novel sample

In the hallway, the sound of the club swelled again, all lowered laughter and the soft scrape of wealth against want. He didn’t touch me as we walked. He didn’t need to. The crowd moved, subtle currents rearranging themselves around his gravity, and my body followed as if it knew the particular cadence of this tide. We reached a mezzanine that overlooked the main floor. From here, the club looked like an opening act for a storm—lightning spooling through glasses, thunder stored like promise in the bass.     “This is my house,” he said in my ear. I turned my head and found he was close enough that I could make out the tiny scar at his jawline, a paler crescent under his stubble. I wanted to ask who had placed it there, which version of him had deserved it. “Watch.”