Adrian might not appear tonight. Maybe the message had been a way of slamming the door shut.
But on another plane, Kai knew that he knew better.
Men like Adrian didn't give a second glance and forget.
He had served the first drink of the night, the clinking of the liquid into the glass jarringly loud in his ears. And then there was the familiar shift, the tightening of the room that signaled tension, the spreading silence.
Adrian Veyra had arrived.
And whatever he had said, whatever threat there was behind his words, Kai could already sense: Adrian was not going to let him off that easily.
To Be Continued