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White lighters. Bad luck. Superstition.

The 27 Club.

Dead musicians. Dead actors. Dead at twenty-seven. He knew of the 27 Club—of course he did—but the white lighter reference was just niche enough to have missed him.

Hakeem stared at the screen.

Then, because the universe clearly had not humiliated him enough for one night, he looked up his own birthday math even though he did not need to.

Twenty-six. Late October birthday. One month away from twenty-seven.

Awesome.

A totally normal joke for a man he had known less than twelve hours to make. Especially after he'd calmly announced Hakeem's age, then left behind a page with the words 'lean body' and 'quiet floorboards’.

He locked the front door on instinct, then checked it again, though he distinctly remembered locking it the first time. After that, he went upstairs, brushing one hand along the wall because the landing was darker than he liked, and shut himself in his room with slightly more force than necessary. This time, he locked the door.

The room felt smaller at night. The wallpaper looked older, and the rose pattern had gone faint and shadowy. Streetlight came in through the window and caught the edge of his VHS stack and the brass stem of the lamp, throwing both into the kind of composition that would have looked incredible in a film and unsettling in person.

He changed clothes, took a baby wipe to his face with an internal promise to thoroughly cleanse his skin in the morning, and got into bed with his phone still in his hand.

From somewhere else in the house came a small, ordinary sound—pipes shifting. Wood settling, maybe. A house, breathing in the dark.

Or a man moving quietly through it with a map already memorized.

Hakeem stared at the ceiling.

He could make this work. He had to believe that.

But possibly, he had to admit, he may have made a catastrophic housing choice.

Chapter Two

The White Lighter

The next night at The Last Cue, Hakeem dropped a dehydrated lime wheel into a coupe glass with the solemnity of a man lowering a body into water.

“Jesús,” Layla said, coming up beside him with two empty rocks glasses and the expression of somebody who had long ago accepted that this was her life. “Is the drink dead, or are you?”

“Neither,” Hakeem said. “I’m cultivating atmosphere. Also, chill on Jesús, Layla. I know I’m Mexican, but it’s giving Catholic, and that I am not.”

“Sorry. It’s just that you’re dissociating into garnish.”

“Okay, real.”

The Last Cue was already in full performance mode, which meant the room had reached its nightly midpoint between immersive theater and labor violation. Red bulbs glowed low over the bar. Heavy, black velvet curtains swallowed what little natural architecture the building had once possessed. A loop of storm sounds murmured under the music. The wall sconces were shaped like hands. Somebody had again gone too hard on fake cobwebs near the hostess stand, so the whole front corner looked like a widow had been left there to grieve in dust for a hundred years.

Hakeem loved the place with the kind of loyalty he reserved for unavailable men and dying neighborhood diners.

It was ridiculous and underfunded. The actors who also worked as whatever staff was necessary on any given night had all been encouraged to “find a psychological relationship to dread,” which in practice meant at least two of them had become impossible to speak to like normal people between cues. One busser was dressed like a priest with blackened eyes. Somebody in the dining room screamed, then laughed, then asked for extra ranch.

At the far end of the bar, a laminated special menu stood in a brass holder shaped like a crow.

Tonight’s signature drinks:

Final Grrrl — vodka, blood orange, lychee, lemon, red glitter. Pretty composure. Bad intentions.

Exit Wound — mezcal, blackberry, cassis, lime, chili. Smoked fruit and a slow bleed.