Sunlight steals in through the single window, washing over me like a spotlight. I wrestle from between the sheets, attempting to put together the pieces of the night before. But there's nothing, but that single moment.

The feel of calloused hands on that smooth Capital bar. I remember nodding to the bartender, a younger guy with hair the color and probably consistency of cotton candy. I never get my drink. She saunters over, waggles a ringed finger in my face, and asks if she can dollar a dollar or five.

'Celebrating an engagement?' I ask, one eye on the slender thigh that she touches to mine, and another on the few people that remain. I watch for the red-face fiancée, outraged at his partner's slur and her easiness. But he doesn't come.

'Sort of,' she mumbles, uncrossing her legs, and wrapping an ankle around my trouser, 'But would it matter? Are you above flirting with those, who're, well taken?'

I can feel the flush seeping into my face, and I try to shake the look of astonishment that threatens to cross it as well, 'Well, yes.'

She gives a pout, tucking under a wine-stained lip, 'Really?'

I nod, but it's weakening. My resolve, and a bit of my pride, 'Oh come off it, that high horse of yours. Buy me a drink, and we'll have a little fun.'

It was against my better judgment, I knew it then, and I know it now, with my head buried deep into the pillows, but I slid a fiver across the bar.

.

I call out into the room, 'Hello? Hello!' But receive no answer, save for a couple of desperate echoes amplified back. I couldn't have imagined it, no. She was here, with me. I kick the pillows from around me, and wrap a loose sheet around my waist. I try to call out her name, but stop, think, and then shake my head. Shit, I can't remember it. So I speak the first words that come to mind, 'Cocktail. Red.'

I'm tempted to add another, a non-too favorable word that begins with a w, but I don't. She's left me. I was nothing more then a one night stand, someone to kiss as the clock rings out at midnight. I finger the nightstand, running my hand through the drawers and across the tabletop. Apparently she's a thief as well.

I could've sworn there was a wallet here. Somewhere.

.

Nope, but here's a key to the room. That defiantly wasn't here last night. She'd had that around her neck. So I don't lose it. I lose a lot of things.

'That bitch.' I'm frustrated, okay I'm way past frustrated, and moving into the area of the so incredibly pissed off I could flip something over. And I do. I grip that damned mattress. That one she'd shoved me onto the night before, and I roll it off the springs, along with a string of curses.

And that's when I notice it. Off on the small little table near the window. A single glass of wine, the color of melted butterscotch. She's left it untouched, but noticeable, like a calling card of some cartoon villain.

I don't read the note attached. Not yet.

Instead I grip the glass and tip it back, swallowing it all in two quick gulps.

Author's Note; Sorry for the short chapters guy. The following will be longer. Just have to get a bit of backstory out of the way.