Chapter 20 Reason Twelve
“That guy keeps staring at us.” Kate was sitting beside me at the bar.
She was nursing her rum and Coke, minus the rum, and pointing at a cowboy with smoldering eyes across the bar.
We were at Manhole, a gay bar in Cobb that was about forty-five minutes outside of West Clark.
Kate and Rhonda had taken me out in hopes of lifting my spirits, but the only thing lifting that night was my agitation.
My butt had been groped twenty-three times.
Seven times by various men wearing see-through crop tops, the rest by Rhonda Macknemera.
I stared at the man who looked old enough to be my father.
He had a handlebar mustache, eyebrows so long they could be braided, and he looked like something out of a tragic western movie from the seventies.
His entire essence radiated vile. Low-budget Sam Elliot held a beer bottle in one hand, and as our eyes met, he began jacking it off.
“Swear to God, if he comes over here, I’m calling the police. Look what he’s doing to that bottle.”
Rhonda nudged me with her shoulder. “Yes, but look what he could be doing to your dick.”
“Every syllable of that sentence offends me.” I scoffed at him and mouthed eww so that he knew I thought he was trash.
Sam chuckled and shook his head, pointing at Rhonda and blowing her a kiss.
“I wonder how many syllables he’s working with.
” She raised her arm and waved at him like a psychopath.
Great Value brand Sam Elliot matched her wave and raised her a wink.
“Sweet Jesus, I think I’ve just turned him.
” She looked at me with wide eyes. “I’ve just converted a gay man.
” She paused. “I don’t know how I feel about that.
You know that I don’t support reparative therapy, Kent-doll.
I’m not gonna have the world thinking I’m some conversion pusher.
” She lifted her hand and flipped Sam Elliot off.
“You’re here, you’re queer, get used to it! ” she shouted above the techno music.
I shook my head. “He could be bisexual.”
“Or he could just be lost,” Kate added. “We’re right next door to a liquor store. Maybe he’s just a wino looking for the employee restroom in the back of the store.”
“The possibilities are endless,” I agreed.
“You’ll never know if you don’t ask him.
” When she stood, I reared back my hand and smacked her ass, the same way she’d been doing with me all night.
“Go get your man, Momma.” Rhonda squeaked before scurrying off, her cheeks burning red.
When she was gone, Kate leaned her head on my shoulder.
"Alright, spill it.” Kate tipped back her drink, finishing the last of her rum-less Coke and setting the glass on the bar. “You’ve been moping all night. I’ve counted at least six men eye-fucking you, and you haven’t so much as smiled at one.”
“I’m not interested. I told you that before we left.”
“Yeah, but you’re being oddly secretive about why. Come on, Kent. You want me to be your best friend? You’re going to need to at least meet me halfway.”
“I’m pretty sure I was drunk when I asked you to be BFFs.”
“Be that as it may, Rhonda and I are pretty much the closest thing to friends that you’ve got, and Rhonda is literally mounting Mustache Man as we speak.”
Rhonda had one leg lifted above the man’s hip and was trying to climb him like a ladder.
“He proposed to her,” I said. Kate’s hand slid into mine, and I leaned over, resting my head against her. “It’s karma. I know that. For leading you on. For making him watch you jack me off when we were kids.”
She bolted up and away from my shoulder, banging my chin with her head. “For watching who what?” Her eyes were practically bulging out of her head.
“God, Kate. Keep up. He was sitting in the shadows that night, watching you give me a hand job. It was romantic.”
“How is that romantic?”
I gazed up at her with dreamy eyes. “He loved me enough to stalk me. It’s precious.”
“Nothing about that is precious.”
I arched an eyebrow and pointed at a man in a fedora and a pair of oversized sunglasses that would give Paris Hilton circa 2005 a run for her money. “How’s Jeff?” I turned back and stared at Kate. “He looks like the Night Stalker and you should both feel humiliated.”
“Probably,” she agreed, “but right now, I just want to walk over there and ride him like a bucking bronco.” She waved at Jeff. Jeff gave her a very bro-like nod. I rolled my eyes, trying to hold down my liquor.
“I hate my life.”
Before we could continue our little trip down memory lane, Rhonda led her knight in shining steel-toed boots back to our seats at the bar, practically dry-humping him along the way. As they approached, she stood on her tiptoes and bit his earlobe.
I turned to Kate, unsure of actual reality. “What the fuck is going on, dude?”
Kate snorted and tried to cover it up with a cough.
