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Bonus feature: he lookedsuperhot in that hat. She took it off her head and returned it to where it belonged.
Jake had brought Duncan and Sam tonight, who were wearing costumes only because Katie—who was a toga’d Bluto fromAnimal House—had dug up a couple Mardi Gras masks from the back room. Now, above their kuttes, Duncan wore a sequined green mask with a plume of purple and gold feathers, and Sam wore a sparkly black mask with glitter-encrusted long eyelashes in purple, green, and gold.
Sam had brought a pretty young woman with him. Petra couldn’t remember her name, but she, at least, had understood the assignment. She wore a Spirit-store-special sexy nurse costume. There were about five other sexy nurses in the bar; all five were gay men, trans, or enby. At Gertrude’s, the gender-conforming clichéd costume was the outlier. But hey, on Halloween, a sexy nurse was a sexy nurse was a sexy nurse.
“Can I get anyone anything?” Petra asked, smiling at Sam’s date. What was her name? Some trendy Gen Z name. Oh, it was a bird name. Like Wren or Robin or—Lark! Her name was Lark! “Lark? Your drink looks ready for a refresh.”
Lark smiled and looked down at the watery dregs and sodden lime of what had been a Bacardi and Coke. “Sure, yeah. Actually, I wouldn’t mind another sip of that punch.”
Sam shuddered. “That stuff is apple-pie-flavored alcohol poisoning.”
“But Lark’s not driving, right?”
“I’m not,” Lark confirmed.
Petra leaned in conspiratorially. “Neither am I.” Still talking to the girl, she looked Sam over. “And you’re safe with him?”
“Ofcourseshe fuckin’ is,” Sam snapped, honestly offended.
“Just making sure,” Petra assured him. To Lark, she said, “Right?”
“Right. He’s in the good-guy club.” Her smile faltered and she muttered something Petra could just barely pick up: “Too much of a good guy sometimes.”
Ooh. If she knew either of them better, that would probably be a lead on some juicy gossip. But Petra barely knew Sam and had just met Lark tonight, so she let that mutter pass by like she’d been as deaf to it as the guys.
“Well, then, let’s go get some more Gay Christmas punch.” She hooked her arm through Lark’s and they left the barely-costumed tough guys to fend for themselves for a minute.
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~oOo~
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Darcy climbed up andstood on the bar. She’d been helping herself fairly liberally to the booze as she’d mixed drinks—which was fine tonight. Halloween was kind of a free-for-all.
“MACARENA!” she yelled and started doing that dance right there on the bar, though the music currently playing was the Bee Gees and not exactly well-aligned with that dance.
Other than laughing and encouraging her turn as the party’s fool, nobody took her up on the macarena.
However, Petra, with another hit of punch in her system, turned to Jake and had a most excellent idea.
She slipped her hand from his and snaked her way to the receiver behind the bar. Katie was helping a slightly dejected Darcy down to the safer level of the floor.
Petra scrolled through the playlist until she found the perfect song. Setting it on repeat, she cued it up and pressed play. The first notes of Donna Summer’s ‘Bad Girls’ blared over the bar, and got the expected enthusiastic response. A significant number of revelers pushed toward the middle of the room, which was Gertrude’s de facto dance floor.
But Petra had something specific in mind. She returned to Jake and grabbed his hand. He’d been laughing at something Duncan had said, but when she began tugging him forward, he paled and his smile faded.
“No, babe.”
“It’s Halloween. Dance with me.”
He shot a surreptitious look at his friends. Petra tugged on his hand again. “With me, not them.”
“Petra ...”
“I know. Dance with me anyway. You’re good at it, honey. And you know you are. Be proud.” And she knew damn well he could do the hustle. They’d done it together twice. She got close and tucked herself against him. Pressing her lips to his throat, she said again, “Dance with me.”
He looked around the bar, then focused on the people dancing. After a second or two, he took a deep breath, swallowed down the rest of his drink, handed his empty glass to Duncan and said, “’Scuse me, brothers.”
