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His eyebrows went up. “No, but—what the fuck does that have to do with anything? We’re not gonna bend over, are we? It’s just bartending?”
“Well, yeah…” But that didn’t faze him one bit? I’d been as prepared as I could be, coming out here. I knew people were more…alternative…in California. Not everyone was raised going to church every Sunday like I was. Gay communities existed all over. I was fine with that. I didn’t care. People could love or fuck whoever they wanted—and unlike my parents, I didn’t believe it was sinful or unnatural.
At the same time, I could not, for the fucking life of me, shake this crazy unease whenever I was near a gay person. They put me on edge, made me feel out of sorts, almost flustered—which pissed me off. Nikki had several gay friends, and a couple of them liked to flirt with me just because of how awkward I got.
Roe leaned forward a bit and leveled me with a look. “Soon as we get home, make the damn call, Jake. I’ve heard what those bartenders can make if they’re hot enough. I have no problem flashing my abs and a grin or two if it means we can head off to Denver in a couple weeks and do a second episode.”
Flashing his—
For chrissakes.
“All right.” I furrowed my brow and used my soggy sandwich as a distraction. I unwrapped the damn thing and…just resigned myself to accept a job where I’d be surrounded by drunk dudes horny for other dudes.
I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised Roe was at ease. He was from New York and had studied journalism at NYU. Who fucking knew what people he’d been exposed to there.
When I glanced up, I found him smirking at me.
“You told me you were from Norfolk, right?”
I nodded once.
“Military town,” he noted. “Technically in the South. Conservative folks, or…?”
I wouldn’t go that far. Traditional, sure. Religious, absolutely. “After Clinton, my ma banned political talk around the house, but I know my old man voted for Obama, so…” I shrugged and took a bite from my sandwich. “What about you?” It was easier to turn the spotlight back on him.
He chuckled and scratched his nose. “My whole family’s Catholic—the cherry-picking kind. Good for guilting your kids into attending mass and not cursing at the dinner table, but they’re hella open-minded. I have a cousin who’s gay and a cousin’s son who’s bi.”
Oh. Yeah, there was none of that in my family. I had a hazy memory of seeing something when I was like nine or ten—I couldn’t remember what it was or where I’d been—but I did recall my mother’s reaction. I could still hear the angry tremor in her voice when she… I frowned to myself. Had I been holding something? And she’d ripped it away from me? I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Or what she’d said. She’d just been furious with me, and I’d been so shocked, frozen by fear, because my ma rarely raised her voice.
It’d had something to do with homosexuality, though. I knew that much. I’d gotten a lecture and a punishment. And after that, the topic hadn’t existed in my family.
*
Four days later, I was rethinking everything that’d led up to this moment. What I wanted to do was head back to the studio lab on campus and continue editing our material from Big Sur. I’d gotten hooked on our premise, on the easy humor Roe had added, everything we’d seen, and just the feeling of putting it all together on a computer. I’d fucking found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And instead, I was here, in a gay nightclub in WeHo, about to mix drinks with lewd names.
The doors opened in fifteen minutes.
“This is fucking brilliant,” Roe laughed.
I didn’t know about brilliant…
Ten of the most common cocktails had been given dirty names, and each one was scribbled on a small whiteboard behind the bar, so we could see the recipes clearly but the patrons could not. Sure, it would make for easy mixing for the untrained bartender like myself—though, I had practiced at home relentlessly the past two days. But I would still spend the night hearing “Give me a Hard Cock!” and “I’ll have a Double Penetration!”
Thank fuck we had two experienced bartenders with us. I listened to them prattle on about the register—the card reader was wonky sometimes—which alcohol brands were default unless a customer had a request, advice on how to handle pushy patrons—
“And whatever you do, don’t let them dictate your pace, sweetie,” Juan said. “Make no mistake—you gotta be on your feet and work fast. Three hundred men will fill this place within the hour, and we only have two bars, but you don’t let them rush you. Keep your cool and don’t hesitate to be their authority. They eat that shit right up. Tell them to heel or simmer the fuck down, and the twinks will eat out of your hand. Okay, sweetie?”
