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Chapter Text

Lola Johansson POV

I used to tell myself I hated New York. I said it out loud the way people say they hate their mothers—like it was a dare, like I wanted the city to slap me and tell me to watch my mouth. But I meant it. I hated the constant noise, the way the air always smelled like it had a secret, the rats fat as dachshunds, the landlords fatter. I hated how everyone wanted to stand out but ended up looking the same—black jeans, ironic tote bag, sensible sneakers with enough dirt to pass as personality.

I told myself I wanted a cul-de-sac life with a dog that didn’t bark and a porch that didn’t smell like stale cigarettes. A house that held heat in winter and secrets in summer. A refrigerator stocked with things you didn’t have to ration: cold cuts, lemonade, six perfect nectarines wearing their fuzz like a promise. 

“I hate it here,” I muttered to nobody, which in Manhattan counts as prayer.

New York, in return, gave me what it always did: wind up the skirt, the smell of damp bakery cardboard, a stranger’s elbow waiving diplomatic immunity. And me—Lola Johansson, doctoral student in art history, part-time bartender, full-time apologist for the worst decisions of people I love—moving too fast to be believed.

That morning, I was running late to seminar, and New York gave me its usual punishment.

The N train had stalled between stations long enough for a baby to scream herself hoarse. The conductor kept apologizing in a voice that said he wasn’t sorry. The car smelled like too many coats and one wet umbrella. By the time the doors opened at Eighth Street, I’d already sweated through my shirt under my jacket. I shoved my way up the stairs, tote bag bouncing against my hip, coffee leaking through its flimsy lid onto my hand. Aboveground, Broadway was Broadway—cabs lunging at pedestrians, delivery guys swerving like ballerinas on deathtraps, a man preaching about salvation with a snake coiled around his wrist like a bracelet.

I cut across to the NYU campus, dodging tourists who thought Washington Square Park was a museum installation instead of a long-running endurance test. The arch gleamed like it had something to prove. A saxophonist was blaring Coltrane under it, loud enough to make dogs howl. College kids lounged on the fountain’s rim even though the air was still sharp with February. I envied them—their innocence, their belief that the city still owed them something.

Inside, I flashed my ID at security and bolted up the stairs, late but not fatally so. Halprin was the kind of professor who never seemed to notice time passing—she could start lecture ten minutes late or twenty minutes early, and she’d still finish with the exact same calm smile. I slid into my seat with the precision of someone who had practiced arriving late until it looked intentional. Tote bag down, notebook open, pen out, chin lifted: a little theater to distract from the fact that my lungs were still screaming.

Today’s seminar was *Materiality and the Sacred Image.* A title designed to make your teeth itch. Three hours of tracing the history of iconoclasm, aura, and why people keep getting mad at objects. The kind of thing grad students pretend to love and secretly want to set on fire.

Halprin stood at the head of the table like a benevolent specter in monochrome linen. She clasped her hands. “Shall we begin with Caravaggio or Benjamin?” she asked, as if either choice wasn’t a small act of war.

The room split instantly. The sculptor kid—who hated painting but loved hearing himself talk—muttered something about Caravaggio’s obsession with violence. Another girl, the kind who decorated her marginalia with flowers, voted for Benjamin.

Halprin’s gaze drifted toward me. “Lola?”

I leaned back in my chair, letting my voice go calm and venomous, the way I’d learned at Columbia. “Caravaggio, obviously. You start with Benjamin, everyone hides behind theory. Start with Caravaggio, you get blood under your nails.”

A ripple of laughter. Halprin’s mouth twitched. Approval.

We opened with *The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,* a painting that was basically fan fiction about doubt. Thomas poking his finger into Christ’s wound, Caravaggio showing us flesh as proof. We talked about whether faith needed evidence, whether the body could be holy, whether realism was devotion or blasphemy.

I raised my hand and heard my voice do that calm, slightly poisonous thing I’d learned in Columbia seminars, a tone that said, I slept four hours and read three books and I will not be misled. I said something about the crude devotion of touch, about how varnish is both shield and veil, about how belief doesn’t sit still when you stare at it. I said “polychrome” like I owned the word. I said “apotheosis” and didn’t even flinch. Snark was a jewel you wore on your tongue.

