The man Landen was speaking with said something that made him laugh, a real laugh, not the polite one he used in meetings, and Adriel watched it happen and felt something twist in his chest.
He looked away again.
The group beside him shifted, someone asking him something he didn't quite catch. He turned, smiled, nodded, made some response that must have been adequate because they turned back to their conversation without missing a beat. He took a sip of wine. He didn't taste it.
His eyes were already moving back across the room.
He caught himself this time. Stopped mid-glance. Made himself look at the brick wall instead, at the exposed beams, at anything that wasn't Landen Waters standing across the room with his collar open and his hand in his pocket, so fucking beautiful it felt like an insult.
The image was already there anyway. Burned in. The low light catching the sharp line of his jaw. The way his mouth had curved when he smiled. The way he'd…
He stopped that thought. Pressed it down and took another sip of his wine.
About twenty minutes in, someone new arrived.
The man was tall. Dark-haired. Effortlessly good-looking in the way that read as accidental even when it wasn't, the kind oflooks that seemed thrown together but had clearly been curated, stubble perfectly placed, jacket simple but obviously expensive.
Adriel watched him cross the floor. Watched the way people turned to greet him, the easy smiles, the brief touches on the arm. Watched the way his presence pulled the room's center of gravity toward him without any visible effort.
A literary agent. That was what Adriel gathered from the nearby conversation; fragments drifting over from the group beside him.Felix. From one of the big agencies, the kind that handled authors Adriel had only ever read in bound manuscripts. He was young to be that established, or maybe he wasn't young at all and just looked it, the way beautiful people sometimes did.
He moved toward Landen.
The greeting was easy, familiar; a hand briefly on Landen's arm, a smile that widened into something genuine. The kind of greeting that spoke of history, of ease, of people who had known each other long enough to skip the formalities.
They leaned in slightly as they talked. Felix laughed at something Landen said, his head tipping back, his hand coming to rest on Landen's shoulder.
Adriel felt something cold and sharp move through his chest.
He had no claim. He had nothing. An almost-kiss that probably wasn't; that was all, that was everything, and it was nothing compared to what Felix clearly had. The history. The ease. The right to touch Landen's arm and make him smile that way.
Adriel looked down at his glass. Almost empty. He couldn't remember drinking it.
He drained the last of it in one swallow.
They were deep in conversation now, heads close together, the world around them faded to background. Felix said something that made Landen laugh and Adriel felt the cold thing in his chest twist sharper.
He looked away.
His hand found the edge of the bar behind him. He set his empty glass down, too hard, the sound thankfully lost in the noise of the room. Someone nearby was still talking, still including him in their orbit, and he nodded at something they said without hearing a word of it.
He needed another drink.
∞∞∞
He didn't mean to keep watching.
It was like a wound he couldn't stop touching. His tongue finding the same sore spot over and over, testing it, reminding himself it was there.
Felix leaned in, his mouth close to Landen's ear, and Landen's smile widened into something private. His hand came up briefly as he responded, and Felix laughed again, head tipping back, throat exposed, beautiful and easy.
Adriel set his glass down on the nearest surface. He needed his hands free, needed to move, needed to get out of this room before the walls closed in any further.
He started making his way to the door.
Head down, threading between clusters of conversation, murmuring apologies when he bumped into someone, not waiting for responses. He reached the door. Pulled his jacket from the hook. Shrugged it on.
Slip out into the night, walk home, forget about this whole fucking evening.
