"Noooo!!!! My champagne..."
The words trailed off Fedora's lips as a shaky, heartbroken cry took over.
He crouched low, a lazy, desperate attempt to keep his dizzy self steady against the gravitational pull of the floor. In a move of pure, drunken impulse, he pinched one of the crimson-stained shards with the tip of his finger, carefully pressing it to his lips to suck off the remaining droplets of wine.
"No, sir!" the bartender screamed, rushing over with the speed of a man averting a lawsuit.
He hauled the tipsy Fedora up and away from the jagged mess.
"Sir, you can't drink from that," he added, his voice a frantic mix of volume and professional politeness.
Fedora immediately bristled, flinging his arms away from the man's grip with a dramatic flourish.
"Let me go, you son of a... don't let me curse you!" he warned, barely standing on ten toes.
He began dusting imaginary debris off his outfit, trying to reclaim some shred of the dignity that was currently leaking into the floorboards.
A janitor appeared as if from the shadows, cleaning up the mess at a practised, professional pace.
"Is everything okay?" Fedora's friends yelled from their booth, their voices cutting through the club's hum.
Fedora managed a sharp, jerky wave of dismissal, a signal his friends immediately registered as a 'DND' (Do Not Disturb) warning.
The scene had drawn a crowd, but what kept their eyes glued wasn't the broken glass; it was the fact that the hot-as-hell guy everyone had been coveting since he walked in was finally standing directly in front of Fedora.
"He's so lucky, ugh!"
"He sure knows how to attract the fine ones," they murmured indistinctly, the air thick with envy.
"Okay, that's enough, let's mind our business," Tyra urged back at the table, though even he couldn't help but peek through his fingers.
Miguel, on the other hand, was too stunned to speak. He could feel the cold, wet sensation of the splattered wine soaking into his expensive trousers, the liquid mingling against his skin, but the ruined fabric didn't bother him. He was standing right in the strike zone of this drunken, rot-mouthed beauty.
And OH! Fucking no. Distance hadn't done enough justice to this ethereality. Close up, this little toy was undeniably beautiful—cute in a way that felt like a punch to the gut.
The wilder part? The beast inside Miguel wasn't just yearning for sex this time.
It was howling for something more, something deeper and more possessive that scared him because he couldn't pinpoint it.
Fedora, looking disoriented and clutching his forehead as if trying to keep his brain from rattling, finally spoke.
"I'm sorry," he apologised, his voice a hushed, vulnerable whisper.
That almost made Miguel smile. Such a cutie pie.
Again, Miguel found himself speechless another "unlikely" event in a night full of them. This "pie" had successfully short-circuited his ability to function.
If only he knew that this apology was the eye of the storm, the beginning of the worst thing that would happen to him tonight.
"Wait!" Fedora paused mid-shaky breath. He straightened the moment he truly caught Miguel's face.
To confirm he wasn't hallucinating or that his drunk eyes weren't playing a cruel trick, he snapped his head toward the far end of the room and then back to the man towering before him.
Realisation dawned.
This dickhead hadn't been leaving; he had been approaching him.
Which meant...
"It wasn't clearly my fault that the bottle broke!" The thought made his face turn a shade of red deeper than the wine he'd just dropped.
"Wait!" Fedora exclaimed again, laughing dryly at the sheer absurdity of it.
This earned him a concerned, elegant raise of the eyebrows from Miguel.
"The nerve!!" Fedora's nose flared.
His mouth twitched, barely open, showcasing those two perfect upper teeth as he continued his assault.
"The actual nerve!!! You know what? You are really starting to piss me off real good.
First, you think I am some... some cheap forgotten goods at a grocery store, and now this?!" He gestured wildly to the damp floor in a circular motion, his tone dripping with irritation. He turned away briefly, one hand placed gracefully on his waist while the other fanned his damp, heated neck.
"Um—excuse me? I think we've lost the plot. Amnesia doesn't work that fast, or I would have presumed you forgot who bumped into who first," Miguel finally spoke.
His voice was a deep, icy, calculated grunt, paired with a multifunctional smile: modest, naughty, and entirely goosebump-worthy.
The sound crept into Fedora's skin, making his body hair stand in stiff attention.
But Fedora's goosebumps weren't those of attraction; they were the prickles of aggregating anger.
The man was right, and that was the part that pissed Fedora off the most.
He wagged a finger toward Miguel, his disdain for the man's nonchalant, arrogant aura radiating in waves.
He should have also apologised!!!!! His mouth pressed into a thin, stubborn line before opening again.
"I know your type."
"Do you? 'Cause my type is just right here, in front of me," Miguel fired back with a slippery smile that was designed to infuriate.
"I am definitely not sorry about what happened seconds ago," Fedora retorted, his eyes narrowing into slits.
"Except you were. Seconds ago."
"And I take it back!" Fedora aggressively cupped the air in front of Miguel's face, a gesture so sassy and dramatic it almost made Miguel laugh.
"Have a nice time paying for the drink you broke, okay? I'm going to go back to my friends. Hopefully, you can afford that with your thrifted, ripped shirt. Cover those flat chests—I don't even know what you're trying to prove. Anyways, take care, okay? I'mma be on my way now."
Fedora flashed a mock, sugary smile, deliberately dusted off Miguel's shoulders as if clearing away cobwebs, and prepared to brush past him majestically.
But then, he felt it. A strong grip clasped his fragile wrist—soft and careful, yet firm enough to pull him back to his initial position.
"What do you want?!" Fedora barked, his free arm flailing frantically.
"Take 'no' for an answer and leave me the fuck aloooone-uh! I am not interested in you!"
"Me either," Miguel frowned.
"Huh?"
Fedora froze in his tracks for a heartbeat, the liquor-induced fog in his brain momentarily clearing as the rejection hit him like a splash of cold water.
To be continued...