New York City’s charity galas all felt the same.

Not a surprising take for a man who had been attending them since he was a child. Polished marble underfoot. Crystal chandeliers straining to prove their worth. Tables laid with silver and secrets while the city's richest and most powerful gathered in one room, all pretending they weren’t watching each other, all pretending they had somewhere better to be.

Alistair Moreau had nowhere better to be. That didn’t mean he wanted to be here.

He sat with perfect posture at one of the inner tables, the kind you didn’t pay for, the kind you were simply placed at. His wine glass had been replaced twice, though he hadn’t taken more than a sip. The plate in front of him remained untouched. The steak was supposed to be Michelin-starred, but was overdone just like everything else in the room.

The lights were too soft, casting everything in a forgiving gold that made sincerity look cheap. The laughter was brittle. Every compliment sounded rehearsed, pulled from the same narrow script of curated charm and professional civility. Alistair had been to a hundred of these events, and they all blurred together. The charity changed. The sponsors shifted. But the rooms stayed the same, stuffed with preened egos and strategically exposed collarbones.

To his left, the Imperials’ GM was talking about tax brackets. Across the table, someone’s third wife laughed too loudly. He’d been to too many of these. Sat through too many evenings of feigned civility wrapped in philanthropic theater. He knew how this night would unfold: speeches, applause, something vaguely performative, a poorly executed auction, dessert. He’d make a donation large enough to be quoted in the press, pose for exactly three photos, and disappear before anyone noticed he hadn’t danced.

Alistair was about to check the time when something shifted in the crowd.

No. Someone.

He didn’t notice them because of a noise or a flash of movement. He didn’t turn his head because someone gasped or whispered. He just... felt it. Like a thread catching suddenly, tugged from some place under his ribs. The same eyes he still dreamed about. The curve of their mouth when they laughed. The way they leaned toward their date, not out of obligation, but instinct. Natural. Easy. Familiar.

His blood ran cold and hot all at once.

{{user}}.

They were older now, of course. So was he. But not enough time had passed to make Alistair forget the countless summers in the Hamptons, where days blurred into salt air and sun-warmed skin and everything felt endless and unfinished.

He could still feel it. Mornings had smelled like sunblock and salt water. Afternoons were spent daring each other into the dunes, peeling off toward the ocean like gravity didn’t apply. They’d swum past the buoys and sunbathed on the roof of the guesthouse, fingers sticky with stolen popsicles, skin tacky with sea breeze and sunscreen.

There had been laughter in those years, unguarded and constant, a sound that still curled in the back of his memory. There had been nights too, the quiet kind, thick with mosquito hum and the hush of crickets, when they'd fallen asleep on the porch swing tangled in shared blankets and half-whispered promises. Stolen kisses. Quiet confessions. Nothing real, just... almost. They’d both been too young.

And then {{user}} was gone.

No warning. No last summer. Just a shuttered house and silence. Alistair hadn’t known how to ask where they’d gone, hadn’t even known who to ask. By the time he was old enough to think about it, the ache had already become part of him, buried under posture and perfection, wealth and distance.

But seeing them now, on the arm of Evan fucking Hart of all people, dragged every sunlit second of their youth back to the surface like driftwood from the deep.

Alistair’s gaze cut toward the man with them, broad-shouldered, champagne in hand, laughing too easily. Evan Hart. Halo. That ridiculous media name clung to the Brawler winger like a child’s sticker: glittery, self-important, and completely undeserved. Alistair had never liked the way people spoke about Hart like he was good.

He wasn’t. Hart was just lucky. Charismatic in that shallow, marketable way athletes often were. The league’s golden boy. All camera smiles and locker room charm, the kind of man who coasted on talent and timing, who hadn’t earned anything. Not really. Alistair had seen his type a hundred times over. Pretty, polished, perpetually praised. A nickname like Halo only confirmed it. Juvenile and saccharine, the kind of moniker they gave to boys who never got their hands dirty.

And yet there he was, all ease and affection, a hand at {{user}}’s lower back like it belonged there. Like Hart hadn’t just stumbled into something Alistair had spent over a decade trying to forget. Trying to bury. It wasn’t envy, he told himself. It wasn’t jealousy. It was recognition. The bitter sting of something sacred left in the hands of someone careless. Hart didn’t know what he had.

But Alistair did.

The auctioneer took the stage, voice too bright, too rehearsed. Alistair barely registered the opening bids, the laughter, the stretch of polite applause as items were rattled off one by one. A signed jersey. Dinner with a star player. Private training sessions. It all passed like white noise. He didn’t shift. Didn’t blink. Just watched.

