27. Chapter 21
Lorenzo
Pepe, my best friend, has been the owner and operator of Lo Scandalo for almost ten years. When he bought the venue, it was a sad, forgotten club in an old warehouse down by the water, back when nobody wanted property in that part of the city. He’s transformed it completely.
The line outside the club wraps halfway around the block, but the doorman waves us past. I might not come here a lot, but they know my face here.
Dash wanted to go home and change into something more “club-appropriate,” but after I pulled the age card, I convinced him that we could go there in our suits and no one would care.
“Fine,” he muttered, “but I will be taking my shirt off.”
Fine by me, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
Inside, Lo Scandalo is a far cry from the sad warehouse it used to be.
The exposed brick is still there, and the industrial touches of pipes and old machinery, but Pepe’s designers have transformed it into something chic.
Everything is softened with dark velvet drapery and low gold lighting.
A long marble bar runs the length of one wall, bartenders shirtless and gleaming like Roman statues behind it.
Above the dance floor, which is crowded with men in all different attire, suspended cages hold men wearing nothing but shoelace-sized thongs, moving their naked bodies in languid circles.
The place is equally elegant and filthy.
I’ll admit it, I love Lo Scandalo. But the thought of being here with Dash terrifies me.
The club is heady with an atmosphere of sex and testosterone and unapologetic queer freedom, and all I want to do is take Dash to one of those dark rooms in the back of the club and do all the dirty things that crowd my mind.
But I can’t do that.
I’m terrified because he might find someone else who is willing.
Logically, I know I have no right to ask Dash not to fuck anyone else. But logic has no voice when I’m thinking with my dick.
“Dash!” A voice cuts through the bass and then Dash is practically tackled by another guy his age. He has tan skin, shaggy black hair, and is wearing a mesh shirt and tiny shorts that leave nothing to speculation.
“Kenny!” Dash cries, hugging him back, his face wild with delight. “Oh my god, I missed you!”
“Well, you’ve been ignoring me.” Kenny pulls back, but keeps his hands on Dash’s shoulders while he looks him over with affectionate appraisal. “But you look good. Life of a mob wife suits you.”
“Jesus. Shut up.”
Kenny’s gaze slides over and up to me. “So, you’re the prick who stole my best friend from me.”
The flirtatious aggression in his tone catches me off-guard. “I am.”
“I guess I can’t be too mad at you, because you’re paying his half of the rent for the rest of the lease and that means I have the place to myself,” he says, finishing in a sing-song tone.
Then he extends a hand. “Kenny Czajkowski. Bartender, Go-go dancer, and pornstar. More famously known as Kenny Cassidy. I don’t have sex for money, but you can find my videos on BeauFriends, if you’re into that thing. ”
He reaches into his shorts and produces an honest-to-God business card, with a QR code and his handles for various social media profiles, including the porn site BeauFriends.
“Personally, I’m more into Kinktogram,” I say, but take the card anyway, pocketing it.
“Ooh.” Kenny wiggles his eyebrows. “Nasty.” He says it like it’s a compliment. “If I ever decide to get fisted on camera, I’ll make a Kinktogram profile.”
I don’t know what to do with Dash’s little, feisty best friend. He’s loud where Dash is dry, performative where Dash tends to deflect. But underneath his glitz and glitter I sense someone who’s genuinely sharp. I mean, he has business cards for his sex work, for crying out loud.
He catches me looking at the business card. “Yeah,” he says proudly, “I’m in college. Marketing major, bitch!”
Dash laughs. “And you’re making more money, probably, than any of your classmates ever will.”
Kenny tugs his hand. “Come on, dance with me.”
Dash glances back at me, just briefly, a look in his eye that might be apologetic, but I wave him off before he can offer to stay with me. “Go, I’ll be fine.”
But I’m hardly fine as I watch him disappear into the writhing crowd of men.
Pepe finds me when I’m at the bar, bringing with him two glasses of Scotch.
“Macallan 25,” he says proudly, clinking his glass against mine.
“What are we celebrating?”
He leans against the bar. “You, bringing a boyfriend to my club finally. Where is this mysterious boyfriend, by the way?”
I sip the whiskey. God, it’s good. “Out dancing with one of his buddies.”
“Damn. The Lorenzo I know wouldn’t let his man go off dancing with someone else.”
Pepe must see something in my expression because, after looking at me carefully for a moment, he jerks his head toward the private, VIP section of the club. “Come on, let’s go talk over there.”
