Closing my eyes for the briefest of seconds, I felt the tingle of somebody's gaze upon me and I opened my eyes suddenly, sure that one of the bar staff had eventually taken pity on me and was now standing waiting to serve.

Instead of a bartender looking at me, I found myself staring into a pair of startling emerald eyes fixed upon me from the opposite side of the bar.

The owner of those eyes was tall, lithe but muscular, with a short beard and dark mahogany hair that was straight and fairly long at the front and cut into the neck. He wore a simple black t-shirt that showed off a landscape of tattoos stretching down both his arms and around his neck was a small silver cross on a short chain. I couldn't help but think how he looked completely out of place in a club like this. He would have been better suited to a rock pub, shaking his hair to some grimy, sweat-drenched metal band, not standing here amongst the Topshop-ites and garish neon lights.

For a moment he carried on staring at me, his face expressionless in a way that made my stomach flip nervously. It wasn't a menacing stare as such but there was something about it that sent a small tendril of fear creeping around my gut, because for the briefest of seconds I did feel somewhat threatened by this strange out-of-place man. Then, as if I had imagined the whole thing, his mouth turned up slightly at the corners and he smiled.

I turned, wondering if he might be smiling at someone behind me but on facing him again, his smile grew wider before he looked down, leaning on the bar with his elbows and glancing at me through his hair which had fallen partly over his eyes. I swallowed, feeling my mouth go dry and heat prickle across my flaming cheeks and yet before I could even work out what the hell I was doing, I smiled back. Nervously, mind you, but a smile none the less. His eyes widened for the briefest of seconds before he looked away completely, as if I had suddenly become invisible and as if he had not been staring at me at all.

Feeling flustered and foolish, I turned and pushed my way through the waiting, thirsty crowd who quickly filled my space as if I had never been there, as if I were nothing but a wraith with no substance. They might as well have walked straight through me.

*********

Clean, cool air. That's all I needed.

Well, I wasn't about to find clean air amongst the smokers; now exiled out onto the streets, all congregating together in ashen-breathed worship, haloes of smoke circling above their heads. But it was definitely cooler outside than in the hot and heavy confines of the club and I needed that rush of the night on my skin. I needed something to take away the burning embarrassment that I felt. I bit down softly on my lip and looked longingly at the cabs lining up outside, wishing to God that I could just get in one and speed back home. Back to where I could kick off these ridiculously high heels that were pinching my toes and wipe off the make-up, scrape my hair back into a scruffy pony-tail and lay down next to Brandon and breathe in the faint musky smell of his aftershave.