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A woman in a black lace top leaned over the bar. “Hi,” she said. “Can I get something fun but also strong?”

Hakeem smiled automatically. This part of him never truly slept. “That depends. Are you looking to text your ex or hex your ex?”

She laughed. “Hex.”

“Then you want Next Mourning. Not one of our drink specials tonight, but definitely a crowd pleaser. Bitter-citrus, dramatic, morally unclear.”

“I love that!”

“Yes, Queen, I can tell.” He winked, and she giggled.

He was gay and felt it was obvious, but women at The Last Cue often flirted with him, and he flirted back because it was safe and easy and guaranteed good tips.

He built the drink with fast, practiced hands while, two seats down, a man in an expensive jacket asked if the edible shimmer in the Final Grrrl was biodegradable, and somebody from the floor shouted for two more Exit Wounds on the fly.

Behind Hakeem, one of the roaming performers swept past in a black mourning veil and whispered to a table of tourists, “Not all revenants return for love,” before standing there so long in charged silence that the table’s fries likely went cold.

Layla, passing with a tray balanced on one hand, muttered, “If Nadia doesn’t stop doing widow monologues at people while they’re eating sliders, I’m putting her through drywall.”

“Nadia committed to the bit,” Hakeem said, shaking a tin of ice hard enough to sting his wrist.

“Nadia’s committed to making table twelve miss their Uber.”

He slid the drink across the bar and reached for the next ticket.

His body knew the choreography even when his mind kept wandering back to his rented room, his moody housemate, and a slight attraction that both unnerved him and made him horny.

Usually, work did a decent job of eating the rest of his thoughts. The bar demanded too much speed, too much charm, too much continuous low-grade theater to leave much room for private spiraling. You had to remember who ordered what, who wanted scary and who wanted camp, when to flirt, when to joke, when to lean into the absurdity of serving a drink called Dead End to a finance guy wearing loafers with no socks.

But tonight his brain kept slipping its leash.

Quiet floorboards.

Lean body.

Twenty-six-year-old actor in this city? Hope you don’t own any white lighters.

The words had nested somewhere behind his ribs and made the whole shift feel misaligned.

Layla set down her tray and planted both hands on the bar. “Okay,” she said.

Hakeem kept pouring. “Okay, what?”

“You’re weird.”

“That is not new information.”

“You’re specifically weird tonight.”

“I work here. Specifically weird is the dress code.”

Layla tilted her head. She was one of those rare people who never had to raise her voice to make someone feel fully perceived. “You’ve been stirring the same drink for thirty seconds.”

Hakeem looked down.

Dammit. He had.

“Maybe the drink needed time to consider itself.”