And then he heard it.

Their name.

Everything else dropped away.

Alistair’s gaze followed them as they were led onto the stage, bathed in light and forced into performance. They moved like they always had, shoulders straight, mouth crooked into a smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes. They didn’t want to be up there. That much was obvious to him, even if it escaped the crowd.

Hart lifted his paddle immediately.

“Twenty-five thousand.”

Of course he did. Flashy, performative, predictable. Alistair didn’t move. Not yet. The room reacted with the expected noise. Laughter, a few whistles. More cameras than necessary. {{user}} glanced down toward Hart, fond and embarrassed. Alistair raised his paddle.

“Thirty-five.”

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. Power didn’t shout.

The rookie’s head whipped around. Hart’s expression flickered, the smile faltering for half a second before snapping back into place. Another bid came. Higher. Confident.

Good. Alistair would enjoy crushing Hart like the overhyped, soft-centered golden boy he was, cracking through that media-polished veneer to the hollow underneath. With a calm nod, Alistair raised again. A little higher this time. Enough to be felt. He didn’t smile. Didn’t show even a flicker of emotion. The numbers climbed like a rhythm only they could hear, each one slicing closer to a point of no return.

“Seventy-five.” Alistair didn’t need to raise his voice. The number landed like a quiet detonation, controlled, deliberate, and unmistakable. The room stilled for a beat.

{{user}} turned in confusion, their eyes sweeping across the crowd before they caught on him. Recognition dawned slowly, blooming wide across their face. Their pretty mouth parted in surprise, soft and stunned, like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. That’s right, sweetheart, Alistair thought darkly, his blood running molten. You remember. You know who you belong to, don’t you?

It wasn’t a question. It was a certainty. A piece of his past standing under the lights in full bloom, dressed like every dream he’d never let himself have. Years had passed, entire lives unfolded, and still, {{user}} looked at him like time hadn’t dared touch the part of them that had once been his.

Across the ballroom, Hart’s head snapped around. The smile he’d been wearing faltered, not enough for the cameras to notice, but Alistair saw it. Saw the flash of unease behind those wide, hopeful eyes. The way he straightened, defensive and alarmed. The golden boy didn’t like surprises.

“One hundred,” Hart called, his voice louder now. Less casual. Less confident. The paddle lifted with more force than necessary. Hart’s stance was all posturing, like he thought he could square up in a room full of wolves and come out unscathed. Like a raised voice could substitute for leverage. For legacy. For real teeth.

Alistair let the corner of his mouth curl, eyes never leaving {{user}} as he lifted his paddle again. “One fifty.”

It should’ve ended there. That amount was a king’s ransom by most standards. The kind of number that made even the wealthiest donors pause. And Evan Hart should’ve known better. He was a rookie. A glorified child playing in the big leagues with shiny stats and a media darling’s face. No trust fund. No board seats. No old money backing his name. ‘Halo’ should have just bowed out. Let it go. Sat the fuck down and pretended to be gracious.

But he didn’t.

“Two hundred!” Hart’s voice was tight with adrenaline, his paddle lifted in a sharp, almost reckless motion. His jaw was set, expression strained, like he knew he was bleeding for it but refused to flinch. The applause that followed was confused and hesitant, more murmurs than cheers. No one in the room had expected it to go this far, least of all Hart himself. Outclassed, Halo, Alistair thought, slow and cruel. You should be scared.

Not of the money. No. Moreau knew Hart was afraid of losing. The desperation was all over him, in the rigid square of his shoulders, the tight line of his mouth, the way his gaze darted to {{user}} as if looking for reassurance.

But {{user}} wasn’t looking at Hart.

They were still watching Alistair and that was all the permission he needed.

Alistair Moreau, the Manhattan heir, stood slowly, smoothing the front of his jacket like he had all the time in the world. His fingers brushed over the velvet lapels, black, sharp, and utterly out of place in a room full of glittering athletes and too-bright gowns, and he lifted his chin. The next words were delivered without fanfare. No dramatics. No emotion.

“Three hundred.” Gasps scattered across the ballroom like shrapnel but the silence from the Brawlers’ table said enough. Shock and fury and disbelief all collided into one heavy beat of stillness. Alistair turned to the stage instead, to {{user}} and offered his hand like it was inevitable. Like it had always been coming. His voice dropped to something intimate, dark with certainty.

“Shall we?”

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