The New New Plan
Inside the club, everything went a little… feral.
The bass was heavier now, the air thicker, the lights darker in a way that felt intentional, like the room itself was trying to lower everyone’s standards. David thrived in it. I did too, apparently, because the second we were back on the floor, we both cranked the dial past confident and straight into aggressively available.
Too available.
Like, spiritually shirtless.
We spotted two girls near the bar. Tall. Cute. One with glitter on her cheekbones, the other in a leather jacket that screamed I will ruin your life and your sleep schedule.
David leaned in first, all charm and volume. “Okay, real question,” he shouted over the music, “are you guys local or just unfairly hot tourists?”
They laughed. A good sign. The glitter girl touched his arm.
I slid in smoothly. Or what I thought was smoothly. “Because we’re doing research,” I added. “Cultural exchange. Very important.”
Leather Jacket smirked. “You Americans are intense.”
“In a good way,” David said quickly. Too quickly. “Like, passionate. We’re very passionate people.”
I nodded along. “Extremely passionate. Possibly too much.”
That might have been where it started going downhill.
We stayed. Hovered. Leaned in too close. Laughed too hard. Complimented too specifically. The music dropped, and David shouted something about bodies and chemistry that absolutely did not need to be shouted.
Glitter Girl’s smile tightened.
Leather Jacket glanced at her friend. They exchanged a look. The universal one. The we-should-go one.
“Bathroom break,” Glitter Girl said, already backing away.
“Totally,” I said. “Take your time.”
They did not take their time. They vanished into the crowd and did not return.
David watched them go, hands on his hips. “Okay. That was… weird.”
I took a sip of my drink. “We might’ve come on a little strong.”
“A little?” He scoffed. “I was restrained.”
“You said the phrase ‘primal energy’ unironically.”
“It felt right in the moment.”
We tried again. Different corner. Different group. Same outcome. Initial interest. Smiles. Dancing. Then subtle distancing. Excuses. Disappearing acts worthy of a magician.
At one point, a girl literally pretended to get a phone call from her mom.
“It’s midnight,” David muttered. “What kind of emergency is that?”
“An American one,” I said.
By the time we spilled back out onto the street, both of us were sweaty, buzzed, and deeply offended.
David leaned against the wall, running a hand through his hair. “Okay. No. This is not how tonight ends.”
I laughed, breathless. “Rough crowd.”
“No,” he said, serious now. “We need to get laid.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Inspirational.”
“I mean it,” he went on, pacing a little. “Tonight cannot end with… that.” He gestured vaguely between us, then seemed to realize what that implied and corrected fast. “Our last fuck cannot be our bro.”
I choked on a laugh. “Wow. When you put it like that.”
He shot me a look. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I said, softer than intended. “I do.”
There was a beat. The street hummed around us. Bikes zipped past. Laughter spilled from somewhere nearby.
“Okay,” I said, clearing my throat. “We have options.”
“Please tell me you have options.”
“The girls from the café,” I said. “They were into it. That felt real.”
David snapped his fingers. “Yes. Café girls. See? I told you that place was lucky.”
He pulled out his phone immediately, scrolling. “Alright. Moment of truth.”
He put it on speaker. The phone rang once. Twice.
Then a cheerful automated voice chirped something in Dutch that I did not understand but somehow immediately knew was bad.
David frowned. Hung up. Tried again.
Same voice.
He stared at the screen. “That’s… weird.”
I felt something sink in my stomach. “Let me try mine.”
I dialed. It rang. For half a second, hope flared.
Then the same cheerful Dutch rejection.
“Oh my god,” I said. “They gave us fake numbers.”
David’s jaw dropped. “Both of them?”
“Both of them.”
He let out a bark of laughter, half-disbelief, half-pain. “We got scammed by politeness.”
“I think they enjoyed the conversation,” I said. “Just not enough to ever see us again.”
David leaned his head back against the wall. “Unbelievable.”
We stood there for a moment, absorbing the loss. The silence felt different than earlier. Less charged. More… exposed.
Then David straightened, resolve snapping back into place. “Nope. We’re not ending on this note.”
I smiled despite myself. “Round three?”
“Round three,” he said. “We go back in. We tone it down. We act normal. Chill. Mysterious.”
“Mysterious,” I repeated. “You?”
“Okay,” he said. “Mysterious-ish.”
We headed back toward the club entrance. At the door, the bouncer waved us through like he’d been expecting us to come to our senses.
