Chapter Six #2
I liked them. Whatever the fuck their names were.
“Thank you!” I said, throwing my hand up dramatically.
We weren’t talking about my brother, but I was.
“That’s what I’m saying, dude! Like, don’t disrespect me, don’t fucking spit in my fucking eye after I’ve done nothing but support you, and be there for you, break my fucking back for you! You know?”
They both looked at me like they wanted to eat me alive. I’m gay as fuck, but at that moment, I’d let them.
Not Rebekah, or Ronnie, I was almost sure her name was Rickie—then who the fuck was Ronnie?
—said, “I know. Trust me, I know. I shared a room with this girl in boarding school who was like my sister. Like, we lived together for three years. We were best fucking friends. Who sat as her life drawing model when we weren’t supposed to use live subjects?
Me. Who called her mom and told her she was in the shower, no matter where she was, as soon as I got a panicked DM?
Me. Who fucked my boyfriend the one time I actually went home for Thanksgiving? Her.”
My face matched the disgust in my voice. “Ew, fuck that.”
“Oh, Gisele, right?” Kris asked.
“Yeah.” Rickie rolled her eyes and fell back onto the couch.
“They deserved each other. Heard he gave her crabs. Still forgave her when she apologized, but like, things were different, you know? We still follow each other, and I’m glad she’s doing well, but, like, I wouldn’t go out of my way to hang out with her.
If she were in the city and DM’d me, yeah, fine.
But like, coffee, not drinks, you know?”
“Damn fucking shame.” I didn’t understand what she meant, or what city she was talking about.
Rickie looked me up and down with a smirk crawling across her mouth.
“No, what’s a shame is the drinks VIP offers.
All this booze,” she spread her arm to several thousand dollars’ worth of bottles and mixers on the table, “and the only thing you can make is like a screwdriver.” She laughed.
“I’m not fourteen. Hello?” She laughed again.
“You gentlemen want to escort me down to the actual bar for a proper drink?”
“Yeah, sure thing,” I said.
“Of course,” Kris said. Then to me, “She’s been into elderflower spritzers all spring.”
“It’s fab, and if you’re not on the St. Germain train,” she pronounced it like San Zher-main, “Then you are missing out. And that is not my fault.”
The VIP section was on a balcony overlooking the dance floor.
The booths were large, square, U-shaped couches lined up next to each other, with tables and chairs in front.
Each one was thousands of dollars to reserve.
Or, did you have to agree to a minimum spend of thousands of dollars on bottle service just to sit there?
I couldn’t hear Kris explain it as we walked down the private staircase to the main floor.
Finn was alone and very drunk at the bar. Not pass out, slurring his words, drunk. More like, “Hey man! Where the fuck have you been? Been looking for you!” as soon as he saw me.
“Yooo!” I said, pretty close to, but not as drunk as he was. “I met people. They have a VIP booth upstairs.”
I turned to my new friends, aware that I wasn’t solid on their names, and introduced Finn first. “This is Finn, my brother’s best friend, and uh, best man.”
Kris knitted his brow at me. Rickie, thankfully, introduced herself, extending her hand to Finn. He wasn’t too drunk to take it and kiss her knuckles, causing her to giggle, blush, and shoot Kris a look. “And this is Kris.”
Finn stood up, solid on his feet, and shook Kris’s hand as if he’d just sold him a car. “Nice to meet you guys. I’d introduce you to the other guys, but I don’t know where they are.” He giggled, much like Rickie.
“That’s okay. You guys are cool enough.” She looked him up and down like she had me, only… more. Maybe she realized I was more into Kris than her, but Finn was fair game? I didn’t know and didn’t care. As long as someone touched my penis and I touched theirs.
“Why don’t you come upstairs with us?” Rickie asked Finn. “Well, what are you drinking? If it’s just a mixed drink, then please come up. We have so much, and we won’t be able to drink it, and they’re gonna charge us anyway, and then throw it away, and I hate being wasteful.”
“Rum and Coke.” Finn looked at his half-empty drink as if he’d never seen it before. “You guys got rum and Coke?”
“Oh my god, so much!”
Kris said, “None of them drink rum, so there’s a whole unopened bottle. And the mixers are free. Just tell them you want Coke if there isn’t any.”
If Rickie liked him so much, maybe Finn would go home with them, and I could sleep in the room alone. Or with company. Would it be the worst thing in the world if I helped get the kid’s dick wet?
It was a fleeting thought. Finn said, “Fuck yeah, man! I’d love to see what upstairs is like,” after slipping his heavy arm over my shoulders. Then to me, “You’re coming right? If not, I’ll just hang here.”
“Yeah…” I looked from Kris to Rickie. “If that’s still cool…”
“Of course.” Rickie threw her arms around Finn and me. “New frieeeeeends!”
The twenty-five-dollar blackberry, St. Germain, and Veuve Clicquot spritzer—pronounced Vuv Klee-KOH—was gone before we even got back to the third floor.
Finn never removed his arm from my shoulder.
Not on the tight stairway, or when we sat down on the couch.
The only time he took his arm away was to make a drink once the server brought him a fresh bottle of Coke.
Then to slap my knee in response to a joke and leave his hand there. It was… I mean… how could he not…
I hadn’t had a drink in a while, but Finn wasn’t helping with the horny situation.