Someone argued that Caravaggio was just shock value with a paintbrush. I cut in: “Shock is a devotional economy. You can’t look away, which is the whole point. Holiness is less about light and more about demand.”

“Are you saying aura survives reproduction?” a kid asked.

“I’m saying aura is promiscuous,” I shot back. “It survives because it doesn’t care who’s looking, only that someone is.”

That earned another laugh. I jotted it in my notes—**aura cheats**—underlined it twice.

By the second hour, we’d shifted to Benjamin. *The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.* The kind of essay that makes you want to bash your head into the copier just to prove a point. Everyone was reciting the usual lines about authenticity, aura, the death of originality. I tuned in and out, doodling a floor plan of a bar in my notebook. Old habits. I shaded in the spot where the ice well should go, made sure there was no corner dark enough for fruit flies to unionize. My hands remembered bars better than they remembered theory.

Halprin called on me again. “Thoughts on reproduction, Lola?”

I tucked my pen into the spiral binding, smirked. “If aura can’t survive duplication, then why do people cry in front of postcards?”

The sculptor groaned. “Because they’re idiots.”

“Or,” I countered, “because aura doesn’t live in the object. It lives in the person. And people reproduce better than anything else.”

Halprin tilted her head, pleased. “Promiscuous, indeed.”

When discussion veered into museum restitution, I felt that familiar ache that wasn’t quite anger. It was the ache of knowing the whole thing—the scholarship, the debate, the exhibit labels—was a polite version of the same chaos happening outside. Old white men had stolen things and renamed them philanthropy. Younger, trendier white men wrote think pieces about it. The objects sat in climate-controlled cases like cats that had learned not to scratch. Meanwhile, the subway rats paraded trophies no one would catalog or return. I didn’t say any of that. I liked passing the class.

By the third hour my brain felt tenderized. I doodled a floor plan of a bar I didn’t own and, without thinking, placed the ice well more efficiently than the one at The Commodore. Muscle memory. Twelve years behind bars, and my hand still designed like survival. I shaded a corner and wrote “no good place for fruit flies to unionize.” Someone at the end of the table was arguing that modern pilgrimage sites are airports. I wanted to say the modern pilgrimage site is a club bathroom where a stranger shares her eyeliner and a tiny, tiny truth. I didn’t say that either. Some things you keep for the night.

We were finally dismissed with a chorus of “see you next week” that sounded like a threat to time itself. I packed my bag, the way I always did—notes on top, copy of Iconoclash wedged spine-up, wallet in the pocket that I kept insisting would deter pickpockets (it wouldn’t). My phone buzzed like it had been waiting for a cue.

Group Chat: The Coven

Anna: 9 tonight? We’re going out.

Gen: I second the motion.

Anna: Union Pool? The Woods? Baby’s?

Gen: Not The Commodore. I can’t hear another pledge bro explain mezcal like he discovered Oaxaca last week.

Me: I just sat through three hours of aura discourse. My soul is tender. Take me somewhere cheap, dark, and with a bouncer who looks like he pays child support.

Anna: So Baby’s?

Me: Yes. Thank you. I’d rather swallow a mop than explain picklebacks to another finance bro in boat shoes.

Anna: Look, I’m just trying to dance in a room where no one throws a bottle.

Anna: Oh btw. I’ve been talking to Jake and Roxie about the Rabbit. She wants me to start lining up a crew.

Gen: My dad’s gonna fuck it up.

Me: Ok, but Roxie can resurrect the dead with a hot dog. If she’s in, it might actually work.

Anna: So Baby’s tonight. We’ll celebrate before Vince finds a new way to blow up the new place before it opens.

Me: Fine. But you’re buying the first round.

Gen: You two owe me pierogis if I have to bail you out again.

