Chapter 10 TARAN #2
“That’s the bar I keep saying I wanna take you to. Also where my birthday party’s gonna be,” Diego added.
“You’re having a birthday party?” I wondered. His birthday was in the first week of August. That much I knew, but otherwise I wasn’t sure.
“Yeah, and if you don’t come, I’m breaking up with you,” he said, eyebrows high.
I laughed.
“Come hang out,” Bryn said.
“He has to work in the morning,” Diego said.
“I’ve made worse decisions for worse reasons.” I grinned. “Say when and I’m there.”
“Go home and get some clothes, then.” Diego bit his bottom lip and gave me a long, lingering up-and-down look. “You can stay so work will be closer.”
“You’re letting him use your bathroom?” Bryn’s eyes widened.
“I know, right?” Diego sighed. “He doesn’t understand that’s a much bigger deal than calling him my boyfriend.”
“Wait, he’s not your boyfriend?”
Diego flushed and rolled his eyes.
“Just a friend who’s a boy,” I clarified.
“Okay, weirdo.” Bryn shot Diego an amused look and went back to work behind the bar.
As if I’d been the one who said it, he shot me a dirty look.
I put both hands up.
He laughed, blew me a kiss, and plunged elbow deep into the sink.
Later that night, I chugged a cold brew from Dunkin’ in the Uber back downtown. The nearer we got, the more I told myself I was insane to go out at one a.m. on a Wednesday night just because I was head over heels for some guy.
Which might’ve worked, if it was for some guy and not Diego. Who I would’ve done far crazier things to see.
The parking lot was nearly empty, and the OPEN sign in the dark window wasn’t on, which made me hesitate.
I texted Diego to make sure I had the right place, and within seconds the door swung open.
He leaned out and waved for me to come inside.
“It technically closes at one to the general public, but they do a thing sometimes where they stay open for food service people to get ripped. C’mon. ”
I had the sensation of being allowed into an exclusive club as I slipped past Diego and into the darkened bar.
The décor was Halloween-themed, or maybe just gothic vampire vibes; they had red and purple lights behind the bar, metal/electro style music on the speakers, and the bartender had his face pierced in places I’d never seen before.
A few people I recognized from The Pike turned and waved, and Diego led me to them.
Bryn had a drink for me already, bless them. “Welcome, Diego’s not-boyfriend!”
“Thank you.” I made a small mock bow and accepted my drink. “How’d the night end up?”
“Got really busy between seven and ten, then died. Just like we like it,” Diego said, still scowling at Bryn.
“Hiiiiiiii,” said someone in fake lashes that looked painful, and a beautiful makeup job otherwise. “I’m Dee, I’m your server tonight. Can I get you a snack? Or you got all the snack you need right here?” They looked at Diego pointedly.
“He’s well-fed.” Diego made a kissy face.
“I bet, you little slut.” Dee grinned. “Lemme know if you need anything, baby. Drinks til two thirty.” And they whirled and strutted away.
“Don’t mind Dee; he’s just jealous,” said a purple-haired girl on the other side of Diego. She was familiar from The Pike, but I couldn’t remember her name.
“Alyssa,” Diego exclaimed, like it was an insult.
“What! Dee’s obsessed with you.”
“Well, you did fuck him,” Bryn pointed out.
“I fucked a lot of people. That doesn’t mean they’re jealous.” Diego stuck his chin out.
“Twenty bucks said if you offered to take Dee to the bathroom right now, he’d do it just to get back at Diego,” a short, remarkably handsome white person in a vest with no shirt under it said to me.
“Taran, this is Shawn. Shawn, Taran,” Diego said. “Shawn loses a lot of money on bad bets, because he’s an idiot.”
“I never fucked him,” Shawn said confidentially. “He’s so bitter sometimes.”
I laughed out loud.
“He’s messing with you,” Diego said, though a smile was pulling at his lips too.
“So he did fuck you?” I wondered, trying to look serious and failing.
“I hate you all,” Diego insisted. “Dee! Can we get another round?”
Alyssa, the purple-haired bar back, was only twenty, so she was the DD as it turned out.
Dee, despite any jealousy, kept us well supplied with cocktails, and we took turns buying rounds so that by two a.m., we were in pretty good shape.
Shawn sidled up to me while Diego, Bryn, and Alyssa were talking about some drama at The Pike, and said, “How’d you meet Diego, anyhow? I haven’t seen you around.”
“No, I’ve never been here,” I admitted.
“I can tell, honey.” He leaned back and gave me a once-over pointedly.
I chuckled. “I’ve known him since high school.”
“Hey!” Diego interrupted. “I forgot to tell you. Bettina’s sister texted me the other day. She’s gonna hook me up with an engineer in Pittsburgh, so I can do a new demo with some different stuff on it.”
“No shit?” I put an arm around his shoulder and kissed his hair. “That’s great.”
“Yeah. I guess her agent has a friend here or something. I don’t know, but it’s kinda cool to be, like, working back towards the thing I wanted in the first place.”
“You’re wasted if you’re not on the stage,” Shawn said. He slurred the word stage a little.
“And you’re just wasted,” Bryn pointed out, taking the tequila shot on the table in front of him and slamming it into their own mouth.
