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“Hey, don’t talk down who you are and what you do.” I look at him. “Dancing is a noble thing, if you see it the right way. Think about how many people you inspire with your moves, your sexuality, your attention to them …”
“No, no, I’m not talking about that. I meant …” He struggles to say it, then changes his words. “What I’m trying to say is, I’ve been clean for three months, man.”
Oh.
“And I’m not saying you’re the reason or … or whatever. I’m just saying …” He shrugs, slouches even more in his seat, then crosses his arms. “Don’t know what I’m saying.”
I glance at Mack. I guess I really have noticed a change in him over the years since we first met. He used to be a total hot mess. Unreliable. Scary to be around at times. Needy. He even spent half a month homeless when he couldn’t pay rent, and one of the other dancers let him stay on his couch for some time. Our boss Larry must have fired and rehired poor Mack eight times. That last time, I overheard Larry say, “Cats like you only got nine lives, Mack, and I’m telling you, if I have to send your ass to the street again, it’s the last time—the very last time!”
Something else clicks. It makes me smirk. “I’m thinking you’re inspired by someone else, actually.”
Mack squints at me. “Who?”
“You know who.” At the sight of Mack’s still-clueless face, I eye him knowingly: “If you’re about to claim you and Lex still aren’t a thing by now …”
Mack lets out a laugh that fills the whole car (and startles awake a man with his face buried in a newspaper). “Look, I let him go down on me in his place. Twice. Once was even while his roommate Omar was watching TV and barely noticed. I just figured it was a couple drunk blowies, know what I mean? I don’t know if it’s going anywhere.”
“Sounds like true love to me,” I tease.
Mack is oddly unaffected by my teasing, his eyes faraway, as if picturing himself and Lex … or else he’s just recalling the aforementioned blowjob. “I like spending time with him. That much is true. We’ve got a thing or two in common … even if I feel like a dumb piece of meat around him. Fucker is so damned smart when you let him go off on something.” He chuckles. “I kinda find his attitude sexy. He doesn’t let me get away with anything. It’s probably a lot like your thing.”
That last part throws me. “My thing?”
“Yeah. Your sugar daddy guy.”
Oh, okay. “He isn’t my sugar daddy, Mack.”
“I’m sure he’s given you the speech a few times since you’ve known him. Probably doesn’t let you get away with any shit, either. Has he offered to buy the world for you, yet?”
“He isn’t buying me the world. Though he might as well have, with as much as he’s tipped me online in my chat room.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
I push off of my seat with a huff and take hold of the nearest pole, squeezing my frustration into it. Then I turn to face Mack. “I’ll throw you a little hypothetical. If this guy had no money—no sugar—and I ran into him at the club, and we went off and got to know each other … I’d still be into him.”
Mack considers me. “Alright. I’m listening.”
“There’s something about him.” I swing around the pole once, feeling playful suddenly. Then I stop as my heart jumps with a thought. “But I have to admit, it freaks me out a little bit. I’ve never really felt this way about someone. Is it real? Is it worth pulling my life apart to pursue? What if I have to change everything about myself for Richie? What if I realize I don’t want to give up dancing?”
All at once, doubt floods my system yet again.
I’m gripping the pole with two hands that grow sweatier by the second.
He sits up suddenly, startling me. “Wait a sec. You’re not thinking about running out on him, are you? Damn, dude. You always run off when things get serious with a man …”
I eye him. “I never said I was running off. I just said—”
“Yeah, you’re freaked out, I heard you. I get it. And next, I’ll be hearing that it didn’t work out between you guys, he demanded too much, you couldn’t cope with changing a single thing about your private, secret little life …”
“Mack, stop.”
“You always do this. You outsmart yourself. You’re gonna run away from this one,” Mack insists anyway, shaking his head at me, his mind made up. “And to think, shit, this guy could truly support you and give you your dreams …”
I glare at him. “I don’t need someone’s bank to support me, Mack. Are you even listening—?”