I stared at the screen, smirking. Baby’s it was. The Mancuso crowd probably had it on lock tonight—Gen’s casual mention of her dad always implied a bigger shadow hanging over the room. But that was fine. I wasn’t afraid of shadows. They were just places to stand when the light got too bright.

I’d grown up with Gen’s dad, Vince, orbiting men like Mancuso with a mix of awe and grievance. Vince Friedkin had a salesman’s smile and a gambler’s god. He used to show up at Brighton Beach with half-cocked schemes and the charisma of a man who could convince you to buy your own shoes. He and Jake had the Black Rabbit idea longer than they had funding, longer than they had a location, longer than they had a liquor license. But lately the air around them tasted like things were finally, stupidly possible. If they had Roxie, they had a nucleus. Roxie could make a funeral feel like a soft opening. She commanded the kind of loyalty that only comes from letting staff cry in the walk-in and then giving them a cigarette.

I slung the tote back over my shoulder and stepped into the February air. The city howled, indifferent and alive. My feet carried me toward the night without asking permission.

On the way out, I cut through the park. Washington Square smelled like hot pretzels and weed and a secret that could ruin you in a good way. The arch did its stately white thing, looking like a wedding cake you could walk through. A saxophonist played “Naima” under it with enough heartbreak to detach enamel. Near the fountain, tourists were practicing joy like it was choreography. I touched the edge of the basin and thought about ritual water, about pilgrims and fountains and the modern liturgy of throwing your rent money at a city that laughed in quarters.

Coney Island felt far and near at the same time—like a bruise I forgot until I pressed. I remembered being fourteen, walking the boardwalk with Gen, our toes blackened with cheap flip-flop dust, the rides yawning above us like steel ghosts. Gen’s mother smoked Parliaments and talked to the ocean like it owed her. Vince brought us cotton candy and promises. We learned very young to eat the sugar and not the story.

When my parents died, I didn’t go to the boardwalk. I went to the bar. Margaret and Bill Johansson were very good at being the kind of people who filed taxes early and substituted applesauce for oil in boxed cake mix. They were less good at having a second child once they got a surprise first biological one. When the will split the remainders to my sister, I didn’t even flinch. It seemed fair, on paper. I had been so many things to them—grateful, quiet, useful—but never central. I could recognize a composition when I saw one. I just pivoted my weight to the people who made room for me without an agenda: Gen. Anna. The dangerous, forgiving city.

I went home first because the day had sweated through me. Shower, quick—steam fogging the mirror, the city’s grime sliding down the drain like old gossip. I put on the outfit that worked in most lighting situations: black slip skirt that moved when I decided, a ribbed tank that passed for demure until it didn’t, boots that made me taller and meaner. I lined my eyes until they were weapons and put on the perfume that smelled like vetiver and an alibi. I shoved cash, ID, and a lipstick the color of bruised cherries into a crossbody.

I took the L to Bedford because I’m old-fashioned and masochistic. The car was filled with twenty-two-year-olds who thought Williamsburg was something they invented and a woman in a suit too good for a Thursday who fell asleep standing. A guy with a soft guitar and softer brain played a song that rhymed “Brooklyn” with “lookin’” and someone gave him a dollar for effort.  I cut down to Broadway and then to Baby’s All Right because I didn’t want to pass The Commodore and get conscripted into a Vegas of pickle juice. The pink lighting at Baby’s made everyone prettier and less honest. The room’s lights glowed like a set of false teeth in a glass. The stage smelled like stale cymbals. It was early enough that the staff still moved like prey—quick, alert, fragile.

Anna was already at the bar, backlit. Anna looked like she always looked in a bar: at home. She kissed me on the cheek in a way that felt like she was stamping approval. Gen slid in behind me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, chin in my hair. “My favorite fake academic,” she murmured, even though I was very real and very indebted for my degree. 

“My favorite grifter’s daughter,” I said, and she cackled like I’d told her something new.\

We got well whiskey with beer backs because we were honest about our finances and our intentions. The bartender clocked us as service industry and poured like she was making amends. Respect. The bouncer by the door had that look—ex-cage-fighter body, dad-on-the-weekends fatigue. He scanned the crowd and then let his eyes go bored, which is a kind of work.