“Ladies, this is Stephen,” Rhonda said, her hands wrapped around Sam Elliot’s clone’s waist. “He’s loud, he’s proud, and he’s gonna …
” Rhonda peered up at him, lust heavy in her eyes.
“What was the next part?” Glancing back at us, Rhonda rolled her eyes, “Sorry, y’all. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
Stephen turned toward Rhonda and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Baby, I’m loud, I’m proud, and I’m gonna eat you out.”
“Jesus Christ,” Kate said as I choked on my saliva.
“What the hell is happening right now?” I grabbed a nearby beer, not giving a damn who it belonged to, and I chugged it down in an overzealous gulp. A woman in a sequined blazer who looked like a terrifying blend of Liza Minnelli and James Earl Jones scowled at me from a nearby seat.
“Sam Elliot is about to go down on my best friend. You’re just going to have to fucking cope, Liza!”
Over a round of drinks provided by Sam, AKA Stephen, he told us that he had come to the bar that night to support his son, a twenty-seven-year-old drag queen named Sukki Cox.
Brandon, AKA Sukki, had come out to him two weeks earlier and had been a nervous wreck during the ordeal.
Stephen had taken over fifty pictures of his son’s performance, and he made us look at each one individually as he beamed with pride.
My heart swelled, and I may or may not have hugged Stephen and sobbed into his chest as I repeatedly told him that his son was a lucky man.
I would never have that chance. The chance to have an open and honest conversation with my father.
To hear him tell me that he’d made mistakes.
That he lived with regret for twenty years over the way he handled it.
To forgive him. Knowing Joel Fox, however, he’d probably just throw holy water at me and scream quotes from Leviticus.
Four rum and cokes and a few tequila shooters later, Rhonda and Stephen had made their grand farewell, leaving Kate and me alone at the bar. We were quiet for a while, both of us staring at the couples on the dance floor.
“You still love him,” Kate pointed out.
I took another swig of my beer and nodded. “Yup.”
My phone vibrated. Another text from Gray. The fourth since we'd arrived. I shoved the phone back into my pocket. I couldn’t deal with him. Not yet. Not since that night.
“So, what are you going to do about it?’
“There’s nothing to do. I told him. He showed me the ring, and I made a fool out of myself. I thought he was proposing to me. I said yes.” Before she had a chance to react, I slid my hand back into hers and sighed. “And then he accidentally proposed to Sarah after I told him that I loved him.”
She twisted the stirrer around her drink, creating a tiny little Coca-Cola hurricane in her glass.
“I knew.” I turned toward her, cocking my head to the side.
“Even back then, when we were dating, I knew you were in love with him. I think everyone did. The way you two stared at each other was embarrassing.”
“I want to break up with you again.”
“Yeah, well, too fucking bad, man. You’re stuck with me.” She reached over, tussling my hair. “He still looks at you like that, Kent. When you two are together, he still stares at you like he’s awestruck. He loves you, babe.”
“Then why can’t I be enough for him?” I sniffed and aggressively pushed my drunken tears away from my cheeks. “Why can’t I be enough?”
“You’re going to have to ask him that.”
With a bladder that felt like it might explode at any moment, I stood up. “Yeah. I’ll get right on that.” I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “You’re an absolute gem, but I need to piss something fierce. When I’m done, do you want to get out of here?”
“Yeah. Go on. I’ll see you in a few.”
The bathroom was possibly the vilest space I’d ever occupied. It smelled of piss and semen. There was a used condom hanging over the side of the sink and sounds of debauchery were coming across loud and clear through the wooden divider of the bathroom stall next to the urinals.
A man in a white shirt and aggressively tight jeans leaned against the wall right next to the urinal.
He nodded at me as I approached, sliding his hand against his bulge.
He looked to be in his thirties, and he was definitely my type, but I wasn’t in any headspace for a bathroom hookup.
All I wanted was to take a piss and go home.
There were no dividers between the urinals, so if I was going to pee, my entire dick would be on display.
I turned toward the man and glared at him.
“Little privacy, man?” He nodded once, but he didn’t budge. “Seriously, I just want to take a piss in private. Can you fuck off already?”
“You look real familiar, baby. We met before?”
“I don’t know you, and I have no desire to change that.”
He pulled his hand away from his crotch and—for a moment—I thought that he’d gotten the hint. He hadn’t. His hand slid down his thigh, and he palmed his erection. The entire length of his cock was on display, but it did nothing for me. Nobody did. Not since Gray.