Chapter 1: Last Call for Virginity
The whiskey burned a familiar path down Rory’s throat, a heat that did nothing to melt the ice in her chest. She slammed the glass down, the sound swallowed by the groan of the jukebox shifting to another track. Something about love being a battlefield. She almost laughed.
The Neon Inferno lived up to its name. Flickering red and blue neon tubes buzzed overhead, casting a sick, intermittent glow over everything. It made the peeling vinyl of the booths look like open wounds, the sticky patches on the tables gleam like swamp lichen. The air was a solid thing—thick with old cigarette smoke, spilled beer, and a sweet, rotting undertone she couldn’t name. Regret, maybe.
Her eyes swept the room. A couple of old-timers nursing pints in the corner, a trio of mechanics covered in grease, their laughter too loud. No one. No one who looked like they could do the job.
Then she felt it. A pressure, a shift in the atmosphere like a door opening into a cold room. Her gaze snapped to the bar.
He was watching her. A tall man, dark hair falling just a little too perfectly over a forehead that had seen a lot of sun, or maybe a lot of sleepless nights. His face was weathered, not old, but used. He leaned against the polished wood with an easy arrogance, one finger tracing the rim of a bourbon glass. And he smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was a recognition. A predator spotting another predator, or maybe just spotting prey.
Rory held the look, her jaw tight. Challenge accepted.
He moved then, smooth and unhurried, sliding off the stool and crossing the room with a loose-hipped gait. He didn’t ask. He just took the empty space on the stained velvet beside her, his body heat an immediate intrusion.
“You drink like you’re trying to kill something,” he said. His voice was a low rasp, a match striking in the dark.
“Maybe I am,” Rory said, not looking at him, signaling the bartender for another. Two glasses appeared. She pushed one toward him. A transaction beginning.
“Liam.”
“Rory.”
“Pretty name for a woman with murder in her eyes.” He took the glass, clinked it against hers without a toast, and drank. His eyes never left her face, cataloging the tension in her neck, the defiant set of her shoulders. “What’s the target?”
“Myself,” she said, and tossed the whiskey back. The burn was comforting now. An old friend.
Liam’s smirk deepened. He leaned in, and she caught the scent of him—cologne, bourbon, and something earthy, like clean dirt. “That’s a waste of good ammunition. And a waste of you.” His hand came up, not to touch her, but to gesture to the bartender for another round. An assumption. “Seems like you want to feel something. Anything. Even if it’s just the feeling of being wrecked.”
Her breath hitched. He saw too much. It should have felt dangerous. It just felt inevitable.
“You offering to do the wrecking?” Her voice was steadier than she felt.
“I’m offering an alternative to staring at the bottom of a glass. It looks the same every night.” He finally touched her then, just the back of his index finger brushing the inside of her wrist where her pulse hammered. A clinical sort of touch. Testing. “I can promise you won’t think for a few hours. You won’t remember your name. Or his.”
She flinched. His. The word was a needle slipped between her ribs. How did he know? Maybe it was just the universal script. The look of a woman alone, drinking hard, always had a ‘he’ attached to it.
The fresh shots came. She didn’t reach for hers. She was studying his face, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes that spoke of laughter she knew wasn’t kind, the firm set of a mouth that looked like it could deliver a lie as easily as a kiss. He was exactly what she needed. A tool. A blunt instrument.
“No names,” she said, her voice flat.
His eyes glittered in the neon half-light. “Who am I, then?”
“Nobody. And I’m nobody. That’s the point.”
A slow, approving nod. He finished his drink and stood, extending a hand. It was large, the knuckles slightly scarred. Not an office worker’s hand. “Let’s go be nobodies, then.”
She placed her hand in his. His grip was firm, final. He pulled her to her feet, too close for a stranger, his body a solid line against hers. The jukebox crooned about hearts and confusion. He didn’t bother to pay his tab. He just started walking, leading her past the bored bartender, past the mechanics who now watched with knowing, leering grins.
The night air outside was a slap—cool and sharp, clearing the whiskey fog for a brutal second. The alley beside the Inferno was a canyon of shadows and reeking dumpsters. He didn’t walk toward the street, toward a car, toward the pretense of a bed. He turned into the darkness, pulling her with him.
Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. This was it. The recklessness she’d ordered.
He backed her against the cold brick wall, one hand planted beside her head, caging her. The neon from the bar sign painted his face in alternating strokes of criminal red and ghostly blue. His other hand came up and gripped her chin, not gently, forcing her to look at him.
“Last chance to be somebody,” he murmured, his breath warm and sour with liquor. “The door’s right there.”
She stared up at him, at the empty, handsome face of her chosen destruction. She saw no kindness in it. No future. Just a perfect, blank canvas for her anger and her grief.
“Fuck you,” she breathed, not a rejection, but a command.
His answering smile was all teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the idea.”
And as he leaned in, the world narrowed to the smell of stale trash and his cologne, to the rough brick at her back and the heavier weight of him pressing closer. The momentum was absolute now, a stone dropped down a well, and all she could do was fall with it into the dark.