“Okay,” Anna said, clinking glasses. “To the Rabbit that isn’t a rumor anymore.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Gen said, and knocked the bar twice like she was warding off her father. “Vince could still find a way to set fire to a rainstorm.”

“Roxie won’t let him,” Anna said. “She told Jake she wants me to start making a list. Staffing, playlists, vendors. She already called the beer distributor she likes.”

I laughed into my whiskey. “You’re the one in talks, huh?”

Anna gave me a sideways look. “Jealous?”

“I’m allergic to Vince’s optimism,” I said. “But Roxie’s in. That’s antihistamine.”

Gen smirked, a carving of amusement. “My dad is absolutely going to fuck it up,” she said, tone light, eyes not. “He could trip over a flat street.”

The room settled into us and we settled into it. Baby’s always looks like a set design of a memory—pink panels glowing behind the bar, the wall of plates winking like a joke you almost get, the back room pulsing under a fog of sweat and hairspray. It makes even bad choices look cinematic. We drifted toward the back as the DJ slotted something glossy and irresistible. The dance floor adjusted its breathing.

We danced. Gen moved like she’d been raised by rhythm and petty crime. Anna danced like she owned the building, which, in a way, she did; every bartender who’d ever worked a night alone owns the buildings she survived. I moved the way I always did when my brain finally quieted—hips first, then everything else catching up. The lights cut us into prettier versions of ourselves. Sweat beaded along my neck. Someone brushed past, a familiar presence that didn’t bother me until it did. It didn’t.

Between songs, we pushed back to the bar. Anna leaned in, tone casual enough to be suspicious. “Anyone got,” she paused, eyes skating, “sprinkles?”

Gen’s mouth slanted. “I’m out.”

“Of course you are,” I said. “Saint Gen of Saturday Morning.”

She shrugged. “I got my mother’s temper, not her vices.”

Anna looked at me, one eyebrow up. “Lola?”

I rolled my eyes with love. “Fine. I’ll ask around. Can’t believe I’m the responsible one here.”

“You’re the cute one,” Anna said.

“I’m the one with a face that says ‘don’t waste my time,’” I corrected. “Watch my drink.”

I peeled away from them, sliding around couples and clusters, assessing the room with the part of my brain that never stopped working. Coke has a smell that’s more scene than substance: anxious, mint-adjacent, like someone cleaned a mirror with a rumor. You don’t look for it so much as look for its orbit—the guys who don’t dance but still take up space, the girls whose pupils are moons, the bouncer who pretends not to see. Mancuso’s protection meant the edges were smooth tonight, no sloshed teenagers starting fights, no randoms getting brave near the bathrooms. That also meant product would be moving somewhere within twenty feet of the right people.

I saw him before he saw me because I’m trained to recognize the man who doesn’t match the furniture. Tall enough to look over the herd without looking like he wanted to be seen. Built like he lifted more than self-esteem. Clean dark jacket that didn’t try too hard. Hair that fell into place like it always listened. He stood near the back, against the wall where pink light went red and shadows got thicker. Talking to no one. Watching like it was his job, which it probably was.

He wasn’t a Baby’s boy.

I cut toward him with the nonchalance of a girl just going to use the bathroom. He smiled at me before I decided what face to make. Not practiced-charming. Just… sure. The kind of smile that makes you think of closed doors and open tabs.

“Looking for a friend?” he asked, voice low, amused. Brooklyn with something else baked in—Jersey, maybe; the kind of vowel that gets you out of tickets and into trouble.

“Aren’t we all,” I said.

He blinked. Then the nod, slow. “Tell me how I can be your friend tonight.”

“Well, my friends are out,” I said. “I’m looking.”

He assessed me in the way a man takes in a painting he’s already decided to buy: looking for the flaw that will make him want it more. He wasn’t wearing a watch; his patience told the time. Up close, he was someone’s bad idea executed beautifully. Mid-thirties, I guessed, with shoulders that made a suit earn its paycheck and forearms that suggested he’d be useful in an emergency. 