I found out who Ronnie was. This laid-back, non-binary person, who apparently was one of the first people in that group I met.
They had dreads down to their shoulders and were rocking a cool, neon-colored, Miami-inspired jumper thing.
I realized maybe I had browned-out and sobered up?
I wasn’t sure, but I kept the party going.
Especially with Finn all over me. He had let go of my knee, but put his arm around me again. Then he started shoving me. At first, like a hockey check, then with his hands. Not a solid minute went by that he wasn’t touching me in some way.
Rickie and Kris got up to dance in the space between the sofas and the balcony’s edge while Finn and I chatted and laughed with Ronnie.
I wanted to ask why they were there, meaning both LIV and Miami, but I didn’t.
From our conversations, I knew none of them even lived in Florida.
I also wanted to ask who the hell was paying for everything, because I was far from a mooch and wanted to throw some cash to someone.
Rickie and Kris started making out on our mini dance floor, which I could’ve seen coming, even if I didn’t think they were a couple. But then, another guy started dancing with them. Rickie kissed him first, and Kris followed suit.
I have to say, for someone who had imagined himself in a naked cuddle pile with those people, it was shocking.
I didn’t recognize the other guy, but I guess they knew him?
Or it didn’t matter? It really was whatever.
Because not long after they started dancing the three-way tango, most of the rest of the group got up to dance too. Finn and I included.
At first, we danced with Ronnie in our best impression of awkward friends at a seventh-grade dance. It didn’t take long for Ronnie to leave Finn and me alone.
For some time, we just moved to the beat in front of each other. Catching the other’s eye and smiling. He took a step closer, and so did I. He leaned in to say something. I answered, he didn’t leave, swaying his hips ever closer to mine.
Then it changed. We were dancing together. With each other. In one another’s space in a way that could only be called intimate. Finn snaked his arm around my waist and ground his pelvis into mine, all without looking at me.
It was only a matter of time. I felt it, then felt his, and we made eye contact.
We were both hard and rubbing them against each other.
I’d never seen Finn like that. Confident to the point of…
I didn’t even fucking know. More than that, he looked comfortable.
Like he knew what he wanted for the first time I’d ever seen, and he was going to take it. Consequences be damned.
I could’ve kissed him. Maybe I should have.
But he looked down at what our hips were doing, and I let my head fall back.
Before we got another moment like that, the song changed, and the rest of the group returned to our seats.
Only this time, my arm was around Finn, and Rickie was sitting in Kris’s lap in the chair next to us.
Rickie told us another story. I was sure by then she meant New York when she said The City.
Rickie was hilarious, but Finn was everything, and I stopped paying attention halfway through.
I leaned back, taking him with me. He was still engaged in her tale, but leaned against me without question or an ounce of resistance.
I laughed at what Rickie said, certain it was funny.
I looked around at the group. People on laps, regardless of gender.
A multitude of races, genders, and sexualities.
It was easy to imagine those people as my friends.
Just hanging out, enjoying life and each other.
And Finn, as my boyfriend, cuddled up on me without so much as a second glance from anyone.
Fuck, that hurt. Like pulling a loose tooth.
Or poking a bruise. A good pain. One I sought.
What a fucking life that would be. I’m out, and my friends are accepting.
I mean, no shit, they wouldn’t be my friends otherwise.
No one in my life would be uncomfortable with a little PDA.
But most of my friends were straight dudes.
Some of them were still single and going out, but I didn’t have time for that.
Most of them were new doctors too, or were busy with kids and wives, or girlfriends and work.
They were great, and I loved them. But there was something about being with those folks.
Maybe it was the booze, the VIP treatment, or their easy-going nature. Or maybe it was just Finn?
No one was talking to us. My arm was at my side, his hand on his knee. We looked at each other. He looked at my lips, and I at his. His eyes began to close, and his head tilted.
“Is this where you guys have been?” Jason said, escorted by a security guard.
I sat back from Finn, and his head continued its trajectory so he could scratch the back of his neck.
Jason was nowhere near as drunk as we were. Not even on the same plane of existence. And he looked annoyed, which I took to mean pissed.
“I’ve been looking all the fuck over for you two. Miles is puking, and they’re kicking us out.”
I must not have looked innocent. Jason’s gaze flicked to Finn, then back to me, noticing how close we were sitting and how our bodies aligned. His brows twitched up, then down.
“Sorry, man,” I said, standing up. “I met these guys, and they invited me up here, then I found Finn alone and wasted, and they invited him up too. I looked for you guys, but couldn’t find anyone.”
“Yeah. No worries. We just gotta go. C’mon.” Jason looked at Finn, who was taking his time standing, possibly because something else was up.
I said goodbye to the people whose names I remembered and failed to get a single Venmo.
Then gave myself all the shit I was sure Jason wanted to, but was too nice or mature to say.
Miles got sick at his bachelor party, not a big deal.
But his brother and best man were nowhere to be found.
That was our job. My lifelong duty, and Finn’s appointed role. Jason had every right to be pissed.
As soon as we were out of the VIP section, whatever spell it had cast on Finn and me was broken. He wouldn’t look at me, and I feared what the bathroom mirror had to say once we got back to the room.