Wordlessly, I follow him around the edges of the crowds, past a bouncer, and to a private, elevated booth.
I’ve known Pepe for as long as I can remember, since before either of us was old enough to understand what our fathers did for a living.
He’s the son of the consigliere, my oldest friend, the future godfather to my children (if I ever have any).
I respect him more than I respect almost anyone else—he looked at what our families do and decided he wanted no part in it.
He built Lo Scandalo out of practical nothing, giving up a fortune of blood money to do so.
I trust him with my life—yet, I haven’t told him that Dash and I aren’t really dating.
And I know I should.
“What’s on your mind?” Pepe asks once we’ve settled into the booth. “And don’t say it’s nothing. I know you too well to believe that. Is it your father? You know you can talk to me about anything. I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”
“It’s not about him, not really,” I say after a long pause. “It’s…it’s Dash.”
“Your boyfriend?”
With a sigh, I set down my drink and look up at my friend. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Dash isn’t really my boyfriend.”
Pepe narrows his eyes at me. “Come again?”
“We’re not actually together.” I glance around, just to make sure that there are no surreptitious ears listening.
“After he saved my life in the fire, I made a vow to protect him if he ever needed it. A few days later, someone made a threat on his life. We assume it was whoever started the fire at my father’s house.
After that, I took him in and we came up with a cover story that he’s my boyfriend.
I figured it would be safer for him that way, if whoever is targeting him understands that he’s under my protection in such a personal way. ”
“Huh,” Pepe says. “Don’t take this personally, but wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to go to the police?”
“You never know who’s really paying for the police’s services,” I counter.
“Touché. So you’re not fucking? Because I saw the way you look at him, and the way he looked at you, and it definitely seems like you’re fucking.”
Oh, Pepe. How good it is to be known so well, and how exhausting.
I run a hand down my face, trying to scrub away all the frustration and confusion of this past week, and then launch into the full account of everything that has happened since the fire.
I leave nothing out, telling him about Dash and all of our…
encounters…as well as our recent suspicions about my brother.
Pepe, to his credit, listens calmly through the whole story and doesn’t interrupt me once, even when I get to the part about Giovanni possibly murdering my father.
When I finish, Pepe cranes his neck to look at the dance floor. “So, he’s wearing that thong right now?”
“That’s what you got from my story?”
“Among other things.”
I follow his gaze down into the club, searching for Dash.
It takes me only a moment to find him in the crowded room.
He’s already made his way to the center of the dance floor, Kenny on one side of him, some other man on the other, grinding against him.
The man is tall, shirtless, looking like a linebacker with an underwear modeling contract.
Dash’s shirt is gone, too, his skin catching the red-gold lights in a way that makes something deep in my chest tighten uncomfortably.
Pepe scoffs gently. “You’re not fooling anyone, Enzo.”
“Meaning?”
“Just look at yourself. You want him. I know that expression. I haven’t seen it many times, but I know it. You want him.”
“But I can’t have him.”
“Give me literally one good reason why you can’t,” Pepe says, almost impatiently.
“I’m protecting him. You know how I like things in the bedroom. That’s not protection.”
Pepe cocks his head. “Isn’t it? From what you’ve told me, it sounds like he wants the exact same things as you do.
Yeah, you like things rough and kinky, but isn’t BDSM all about consent?
” He waves a hand, gesturing to his entire club.
“Trust me, I know a few things about sex and consent. This place is built on both of those. I don’t think you have anything to worry about with Dash. ”
“Look at him, though. He’s dancing with another guy.”
Pepe flicks my arm. “That means nothing and you know it. If anything, he’s trying to make you jealous. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but he’s looked over here several times while we’ve been talking. He hasn’t stopped watching you tonight. Just like you haven’t stopped watching him.”
I curse under my breath and then look back at Dash. The tall man behind him slides a broad hand down Dash’s bare chest, down his abs, and Dash leans back into him, grinding his ass against the man’s front.
My blood heats at the sight, boiling with a sudden flare of jealousy and…possessiveness.
Mine, every nerve cell in my body screams. Mine.
Dash’s eyes rise to meet mine, and our gazes lock even as the man behind him bends down to kiss Dash’s neck. Dash turns his head, not breaking eye contact with me, to kiss the man, sloppy and hungry, and the heat and jealousy in me harden, tighten, solidifying into hungry arousal.
Pepe, beside me, laughs. “Oh, Jesus, my friend. You are gone for this boy.”