Chapter 17 #2
Kaina made one remark about how she was glad to have finally met a good lawyer in Baz, and she and Sami were off on a rapid-fire exchange of quips about who should shut up first. The others generously supplied anecdotes about previous battles of wits that Baz was sad to have missed, never passing up on jokes at each other’s expense which were met with hearty laughter.
The ease and familiarity between them were palpable, an infectious level of comfort Baz had never felt in any group dynamic.
When their host, a drag queen called Diane o’Cancer—Baz traded a massive side-eye with a too-amused Sami—interrupted by announcing that it was time to start the game, Baz, for the first time ever, felt disappointed at the introduction of structure.
The rules were simple: there’d be six rounds of queer-themed trivia. The sheet for their answers was on the table. The group who earned the most points won a round of free drinks.
Baz had gone all out for less.
He wasn’t the only one. Tony hadn’t been kidding about the group’s competitiveness, whisper-yelling answers at each other, fighting when they disagreed while Zahra wrote down whatever answer she deemed best. Good thing Baz wasn’t shy nor easily intimidated—and the art and literature round was where he shone.
“Which famous writer had a mental breakdown in Charles Dickens’s front yard?” Diane o’Cancer had barely finished the question when Baz hissed, “Hans Christian Andersen!” at exactly the same time Sami did, the words coming out in perfect synchrony.
Sami’s mouth was ajar under his sparkling eyes.
“You thought you were the only one who knew fun facts?” Baz teased and got rewarded with Sami’s hand gliding to the inside of his thigh, tracing along his inseam.
“Next question: Which renaissance fine artist is considered to be the first to have expressed a queer identity?”
“Donatello,” Baz said. Never did he think taking art history would be good for anything in this life, but here it was, finally paying off.
“You sure?” Zahra asked. Since they’d only just met, Baz would give her a pass for doubting him.
“I wrote an essay about it in college. Trust me. I’m sure.”
“What grade did you get?” Sami dared to ask when he should have known better.
“An A, obviously.”
“Put it down,” Naija said. Damn straight.
“I thought you were a business major,” Sami said.
A few weeks ago, Baz might have wasted energy on wondering how Sami knew that—the Baz of today couldn’t care less about his sources as long as his information was accurate.
“God forbid a guy has hobbies.”
“Hot. Maybe we should go to the art museum so you can share all your sexy art knowledge with me…” His index finger traced down Baz’s dark green tie, accidentally matching the shade of Sami’s eye shadow.
“So you can make fun of me?”
“Naturally.” That shouldn’t be self-evident, but Baz supposed with Sami, it was. Now that he knew that Sami teased his friends too, it was hard to pretend it wasn’t a sign of affection.
Maybe Sami did like him, somehow. Maybe that was why his front teeth caught on his perfect lips, why he held Baz’s gaze hostage…
Two fingers snapped between their faces. Baz jerked back.
“Focus up, gays! You can make out later,” Kaina demanded. So that was the downside of competitiveness. He got it now.
“Sorry,” Sami said unapologetically, resting his head on Baz’s shoulder. A curl got stuck on Baz’s lips. He guided it back to Sami’s head, scratching along his scalp as he did.
They were the strongest team for the first half, which earned them a round of shots. Baz had barely put his glass down when Sami swung a leg over his lap. Straddling him, in front of everyone. Baz’s ears were on fire.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you you’d get glitter after a few drinks.” His nifty fingers undid Baz’s tie. He carefully rolled up the satin—good to know he had some sense of self-preservation—and squeezed the bundle into the pocket of Baz’s pants, never breaking eye contact as he did.
“I haven’t agreed to that,” Baz rasped.
“Shh. The less you resist, the quicker this will be over.” He opened the top buttons of Baz’s shirt, briefly paused to draw figures of eight on Baz’s chest. “Naija. The glitter.”
To Baz’s horror, she pulled out a small container of the same golden glitter that sparkled on her cheeks, along with a brush and a bottle of hand sanitizer.
“Sami, seriously—”
Sami cupped his cheek. His thumb traced over his bottom lip. “I won’t ruin another shirt.”
“I’m holding you to that.” Baz said and leaned against the backrest. He grabbed Sami’s hips, ready to throw him off if necessary.
The hand sanitizer was barely warmed by Sami’s fingers when he smeared it on Baz’s chest. He grabbed the paintbrush and glitter, repeatedly pressed the scruffy end against Baz’s skin. When he was done, Baz snuck a glance down, followed the shape with his finger.
“You shit, is that a heart?”
“I thought it’s about time you got one.”
Oh, was that so?
Baz couldn’t be doing all that badly, given that Sami still bothered with him, still leaned in. The tip of his nose brushed over Baz’s, once, then again. Baz tightened his grip on his hips. The sweetness of Sami’s breath caressed his cheek, his lips…
“Do you two need a room?” Tony whispered, his face suddenly right next to them.