“Name’s Babbitt,” he said.

“Cute,” I said. “Government name under embargo?”

“Something like that,” he said, mouth teasing. “You?”

“Lola. Just Lola,” I said. I didn’t give last names in rooms with this lighting.

Chapter Text

Lola Johansson POV

That earned a smirk. “Alright, Lola. Could be I know someone.”

“Could be,” I said. I tilted my head, testing. “But I don’t buy sloppy.”

“So,” Babbitt said, eyes on me, not the door. “How would you classify your problem then?”

“Recreational,” I said. “Small. Clean.”

“Ah,” he said. “Discerning.”

“Selective bad choices,” I said. 

He liked that. I could tell in the way his smile changed temperature. He tipped his head, amused. “Could give you a deal if you do something for me.”

“In your dreams,” I said, flat enough to sand an edge.

“That’s where I keep them,” he said, unbothered. He shifted his weight so the pink light slicked his jaw. “I didn’t say what.”

“I heard it, though,” I said. “I speak fluent insinuation.”

He tucked his chin, conceding the point. “Fair. You want a taste?”

“Of the product,” I said, deadpan.

“Obviously,” he said, as if other meanings didn’t live rent-free in the air between us.

He moved with a kind of proprietary grace, turning his hand palm-up, then curling his fingers so the blade of his thumb pointed toward me. He tapped a tiny measure out from somewhere the eye wouldn’t catch—a gesture honed by too many bathrooms with lines at 1 a.m.—and balanced it along the side of his hand, a neat ridge like a little white horizon. He offered his hand to me without drama. Not the back of the knuckles like a prince. The side, efficient, no flourish.

I leaned in because I’m not a coward. The city’s perfume swelled—sweat and cologne and fryer oil, sugar and adrenaline. His skin was warm. The powder cleared my sinuses and then pulsed through my head like a light flicking on in a room you forgot had windows. Not stepped on. Not trash. I closed one eye, assessing, and nodded once. Approval. The academic peer review version of a kiss on the cheek.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s fine.”

“‘Fine,’” he repeated, grinning. “High praise.”

“From me,” I said. “You running a friends-and-family discount or just the usual tax because my hair looks good?”

He laughed, unabashed. “You’re a problem.”

“I’m a solution with winged eyeliner,” I said.

He named a number that didn’t insult me. I nodded. He moved like a man who has done this in rooms where the cost of being sloppy is your life. A touch of jacket, a press of palm, a tuck, and then my hand held something folded that didn’t exist. I tucked it into the small interior pocket I reserve for things that inconvenience judges. We stood there for a second like normal people.

Then he tried it again. Men like him always do. “You sure you don’t owe me a little more?” he asked, lighter now, playful as a switchblade in a pocket.

“You mean besides cash and critique?” I asked.

“I mean a number,” he said. “Yours.”

I almost laughed. Almost. “You’re cute, but I don’t make a habit of mixing crime with my contact list.”

I tilted my head, let my eyes do the audit. He could’ve been any of a thousand men in this city if you turned the lights up and squinted. But the way he held himself said he’d chosen a lane and paved it himself. He radiated the particular confidence of a man who’s been told yes so often he thinks the word belongs to him.

“Crime?” He gave me a mock-offended look. “I’m just a guy at a bar.”

“A guy at a bar who doesn’t dance and drink,” I said. “Forgive me if I’m cautious.”

That pulled another laugh out of him, deeper this time. “I’m just your average citizen, enjoying the lights and music.”

“You seem like a lot of paperwork,” I said. “I’m mid-semester. I don’t have the bandwidth for crime.”

“Who said anything about crime?” he asked, theatrical innocence.

“You’re working this club tonight for Mancuso,” I said. “In a room owned by people who owe him favors, selling a thing that makes the night look better. I can do my own citations.”

He grinned at that—bright, unashamed. “You don’t have to mess around with me,” he said. “You just have to text back.”

“I’m good,” I said, shaking my head once. “I prefer my complications in books.”