“Biiiiiiiiitch,” Shawn said, mimicking a Key get my own setup eventually. ”
“You should make a wish list for your birthday. Got almost two months to shop,” I suggested.
“Please. My friends are broke as fuck, and I am not inviting my family to my party here.” Then he paused and seemed to consider. “Annie does wanna have a birthday dinner for me tho. And I was gonna say yes because she’s a legit cook.”
“We could—” I started to suggest he use his family party as an excuse to get him set up for voice work.
But Shawn leaned across me and said, “So he’s an old high school flame, huh?”
The dangers of having conversations in loud bars after midnight, I guessed. I couldn’t be annoyed, though, because the way Diego scrunched up his nose and rolled his eyes at Shawn was adorable.
“I am,” I said with a confidence I did not feel. Then laughed.
“But obviously you’ve been out of the picture the last few years…” Shawn made a gesture that said he expected me to pick up that ball and run with it.
“Nope,” Diego said almost cheerfully.
“Eight years,” I admitted.
Diego sighed, trying to look annoyed. Then burst out laughing as Shawn gave a high-pitched, “Oooooooh, girl! Piping hot tea.”
“You sound like an elder millennial trying to sound cool,” Bryn, who looked about the same age as Shawn, told him.
“I am,” Shawn said impatiently. “Duh.”
“Did you just say duh?” Alyssa wondered.
Shawn ignored her in favor of further questioning for me and Diego. “Why?”
“Why eight years?” Diego asked.
“Yes! That’s forever!”
“I went to school,” I replied.
“On a college football scholarship,” Diego added with a smirk. So much for not wanting to answer questions, huh?
I chuckled, amazed that the story didn’t have the power to hurt me anymore. Hadn’t realized that before just now. Wildly enough, it seemed Diego felt the same because his grin had his eyes all scrunched up and his gap flashing.
“I called it,” Bryn said. “Jock and nerd.”
“I wasn’t a nerd,” Diego protested with a laugh that said he wasn’t even trying to be convincing.
“But not a bully, right?” Alyssa asked sharply.
I shook my head and held up both hands in surrender.
“He wasn’t. I’d never suck a bully off in the locker room,” Diego assured them all. “Not even for revenge purposes.”
“Spicy!” Shawn declared.
I snorted.
Shawn said, “Yes, you would.”
“I will kick your dick clean off your body,” Diego told him, deeply unserious.
Shawn blew him a kiss.
When I went up to get the last round of drinks before two thirty, Bryn came with me. “You said something about a birthday wish list?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna get him to do one up for the family. He needs some stuff to start recording at home eventually.” I didn’t know shit about it, but I did know using a professional studio would cost money. The sooner he could get his own setup, the better.
“Can you get it to me if I give you my number?” They pulled out their phone. “Everyone at the Pike will wanna go in on something nice if I bring some good ideas.”
“Absolutely.” We traded numbers, and they helped me get the drinks back to our table safely before last call.
Eventually, Alyssa dropped everyone at home safe and sound. Diego nearly tripped getting into his apartment, so I caught him and made a big show of setting him back on his feet.
“My hero,” he murmured, his eyelids heavy. He rewarded me with a smack on the ass as he kicked off his boots.
I closed and locked the door behind us and did the same. When I turned around again, he was just standing by the mirror behind the door, watching me with those sleepy eyes.
“You okay?” I asked, holding out both hands to him.
He took them and pulled himself in close, leaning his head on my shoulder. I put an arm around his waist and squeezed, breathing deep.
He said, into my neck, “Thanks for coming out. It’s really late. You have to wake up in like. Three hours.”
“S’okay,” I told him sincerely.
“I wanted to take you dancing—Shawn loves to go out dancing—but I don’t think you’d have that much fun.”
“I’d have fun watching you have fun.”
“Would you dance with me?”
“I’d do anything you want, Diego,” I assured him.
He laughed—more like a giggle, honestly, and picked up his head.
“No, but, like… don’t just say that. I want you to do stuff you wanna do.
” He wasn’t just sleepy; he was a drunker than I’d ever seen him.
Come to think of it, I’d never seen him drink more than two cocktails or a handful of beers in one sitting.
He was probably gonna regret it, but it was fucking adorable.
“I mean it.” He pushed off my chest and glared, though the effect was ruined by how he swayed on his feet a little. “You should, like, have an opinion.”
“I do,” I said. “I don’t say anything you want because I don’t care, or because I think you’ll get mad if I disagree with you.”
“Then why do you say it?” he asked, suddenly exasperated.
“Because I’d do anything for you,” I said.
He stood there watching me for a few moments, his expression going from frowny to wide-eyed and open-mouthed slowly but surely. “Would you?”
I nodded.
“Would you murder someone?” he asked, frowning again.
I tried not to laugh because he looked so serious. “Depends. Why would you want someone murdered?”
“I wouldn’t. I mean in theory yes, but in practice never. That’s fucked up.”
“Right. Which is why I’d do anything for you. Because I can trust that anything you asked me to do wouldn’t be morally reprehense..ible.”
“Are you drunk too?”
“I… might be.” I definitely was.
He took my hand and pulled me toward the bathroom. “C’mon. Let’s brush and then sleep. You can do anything for me in the morning.”
I was gonna go to work with a headache in the morning, actually.
But it was already worth it.