featuring: open where: the dunbar
The music hit just right tonight. Something slow, rich, dripping with brass and smoke. The kind of sound that curled through the air like a promise—half-sin, half-sacrament. From his perch near the end of the bar, Zion Walker let it wash over him, one arm slung across the back of the leather booth like he owned the whole damn world. Technically, he just managed this corner of it. But The Dunbar pulsed with the kind of life that made a man feel bigger than he was.
Central Avenue glittered outside, but in here, the real stars were on the floor. A velvet haze hung over everything: cigarette trails, perfume, sweat, ambition. Couples twirled under the golden light. Men in tailored suits shook hands over deals worth dying for. A woman laughed like she meant it. Somewhere behind it all, the underground poker room murmured with tension.
Zion sipped something dark and neat from a cut-glass tumbler, ring tapping lightly against the side. “A little slow for a Saturday,” he commented, smug facetiousness oozing with each word. He wore a suit tonight—sharkskin gray, crisp shirt open at the collar, no tie. Decadent. Intentional. He dressed like a man with nowhere to be but everywhere to rule. His smile was lazy. His eyes were not.
It was a good night. Which meant he didn’t trust it one bit. His gaze swept the room again. Familiar faces. New ones, too. Some trying not to look his way. Some looking too hard. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he lit a cigarette, exhaled a slow curl of smoke, a smirk unfurling as he did so, he turned to the person closest to him "If tonight gets any prettier, I might just fall in love."