“You like books,” he said, filing it away like he collected details the way other men collect parking tickets.

“I like books that don’t ask me for bail,” I said.

“Harsh,” he said, uninjured.

“Accurate,” I said. “You’re charming but I’m literate.”

He gave me a look that didn’t quite dare me. “You’re going to change your mind.”

“Not tonight,” I said.

“Not tonight,” he repeated, savoring it like a promise.

Behind me, someone whooped; the DJ spun something that made the dance floor glow. I felt Anna’s eyes trying to locate me, that service-industry sixth sense. I lifted my chin toward the bar where she and Gen were posted, and he followed the movement out of habit, clocking exits without looking like he was counting. A professional.

“Staying safe?” he asked, casual, eyes flicking to the bouncer and back. It wasn’t concern so much as inventory.

“We know how to call for help,” I said.

“I’m help,” he said, wry.

“I don’t doubt that,” I said, and meant it.

He let me go without flinching, which was more attractive than any line. “You need something else, you find me,” he said. “Just ask for Babbitt.”

“Just Babbitt,” I said. “For now.”

He dipped his head, the barest nod, and then shifted his attention in a way that said the conversation lived in a box he could open later. I turned, the packet neat in my pocket, the buzz beginning to hum under my skin like a pleasant rumor. His gaze burned between my shoulder blades, steady, unbothered. Like rejection was just foreplay.

“See you around,” he called after me.

Anna arched an eyebrow the second I slid back in. “Well?”

“Clean,” I said, tapping the pocket without flashing it. “Not dumb.”

Gen took me in, the way only someone who’s known you since you were stealing lip gloss in junior high can. “Who is he?”

“Goes by Babbitt,” I said. “Just Babbitt. Probably one of Mancuso’s.”

Anna leaned in, conspiratorial. “He cute?”

“He’s… efficient,” I said, deliberately evasive.

Gen laughed. “Translation: she’d let him break her bed, ruin a Sunday and then block his number.”

“Please,” I said. “I don’t give criminals the satisfaction.”

“You gave him your number?” Anna asked.

“He asked,” I said. “I declined. I have standards.”

“Your standards just waved from the dance floor,” Gen said, smirking.

“I can have eyes,” I said, and lifted my glass. “I’m not blind; I’m busy.”

We did the bathroom ritual like priestesses—two in a stall, door nudged shut by a knee, the whisper of package to key to fingertip to gumline, the inevitable laugh when someone almost drops the tiny thing that suddenly feels like it costs a month’s rent. We washed our hands and our souls and re-lined our lips under the mean fluorescent that makes saints look guilty. We emerged glowing like a second act.

Back at the bar, the night pulsed into its stride—Baby’s at eleven is all heat and wishful thinking. The front plates glowed; the back room lilted between glamour and confession. The bouncer, bored, started playing a quiet game of who’s-too-drunk with himself and winning.

We danced until the sweat ran down our spines and our hair stuck to our necks. We let ourselves be young and cruel and kind. We let the city apologize to us by making us feel immortal for four minutes at a time. When the song bled out, I braced both hands on the bar and laughed into my own wrist, dizzy and certain.

Anna bumped my shoulder. “You’re thinking.”

“I always am,” I said.

“About him?” she asked, too casual.

“About aura,” I said, deadpan. “It’s promiscuous.”

Gen barked a laugh. “Don’t bring your stupid class into a night like this.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I just seem to hate fun.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Anna said, and tugged us back into the throb.

At some point, a hand brushed my elbow. Not accident. Not threat. I turned. Babbitt was three feet away, talking to nobody again, eyes on me like I was a song he’d almost remembered the words to. He lifted two fingers in a greeting that could be mistaken for nothing. I lifted my glass back, unimpressed on purpose, and turned away first.

It felt like winning something I hadn’t entered.

(Ryan) Babbitt POV

She walked away with that little smirk, pocket heavy, ass swaying like she didn’t know it was a weapon. Or maybe she did. Either way, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Five-five, maybe, but those boots gave her height, stretched her legs out just enough to make me wonder what they’d feel like wrapped around me. Curves sat mostly in her hips and ass—real, thick, the kind of body a man wants to hold down and get lost in.

