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“Who me? I just threw on this old thing.” She batted green false eyelashes at me.
“Hey, I worked hard on that ‘old thing.’”
“And it’s marvelous, isn’t it, baby?”
Barry stood behind the wooden bar pouring beers for a heavyset, thirty-something couple sitting on stools and holding hands, grinning at each other like newlyweds.
“Those two are from Sunbright,” Renée hissed in my ear. “Pleased as punch to be in the ‘big city’ and holding hands. They pose as just friends back home.”
I smiled at the men. They grinned back at me before returning to mooning over each other.
Bouncing on my toes, the joy in the men’s eyes and the rhythm from the dance floor below infected me. See? I was doing this. Being at Tilt-a-Whirl wasn’t hard at all. Unlike last year, I was cool as a cucumber. I’d even flirted with a guy and not made a total fool of myself.
“Sweetie, what happened to your shirt?” Renée ran her fingers over the wet patch beside my right nipple.
“No big deal. Got bumped downstairs.”
“You stink of beer. Speaking of, have Barry pour you one.” With that, Renée swirled a few steps away to talk to an older gentleman who pressed money into her hand, his shining eyes staring at her with a hungry excitement. “A girl always loves advance tips,” she crooned and kissed his balding head, leaving a lipstick mark behind.
The music from downstairs shifted to something rougher and after only a few riffs I recognized “Head Like a Hole.” The song rattled the entire upstairs with its heavy guitar and screaming vocals. Off to the right of the stage, a small group of T-shirt-clad queer college kids shouted and started to mosh together, bouncing off the wall and laughing as they collided against each other.
The older, lovesick couple moved off with their beers, so I sat down on one of their vacated barstools, watching the shifting scene with interest. Groups came and went. Women disappeared into a bathroom together, and men did the same. I leaned on the bar and sighed. I wished I had my camera.
“No beer for you,” Barry said, passing me a club soda with a sad-looking lemon slice clutching the side.
“Why? I have beer at your place all the time.”
“Because I said so.” Barry turned to take care of another customer.
I rolled my eyes but put a dollar down on the bar for his tip. Barry barked a laugh and shoved it back at me. I didn’t bother arguing and rolled the dollar back into my pocket along with the small stash of bills I’d brought.
An array of suitors flirted with Renée at the bar while I sipped my fizzy water and observed. I kept my eyes peeled for Daniel and wanted to ask when he might show up, but Barry and Renée were both too busy with their respective streams of patrons.
Eventually, a sweaty, blissed-out Minty bopped up the stairs, followed by two familiar-looking friends: a buff, olive-skinned guy with dark hair, black jeans, and a black T-shirt, and a thin Asian guy wearing a white T-shirt and a loosely knotted red tie covered in bright green polka dots. So different in appearance and demeanor, and yet all so queer.
Then Daniel appeared behind them.
I sipped my drink to hide my smile. Daniel’s blond hair glittered in the dim light, drawing my eye. The room spun on around me, but Daniel was the focus of it all. He looked strong and tall in a tight concert T-shirt from The Cars’Heartbeat Citytour, dark jeans that hugged his ass, and new black-and-white Chuck Taylors.
In an instant, I realized my new outfit and white, thick-soled sneakers made me look utterly dorky. I squirmed on my barstool, wishing I’d worn something moreme, like my old Oscar the Grouch shirt. Something cool and relaxed. Somethingsnug.
I affected a casual pose and neutral expression as Minty and Daniel’s little group approached the bar. My skin felt stretched tight over my body. My knee jittered up and down on the footrest of the bar. Surreptitiously, I patted my hair, hoping my dumb curls hadn’t gone too crazy from the sweaty heat inside the club.
Minty and his two other friends swarmed Renée, talking rapidly at her all at once, but I couldn’t hear them over the thudding music and my own internal screaming.
Daniel dropped down on the barstool next to me. My heart stopped.
“Hey, didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
My heart started again with a boom that sent heat through my whole body. Daring to look at him, I took a swallow of club soda first to get enough moisture in my mouth to reply. “Yeah, decided to give the club a shot.”
Daniel’s eyes ran over me and a sweet smile bloomed on his lips. “Cool. I’m glad.”
Compared to Jeremy’s striking looks, Daniel was a more common kind of handsome, like the nice jock in high school everyone had a crush on. But there was something about him that’d tugged at me since the first day we’d met at Robert and Barry’s house. He was handsome, yeah, and hot of course, but there was something more. Somethinggood, maybe.
“I’m having club soda,” I volunteered when Daniel motioned toward Barry and was greeted with an amber-colored drink sliding across the bar without him even having to order it.
“Yeah?” Daniel’s eyes sparkled warmly. “You’re not twenty-one yet, and Barry knows what’s what.”