Inside, the music hit again, familiar and grounding.
David leaned close so I could hear him. “This time, we pace ourselves.”
“Agreed,” I said. “No talk of primal energy.”
“No promises,” he said, grinning.
We scanned the room. New faces. Fresh potential. Hope, once again, stubborn as hell.
As we stepped back onto the floor, our shoulders brushed. Just a little.
Neither of us commented.
Tonight wasn’t over yet.
The club kept getting louder, or maybe we were just getting worse at existing inside it.
Music pounded through my chest like it was trying to knock something loose. Lights cut across the room in frantic colors, turning everyone into fragments. Faces. Smiles. Teeth. Hands in the air. Alcohol did that thing where it smoothed the edges of my nerves but sharpened everything else. Every sound was louder. Every touch landed harder. Every thought took a weird scenic route before arriving.
David was glowing in that way people do when they’re drunk enough to feel invincible but not drunk enough to fall over. His cheeks were flushed. His eyes were bright. He kept talking with his hands, knocking into me every few seconds.
“Okay,” he yelled into my ear, “new plan.”
I leaned in. Too close. “You’ve said that four times.”
“This one’s solid,” he insisted. “We just vibe.”
“Vibe how?”
“Like… chill.” He made a vague smoothing gesture. “Less horny.”
I snorted. “You literally told a girl five minutes ago that her necklace made you think about biting her.”
“It was a compliment!”
“It was alarming.”
We tried anyway. Again.
Different group. Two girls dancing near the edge of the floor. One with short hair, one with bangs that looked very intentional. They smiled when we approached. Hope flickered. Dangerous thing, hope.
“Hey,” David said, leaning against the wall beside them. “You guys look like you know how to survive this place.”
Short Hair laughed. “Barely.”
I jumped in. “We’re tourists. Emotionally fragile.”
That got another laugh. Good start.
We danced. Sort of. The music was too loud for talking, so it was all smiles and nods and exaggerated reactions. David spun Short Hair once. She seemed into it. Bangs danced with me for about thirty seconds before her attention drifted somewhere over my shoulder.
I followed her gaze and realized she was watching David.
Which was fair. David had that energy right now. Loose. Magnetic. Too much.
He leaned in to say something to Short Hair and instead shouted, “THIS IS MY BOYFRIEND.”
Time slowed.
I turned to him, brain sloshing. “What?”
Short Hair blinked. Bangs froze mid-sway.
David grinned like he’d just said something hilarious. “Sorry,” he corrected loudly. “Friend. Best friend. Very straight. Very single.”
The girls exchanged a look.
“Oh,” Bangs said. “Okay.”
And just like that, the vibe collapsed. They smiled politely. Said something about needing water. Slipped away.
I stared after them, heart hammering for reasons I absolutely did not want to unpack.
I grabbed David’s sleeve. “Did you just call me your boyfriend?”
He squinted at me, thinking hard. “Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He laughed. “Shit. Sorry. I’m hammered.”
“You’re not that hammered.”
“I am spiritually hammered.”
I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again. The words were slippery. My thoughts felt padded. The music surged, swallowing the moment.
“Whatever,” I said finally. “Let’s get another drink.”
Bad idea. Obviously.
We got shots. Tequila. Because we hate ourselves. The bartender slid them over, unimpressed.
“To Europe,” David said, lifting his glass.
“To making excellent decisions,” I added.
We clinked. Downed them.
The burn hit, sharp and immediate. My eyes watered. David coughed, then laughed too loud.
“Okay,” he said. “Now I’m hammered.”
Things blurred after that. Not fully. Just enough. The room felt softer around the edges. My body heavier. My brain slower to protest.
Which is probably why we kept trying.
We drifted back into the crowd with renewed, deeply misplaced optimism. The kind you only get after too much alcohol and not enough success. David grabbed my hand at some point, not in a deliberate way, more like a hey-don’t-lose-me-in-here reflex. I noticed it immediately. Pretended not to.
We aimed for a cluster of girls near the DJ booth. Loud. Glossy. All moving like they knew exactly what they were doing. David leaned in, said something I couldn’t hear, flashed that grin that usually worked on everyone. One of them smiled back. Progress.
I slid in beside him, tried to dance. Or whatever my body thought dancing was right now. My limbs felt slightly delayed, like they were receiving instructions through bad Wi-Fi.
“So,” I shouted at the girl nearest me, “are you having fun?”
She squinted at me, nodded vaguely, then turned her body just enough that I was no longer part of the conversation.
