Page 4 of Gatsby's Starlet
High Voltage wasn’t what I’d expected.
It was loud, yes, the bass low and constant beneath the floorboards, laughter rising and folding back in on itself in loose, easy waves, but it wasn’t reckless, and it certainly wasn’t sticky-floor chaos with neon beer signs duct-taped to drywall as a last attempt at personality. The walls were layered instead of cluttered, framed patches arranged with obvious intention, black-and-white photographs set carefully between polished chrome fixtures that caught the glow of a neon lightning bolt above the door and reflected it back in sharp, deliberate flashes,and the longer I stood there taking it in, the more it felt curated rather than accidental.
Which meant someone cared.
Which meant I was going to have to recalibrate my entire mental image of this place, and I didn’t appreciate being wrong before I’d even made it three steps inside.
“Relax,” Ruby murmured beside me, her fingers brushing my elbow in a gesture that looked casual to anyone watching but felt suspiciously strategic. “It’s just a bar.”
Right. Just a bar. Like this was the sort of place I naturally thrived in, between leather cuts and men who looked like they bench-pressed motorcycles for cardio and called it light exercise.
I adjusted the strap of my purse and reminded myself that I had survived estate sales at dawn with women twice my age who wielded elbows like medieval weaponry, and if I could outmaneuver a retired schoolteacher over a Depression-era vanity tray, I could survive this.
Probably.
My gaze drifted across the room, shoulders, ink, half-empty glasses catching amber light, until it stopped.
On him.
I knew it was him before Ruby said anything, before she even leaned slightly closer as though preparing to nudge me in the correct direction, because some people draw attention by demanding it and others do so by refusing to chase it, and he was firmly in the second category.
He moved behind the bar with measured ease, one hand tilting a draft glass just enough to keep the foam contained, and I felt an absurd, immediate surge of approval at that, while the other dragged a rag across the counter in slow, even strokes, as though he believed deeply in finishing a task properly instead of abandoning it mid-thought. When he finished wiping the surface, he folded the towel once, aligning the edges beforesetting it neatly beside the register, and something in my brain lit up like I had just uncovered a first-edition novel hiding behind a stack of paperbacks.
Oh.
He’s organized.
Apparently, my type had evolved from emotionally unavailable musicians to men who folded bar towels symmetrically.
Growth comes in many forms.
Every so often his attention dipped to the tablet mounted beneath the bar, fingers brushing across the glowing screen with easy familiarity, and the contrast was almost unfair, modern glass illuminated under the hand of a man who looked like he belonged in a black-and-white photograph, leaning against a vintage truck with a cigarette he wasn’t actually smoking.
His blond hair was combed back instead of falling loose, not stiff with product but clearly intentional. His T-shirt fit cleanly across his shoulders, sleeves rolled with symmetry instead of carelessness, exposing forearms that looked strong without announcing it. Even the way he stood — straight-backed, balanced, grounded — suggested he understood the concept of spatial awareness and took it seriously.
The leather cut across his back should have disrupted the image, but it didn’t, if anything, it sharpened it, made the whole thing land harder just before he looked up, blue eyes hooded and focused as they found me and stayed there, not darting away, and even when his gaze did slide down the line of my dress it wasn’t quick or careless, wasn’t that dismissive once-over I’d learned to ignore, just… deliberate, like he was taking his time with it, like he meant to see, and it hit a second too late that I was staring back just as hard, something low and unexpected tightening under my ribs as the moment stretched a fraction longer than it should have.
For one ridiculous second I wondered if there was lipstick on my teeth or if one of my curls had gone rogue in a way I’d somehow missed in the mirror, but he didn’t react like that was the problem, didn’t smirk, didn’t give me that practiced once-over I was used to, didn’t do anything except look, slow and easy, like he was taking his time with it, like he had nowhere else to be.
And that—God,thatdid something.
It landed deep in my chest before I had a say in it, before I could file it away as nothing, because the way he was looking at me didn’t feel casual or careless, it felt focused, like he was working something out, like there was a piece missing and he’d decided I might be it, and I had the deeply inconvenient realization that I wanted him to keep looking, wanted to know what he’d see if he didn’t stop.
Which was new. Wildly unhelpful. And very much not part of why I was here.
Ruby nudged me forward, and I shot her a look that I hoped communicated betrayal, panic, and mild accusation all at once, but she only smiled brighter, which meant she had no intention of rescuing me from myself.
“You’ll like him,” she murmured. “He thinks like you do. Different.”
Different.
That was one way to describe the woman who alphabetized her spice rack, arranged thrift-store brooches by decade, and could identify the year of a sewing machine based solely on the curve of its lettering.
When we reached the bar, he straightened slightly, not puffing up, not posturing, just enough to signal that he had registered our presence fully and deliberately.
upward, not mocking, not dismissive —interested.
And instead of wanting the floor to split open and swallow me whole, I felt something bloom in my chest that was equalparts warmth and alarm “Gatsby,” Ruby shouted over the music. “You busy?”