She didn’t give me her number. Didn’t give me a damn thing except her name, attitude and the image of her leaning over my hand to take a bump. Brave little thing, bold enough to taste off a stranger’s skin but smart enough not to hand me her phone number. I liked that. It made me itch. It made my cock twitch.

Work wasn’t done. Couldn’t just stand there and stare at her all night like a rookie. Mancuso expected me to move some weight and keep the peace tonight. A couple of kids came sniffing around—finance trash in Patagonia vests, already coked out but greedy. I gave them a bag, took their bills, kept it smooth. Another handoff by the bathrooms, same routine. Nothing sloppy. Never sloppy.

But I kept one eye on her. Always.

She was back with her friends—two other girls, skinny hipsters who spent all their time in Williamsburg. They laughed, leaned into each other, downed drinks like they didn’t give a fuck about tomorrow. Lola danced between them like the floor belonged to her. The lights cut across her body, made her look dangerous.

I finished my rounds and headed into the crowd. Not for work. For her.

She didn’t notice me right away. Too busy moving her hips, sweat slicking her neck, mouth curved into a smirk like she already knew she was the best-looking thing in the room. I brushed past her, let my shoulder catch hers just enough to make her turn. When she did, she smiled at me—not sweet, not surprised. Knowing.

“Give me one dance,” I said, close to her ear.

She didn’t answer with words, just rolled her eyes a little and turned her back to me, hips rolling to the beat. Which was an answer.

I slid in behind her, hand settling low on her waist, fingers spreading wide to claim the curve of her hip. She didn’t stop me. Her body pressed back into mine, warm, moving in time, like we’d rehearsed it. My other hand found her opposite hip, pulling her closer. The crowd was tight, the music loud, but I only felt her.

She smelled like smoke and sweetness, like the kind of perfume you remember in your sheets. She moved against me, slow, deliberate, not grinding just to grind but controlling the pace, making me follow. My hands wandered lower, testing—over the swell of her ass, fingers digging in just enough. She didn’t stop me.

When she finally turned to face me, her eyes burned. Dark, sharp, defiant. I grabbed her face with one hand, thumb under her jaw, and kissed her. Hard. She let me. Hell, she kissed back, lips hot and demanding, like she’d been waiting to punish me for asking.

The song ended too fast. The bass cut into something new, lighter, less forgiving. She pulled back, lips glistening, breath quick.

“One song,” she said, voice sharp but soft at the edges. “That’s all I promised.”

I grinned, still holding her jaw. “One’s not enough.”

She pushed my hand off, smirk curling. “Afraid that you’ll just have to starve, Babbitt.”

“Give me your number,” I said, one last try, knowing I’d already lost.

“Nope.” She shook her head, hair sticking to her damp skin. “I’ll save myself the trouble. See you around. Or never.”

She turned, walking back toward her friends without a glance over her shoulder. I watched her go, watched her laugh at something the ponytail girl said, watched her put her coat back on like she was closing the book.

I stayed there in the middle of the floor, pulse still hot, lips still wet with her taste, and thought:

She’ll be back. One way or another, she’ll be back.

Lola Johansson POV

I was still buzzing when I slipped back to Anna and Gen, lips tingling, heart punching my ribs like it wanted to get out of the club before I did.

It had been one song. One fucking song. But Babbitt—if that was even his name—had gotten his hands all over me like he’d bought stock. Big hands, rough, warm. He held my face like he was claiming it. And I let him. I kissed him back like I’d been planning to all night.

If Anna hadn’t caught me by the wrist, I probably would’ve walked out of Baby’s with him. Rationality saved me. Rationality, and the part of my brain that still wanted a PhD and not a parole officer.

Anna smirked the second she saw me. “Well?”

“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head, trying to play it cool.

“Oh, I’m going to,” she said. “You’re flushed. That was some pretty hot kissing.”

Gen’s ponytail swayed as she laughed. “Our little academic finally slummed it. And with that guy? Christ, Lola, thought you were smarter than us.”