Cool.
David fared no better. He tried to match someone’s rhythm and missed it entirely. Stepped on a foot. Apologized too earnestly. The girl laughed, not unkindly, but it was already over. She melted away into the crowd like smoke.
We stood there for a second, swaying, abandoned.
“Okay,” David said, leaning close to my ear. “I think we’re past peak hotness.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ve entered… confusing uncle energy.”
He laughed, loud and unfiltered, then bumped his shoulder into mine. The crowd surged again, bodies pressing from all sides, pushing us closer together without asking permission.
We were suddenly chest to chest.
Not fully. But enough.
David’s hands landed on my hips automatically, steadying us both. Mine hovered uselessly in the air before settling on his arms. Heat radiated off him. Or maybe it was just me.
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t move away.
“It’s fine,” I said. It didn’t feel fine. It felt like my nervous system had just been plugged into an outlet.
We tried again. Halfheartedly. A girl with curly hair. A girl in red. Smiles that flickered and died. Conversations that started and stalled. Every time I turned away, David was there. Every time he lost someone, he drifted back to me.
Eventually, we stopped pretending.
We danced together instead. Not slow. Not fast. Just swaying, letting the music do most of the work. The crowd compressed and released around us like a living thing. Our foreheads nearly touched at one point. I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“This is going badly,” David shouted.
I laughed. “Objectively.”
“We should be getting laid right now.”
“Statistically,” I said, “yes.”
He leaned closer, mouth near my ear. “Okay. New strategy.”
I tilted my head so I could hear him better. Our cheeks brushed. Electricity shot down my spine.
“What?” I said.
“We lower expectations,” he whispered. “Someone. Anyone. Warm. Human.”
I swallowed. “You’re setting a high bar.”
He laughed, breath puffing against my jaw. “Shut up. You know what I mean.”
I did. And I didn’t.
We shifted again, pushed by the crowd, our bodies lining up almost perfectly. My thigh pressed between his. His knee bumped mine. It felt intimate in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with closeness.
“This is ridiculous,” I said.
“What is?” he asked.
“This. Us. Being this bad at it.”
“Maybe we’re just distracted,” he said.
“By what?”
He shrugged. “Each other?”
The words hit me harder than the alcohol.
Before I could respond, he leaned in again, trying to whisper something over the music. I leaned in too. Too fast. Too close.
Our lips brushed.
It wasn’t a kiss.
It wasn’t not one either.
Just a soft, accidental contact. Warm. Electric. A spark snapping between exposed wires.
Time stopped.
We froze there, mouths barely touching, breath mingling. I could feel his lower lip against mine, the faint pressure of it, the way he inhaled sharply like he’d just realized what was happening.
My heart slammed so hard I thought it might knock me over.
Neither of us pulled away.
The music kept pounding. Lights flashed. The world continued, completely unaware that something catastrophic was unfolding in the middle of the dance floor.
I felt everything at once.
His warmth. His closeness. The familiarity of him twisted into something new and terrifying and impossibly tender. My hands tightened on his arms without me deciding to do it.
His fingers dug into my waist.
For a fraction of a second, I thought he might lean in fully. That this might tip from accident into choice.
Instead, we broke apart like we’d been burned.
“Oh,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Me neither—”
We stared at each other, eyes wide, mouths slightly open, like we’d both just seen something we weren’t supposed to.
The crowd shifted again, forcing space between us. It felt wrong immediately. Like something essential had been taken away.
I laughed weakly. “Wow. We are… drunk.”
“Yeah,” he said, but his voice didn’t match the joke.
Something had changed. I could feel it settling in my chest, heavy and undeniable.
Because suddenly everything made sense.
The checking where he was. The way my mood tracked his. The jealousy I’d tried to laugh off earlier. The way his attention felt like oxygen. The way the idea of him with someone else twisted my stomach in knots.
I wasn’t just confused.
I was in love.
The realization landed quietly, without fireworks or drama. Just a deep, steady certainty. Like something clicking into place.
It terrified me.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I barely trusted myself to breathe.
David rubbed his face, laughing too loud again. “Okay. We need air. Or water. Or Jesus.”
“Probably all three,” I said, forcing a smile.
He nodded, grabbed my wrist again, grounding, familiar. “Come on.”
As he pulled me through the crowd, my heart raced for reasons that had nothing to do with the club, or the alcohol, or getting laid.
I knew it now.
And there was no unknowing it.
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