by A R Steele
“Not bad,” Yorick said, crossing his arms. “Can’t say I love the environment, but the work itself is fine.”
“Yeah, it must be rough for you to stare at hot men all night.”
Yorick shot him a glare. Raphael laughed and raised his hands in surrender. “Just teasing.”
Lips tight, Yorick shook his head. Raphael might just be teasing, but he’d heard far too much of that teasing over his life. It seemed to be a permanent joke that Yorick was gay. He got accused of it in every environment that he went to. High school, college, family, dating… For some reason, he gave off vibes of liking men, and he had no idea why.
Sometimes people were aggressive about it, like when a bunch of kids from his high school had jumped him and beaten him up for his supposed proclivities. Sometimes it was supportive, like when his family staged an intervention for him. Just now, it was mild teasing. Yorick hated it regardless. The accusation simply wasn’t true. He would have had no issue with it if he was into men, but he wasn’t.
“It’s a fine job,” he said. “Pays the bills. I can’t complain.”
Not to anyone else, but in his mind he certainly could. He would have rather been in an environment with far less shirtless men. He didn’t need to see all of the gleaming chests and rippling abs that were on display every night. He could have lived without the showcase of male specimens.
And what made it worse was that all of those men were gay or bisexual. He couldn’t even be friendly with them without feeling awkward. He couldn’t have anyone getting the wrong impression.
At first, he’d gotten along best with the bartender. Wright had a kind smile and an endless supply of dachshund pictures. The soft, polite way he spoke soothed something deep in Yorick’s soul. Yorick used to go by the bar and help him set up almost every night. Shooting the shit about nothing in particular had never been so pleasant. Soon after Yorick found out Wright was gay, he stopped going.
“And your ex was fine with watching Jamie?” Raphael asked, leaning back in his chair.
Yorick let his arms drop, relaxing at the thought of his preschooler. She was the light of his life, the one thing that always made him soften. “She didn’t mind at all. I mean, Jamie goes to sleep at nine o’clock.”
“She doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night?”
Yorick had to laugh. “That’s more of something babies do. She’s four now.” He would have thought that would be common knowledge. Even if he and Raphael were the same age, being a parent separated them in maturity.
When Jamie was born, Yorick was twenty-two. Many of his friends were freaked out. They were nowhere near the point of having children – most weren’t even in relationships. Certain people had slowly stopped talking to Yorick as Tonya went through her pregnancy. He could have used some support near her delivery date, when she left him for another man, but few people were there. At least Raphael was.
Yorick couldn’t blame his friends for not knowing how to handle a child in their midst. They’d never had the easy camaraderie other men his age shared, anyway. And the odd situation where he lived with Tonya and the man she had left him for didn’t help him relate to people.
The strippers at the Tool Shed would never have been able to identify with him. They were around his age, but immaturity made them seem years younger. Even Trenton, the owner, hardly had a clue what he was doing – although the new manager he had hired was helping.
Just as he was thinking about the strippers, he stiffened. His eyes swept the crowd. Was it his imagination, or had he just seen the whole group of them? His eyes widened, and he let out a soft groan.
“What’s going on? You see a guy you hooked up with?”
Yorick shot another glare at Raphael. “It’s my coworkers. All of them. They must have decided to come out tonight.”
“Makes sense,” Raphael said, nodding. “Your club is closed and ours is open, so why wouldn’t they be here?”
“I hope they don’t see me,” Yorick said, sinking down below the divider.
But it was too late. Shade’s eyes caught his, and he waved brightly, his other hand laced with Jesse’s.
Yorick pasted a smile on his face and waved back. “I hope they’re not going to come over here,” he muttered to Raphael.
But he was naïve to be so hopeful. Shade was in front of the booth a minute later. “Wow, it feels like we’re at the club,” he said. “All the guys are here, and you’re in the DJ booth.”
“Yeah, I came out to support my buddy since I had the night off and he was here.”
“Nice, nice. We all had the same idea. We never get to go out together.”
“Or at all,” Yorick said. The schedule didn’t really allow it, aside from Mondays and Tuesdays. All of these men gave up their weekend nights for the club.
As he and Shade chatted, the rest of the strippers crowded around the booth. “Hey, Y,” Jesse drawled. “Didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“Same to you,” Yorick said.
The others greeted him one by one, and he introduced Raphael to each of them.
“Enjoying the music?” Raphael asked.
“Yeah, way better than that crap they play where we work,” Lev said jokingly.
Yorick looked from one of them to the next, wishing he could read their minds. The fact that he was at a gay club was incriminating. He just hoped they wouldn’t jump to the wrong conclusion. Some of them were definitely doing so even as they spoke. He tensed, wishing they hadn’t come here. He didn’t know what he would do if the rumors that had pursued him throughout his life started to swirl around again. He had worked so hard to avoid them.
“So, everyone is ready for the amateur night that’s coming up?” Cooper asked, his arm around Owen. “Trenton’s going to find a bunch of guys to replace us, I guess.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Owen said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, he would,” Cooper joked. “He’s going to have them working for tips alone.”
Yorick shrugged, not caring much either way. A crop of new strippers would be better than this group with all of its rampant homosexuality. Yorick would have liked for just one of them to be hetero, like him.
“Anyway, I’m going to take my man onto the dance floor,” Ace said.
He and Gabriel disappeared, reappearing a minute later in the middle of the mass of bodies. They moved together with practiced rhythm in a way that made it hard for Yorick to take his eyes off them. They moved together like they fit together, and he struggled to not think about where they had been practicing.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Elijah said. “Lucas, are you up for it?”
Eyes wide, Lucas nodded. They joined hands and went out in Ace and Gabriel’s direction.
Raphael shook his head. “As if you guys don’t get enough of a chance to dance.”
“Not with each other,” Owen said. “Cooper, you ready?”
“I’ve been ready since we got here.” They took off as well.
They had hardly departed when Yorick locked eyes with another familiar face across the room. His heart leapt in his chest, which he wrote off to being upset. “Oh, no.” Was the entire world going to see him in a gay club?
“Who is it?” Raphael asked.
“It’s the bartender and the bouncer from the strip club.”
“Well, wave them over,” Raphael said.
Against his better judgment, Yorick did. He smiled weakly as Wright approached. In return, the bartender gave him his usual kind smile. The way his full lips turned upward seemed completely sincere, despite the way Yorick had abandoned their friendship.
Wright was a good guy – no, a great guy. After they’d stopped talking, Yorick had even heard he was a veteran. He hadn’t found the right moment to ask about what seemed like a personal subject.
With his clipped blond hair and gentle blue eyes, Wright was good-looking. Yorick could acknowledge that much. He always wore a tight T-shirt and a black vest behind the bar. In anything less,
he could have been mistaken for a stripper. But his skills with juggling shakers, spinning bottles, and lighting shot glasses on fire would have been wasted if he were to go onstage.
At the moment, the thin fabric of his shirt did little to conceal the muscles of his arms and chest. He wore jeans that fit just right, along with white Jordans that accented the length of his legs. His expression was calm and pensive, as always. Yorick tensed as he looked at him.
“Hey.” Even if Yorick preferred to avoid Wright lately, he was right in front of him now, so he would be civil. He licked his lips. “You just missed a bunch of the guys.”
“Who’s here?” Wright asked.
“Now that you two came, everyone.”
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Wright said, his eyes lingering on Yorick.
“Oh, I came to see my buddy DJ – ” Yorick started to explain.
Wright was still looking at him, those blue eyes gazing curiously into Yorick’s. “Hey, so, would you like to dance?”
*
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