Baz flinched back. He dropped his hands, but Sami shamelessly pressed a wet kiss on his cheek.
“Later,” he whispered. He slid off Baz, but only to melt into his side. His cold hand snuck under Baz’s shirt. His thumb traced circles on the skin of Baz’s waist, rhythmic and comforting.
Baz started to understand why some couples felt the need to do this.
“And that from the guy who doesn’t believe in love,” Kaina remarked.
“Or so he says,” Zahra added with a wink that Baz had to ignore before he spiraled about what it meant. Hearing Sami was a secret realist was much more interesting.
“Maybe you have some common sense after all,” Baz muttered. Sami’s forehead was so close. So inviting…
“Oh, so you haven’t heard the duck story yet,” Naija said in a way that made Baz desperate to hear every detail of that right now.
Sami shot upright. “Naija!”
“I think he has a right to know who he’s been hooking up with!”
“I will smother you with a pillow when you sleep. Don’t try me.”
Jesus. Must be one hell of a story.
“Fine.” Naija chuckled.
“I’ll tell it!” Kaina announced. Sami, instead of extending another death threat, groaned. His breath permeated through Baz’s shirt when he hid his face in his shoulder. Baz buried a hand in his thick curls.
“The day was March twelfth—”
“It was well into April,” Tony said.
“Can you not interrupt my story? Thank you. Anyway. March twelfth, last year. Here we are, walking along the Chicago River on this beautiful spring day, enjoying the sun—when suddenly, an evil duckling emerges from the dark water in front of us. And Sami, quick as a whip, correctly assessed the immense threat of the situation. He threw his ice cream down and ran. He fell onto the steps and crawled them up backward like a man possessed by a demon, just to get away from the cutest little duckie I’ve ever seen. ”
A laugh bubbled out of Baz. He wished he had seen this cool, collected man lose his composure as though he had been faced with an alligator instead.
“That adult duck was ginormous! It was basically a goose. And it chased after me!”
If it had been a goose, that would have made a lot more sense. Those things were vicious. But a duck?
“What is wrong with you?” Baz asked, still fighting for his composure.
“I don’t like ducks! They make me shifty.”
“Understatement of the century,” Kaina said.
“Why?” Baz asked.
“Why does there have to be a reason?”
“Because otherwise, it’s insanity. What did ducks ever do to you?”
“Fine. Don’t laugh, but when I was a kid, I may have come a little too close to some ducklings, and their mom chased me for ages. They get so angry. Have you ever been bitten by a duck? Fucking hurts.”
Baz didn’t know which was more endearing, a grown man panicking at the sight of a duck or the mental image of baby Sami being hunted by one.
“Let me get this straight. When you were a child, you poured boiling water down your arms and picked a fight with a duck? I take it back, common sense clearly doesn’t know you.”
“Experiences are how we learn!”
“That implies you have any sense now, which isn’t the case.”
“On the contrary, I have developed the sense to leave the offspring of animals alone.”
“Well.” That was Naija, the heaviness of a hundred stories weighing in a single word.
“Okay, that baby bat was wounded and would have died without me, and I will not have you claim otherwise.”
Smiling, Naija reached out her hand. Sami intertwined their fingers despite the pout he still wore.
“You are so resistant to learning, it’s incredible you have gotten this far in life,” Baz said.
“Like you never did something stupid as a child.”
“Nothing that stupid.”
Some might claim that changing schools at sixteen and running away to the city with his sister and her high school sweetheart had been stupid, but aside from having very good reasons, it had worked out well for them. Better than if they had stayed.
Jack’s pitiful face forced its way to the forefront of Baz’s mind. His rough voice, hoarse after years of shouting at them…
“Come on. You got no one to impress here.” Sami nudged his shoulder. Baz pushed the image away.
“I’m serious.”
Sami regarded him for a long moment as if he was looking for a sign that Baz was lying. The frown lines carved deeper and deeper into his forehead. “Huh. That’s sad.”
“At least I don’t know what it feels like to be bitten by a duck.”
“But childhood is the time to do stupid stuff. If you pissed off a duck now, people would think you’re a dick. And drunk.”
Sure, except Baz had never needed to get into fights with ducks to know he shouldn’t. Besides, an injury was the last thing he had needed as a kid.
His parents would have told him to get over it, but Eevee would have been stressed and worried and begged him to see a doctor.
They’d have snuck out, and Jack would have yelled at them for racking up a bill, and there’d have been tears and chaos all around that would have been up to Baz to fix, and…
No. Being sensible had been the only choice. Was that really so sad?
The touch of soft lips above his collar pulled him back into reality. Sami’s disarmingly sincere eyes found his.
“Don’t,” Sami whispered, so quiet, the words were but a tickle in Baz’s ear. Baz nodded, though he wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to.
“Shots?” Naija asked.
Better words could not have been spoken.