I rolled my eyes, but my mouth betrayed me, tugging into a grin. “It was one dance.”

“Uh-huh.” Anna’s tone was surgical. “One dance, one kiss, one almost leaving-with-him. What’s that song? One kiss is all it takes. Falling in love with meeeeeeee.”

“Ok, fine. Almost,” I admitted, pressing the heel of my hand against my forehead. “But I’m not that dumb. I’ve got enough problems.”

Gen bumped my shoulder. “Honey, sometimes problems are the point.”

“Not this one,” I said. “Not tonight.”

Anna raised her glass in mock salute. “To Lola, queen of restraint. Queen of denial.”

I groaned. “Get me out of here before I make a mistake.”

We cabbed to Veselka because pierogis cure everything. The neon sign glowed like an old friend, the steam-fogged windows promising salvation in the form of butter and sour cream. Inside, it smelled like onions, dill, and home—even though it wasn’t my home.

We piled into a booth, cheeks pink from the cold, coats shoved into corners. Anna ordered potato pierogis, Gen wanted short ribs, and I went with the basics: cheese, fried, extra sour cream. The waitress didn’t write it down. She’d been doing this long enough to memorize drunk-girl cravings.

Between bites, Anna nudged me. “So… tell me more about Babbitt.”

I stabbed a pierogi with my fork. “Nothing much to tell. He’s a dealer for Mancuso. Definitely too smooth for his own good.”

“Too smooth for you?” Gen asked, smirking.

“Exactly.” I chewed, swallowed, tried not to think about the way his hand had gripped my hip like it belonged there. “I’m not getting involved with a man whose business model is felony possession.”

“Good call,” Anna said, then grinned. “Still hot though.”

I threw a napkin at her.

We weren’t done yet. The night still had teeth, and Anna insisted on a round at Commodore. The place was the same as it always was: sticky floors, cheap beer, chicken sandwiches that could make you forget your own name. The jukebox fought to be heard over the crowd, and the smell of fryer oil clung to everything.

But the back corner was heavier than usual. Vince was there, all Brighton Beach slick charm, trying too hard to look sober. Gen stiffened the second she saw him, jaw locking. Jake leaned against the booth, beer in hand, smiling like the golden boy he always tried to be. Roxie was beside him, looking sharp, already spinning a playlist in her head if the way her fingers tapped against the table meant anything.

And then Mancuso. Joe himself, bigger and more intimidating than I remembered, sitting like a man who knew the room was his whether anyone admitted it or not. His son Junior sat beside him, silent, hands ready to translate every word.

Jake’s grin widened when he spotted us. “Lola! Perfect timing. Come here.”

I slid in, Gen reluctantly following, Anna slipping in smooth.

Jake leaned forward, eyes bright. “We were just talking about the Rabbit. Roxie and I agree—you’re coming with Anna when it opens.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’re good,” Roxie said, voice certain, cigarette dangling from her fingers. “Fast. Cute. Flirty. People like you. We want that energy behind the bar.”

“Don’t argue,” Anna added. “You’re coming.”

My laugh was automatic, disbelieving. “Guess I don’t get a choice.”

“Not really,” Roxie said, smirking.

Across the table, Vince shifted, discomfort rolling off him. He didn’t like Mancuso here, didn’t like the weight of his presence. Jake, though—Jake was all smiles, leaning in, shaking hands when Junior signed and Joe rumbled agreement.

“Investment, loan, whatever you want to call it,” Jake said, voice too cheerful. “Mancuso’s in. It’ll get us off the ground faster.”

Gen’s mouth pressed thin, eyes sharp, but she kept quiet. Civil. Barely.

I sat back, chewing on the thought. A new bar. Roxie’s menu. Anna at my side. And me, smack in the middle again, whether I liked it or not.

And in the back of my mind, still burning like a cigarette I hadn’t finished, the memory of Babbitt’s mouth on mine, his hand on my face, his body pressed to mine for one song too short. Like a frame frozen in repeat on the VCR.