She stared at him, looking at him as if eyeing him for the first time in her life. Maybe it was the relaxed atmosphere. Maybe it was the revelry feel to the people all chattering around her. It might even be a trick of the frathouse lighting, but Seline felt like she, too, like everyone around her, was under the influence of alcohol. The music, if it could really be considered that, was pounding in her ears, the lights were dim, although she could still see everything clearer, the chit-chat of all the drunken revelry filled her ears, the sweaty bodies, were thankfully a few feet away from her, and the secondhand smoke filled her lungs, so that she couldn’t breathe properly. Under any other circumstances, she’d want to leave soon, but seeming to be under a spell, she didn’t want to leave just yet.

She’d seen him before of course. He was part of that group, friends with her best friend’s boyfriend. But she had never seen him in this way. He was watching her, too, as if thinking the same thing about her. He looked, gasped, and she dared not say it to herself, much too afraid that she had been wrong about him, attractive. Attractive with his gangsta look. Attractive with his cigarette clasped tightly between his fingers. Attractive with his shirt like that and his pants like that. They kept this up, stealing glances at each other. At least she was. He seemed to have his eyes fixed on her and would not move his glance. That’s why she kept looking back, even though she thought it rude. But she couldn’t help herself. And neither could he, she realized.

But a second later and two guys came up, completely blocking her view, and interrupting her fixed gaze on him.

“Hey, how come you aren’t out there dancing like everybody else?”

She smiled weakly.

“By the way, my name’s Mike.”

“And I’m Jon.”

Mike held out his hand. She took it and said, simply, “Seline.”

She smiled again, completely forgetting her gaze on Brian.