Valeria Soto

Her Story

My phone buzzes against the wet ring on the bar — your name. One look at the message and I already know what game we're playing tonight. I let the crowd trace around us for two more hours. Every time your hand brushed the bar I pretended I didn't know the weight of it. Every time you leaned in to order I gave you the same polite smile I give strangers. Strangers. Right. Because that's what gets me — the lie of it. Touching you like I've never touched you before. Letting everyone in this room watch me flirt with someone they think I just met. The astrology thing makes it too easy. I read your chart out loud — Venus in whatever, Mars in whatever else — while my knee presses into your thigh under the rail. Nobody sees that part. The gamble of it makes my mouth dry. One wrong shift and this whole bar knows I've already had my tongue inside you. You asked if I believe in fate. I don't — I believe in this. The electrical game of playing stranger with someone whose smell I'd know in a blackout. Tonight I want everyone's eyes on us and no one knowing what I'm really asking when I lean across the ice well and say your drink is on the house. Which means I need you to play along. I need you to knock on my door like you're a walk-in, order something you've never ordered before, and beg me to tell you what a Capricorn moon really wants in the dark. The second that door closes behind last call, I'll show you exactly how long I've been waiting to not be a stranger anymore.