"You... go ahead. I don’t really feel like dancing right now.” She cradled her half empty glass of champagne as she stared out at the dance floor.

Ever since her little...run in with Kane at the Dive after her disastrous attempt to leave the Trojans, it only made sense that she’d been rather careful to avoid wherever he might me. Part of her was pretty sure he didn’t care that much about her, had gotten his fill of beating her and that he had much bigger fish to fry. But she also knew Kane was...difficult to predict. It seemed that such a sentiment was proved true as she walked back from a night of drinks with a couple friends, the sun having set a few hours ago by now. She’d meant to call a lyft or someone to pick her up, but tragically her phone had died nearly a half hour ago. So she’d been wandering in an attempt to find some other way home. Unfortunately, it seemed that her wandering, instead, produced a shadowed man on the corner of an alley. Trying to muster confidence, she called out— “Are you the tall, dark, stranger I’ve been lookin’ for?” Men generally responded better to flirtation than a threat of violence off the bat, and he wa confident enough in her persuasion abilities to know she’d be able to get herself out of anything she might not want.

At first, bidding on Kane had just been a small way to amuse himself. Jackson thought it was funny to continuously up the amount of money Izzy was spending on her man— epseically when the money was no doubt at least mostly Kane’s. But then Izzy had left the building when her bid was still the highest. Jackson had noticed, and the thought of how funny it might be if he actually won the other gang president decided to make a home in his brain. Now he was going to claim his ‘prize’ after crossing the room to get to Kane. His posture was relaxed, easy, he knew it’d be idiotic for either one of them to try and start something in the middle of all this. “So are you excited to be my bitch?” he asked the other man with his head cocked to the side. 

Tsk tsk, are you sure about that?

I volunteer for a dance.

“Do you think it’s silly? We’ve been engaged for over a year now and haven’t even picked out a venue or a date yet.”

“Oh thank god -- there you are!” There was an overwhelming rush of emotions that she couldn’t quite explain as Renee climbed into the passenger seat and threw her arms around him for a brief moment. “That felt like you were gone for an eternity. People were starting to freak out and I -- I was just trying not to panic and worry about you.”

“Surely you can spare half an hour for lunch? Promise, I’ll let you get back to work straight after.”