“Chester doesn’t mind,” Jace reassured, grinning from beneath a big purple fedora that only worked because he was beautiful and looked like some fae creature from a Holly Black novel. “He knows what a brat I am, and he still demanded to be my personal guard. Said Tonya would be spread too thin if she covered me, Chris, and Aiden.”
“I still can’t believe this is a thing,” I said as we turned onto my block and started up the hill. “Like, is it safe for us to even be walking around the island like this? Is some fucking alt right bro going to jump out of the bushes? Because I will cut a bitch.”
Mere looked around at the question, mouth curling into a frown, and I instantly felt like an asshole. Somehow, being so disconnected from the situation led to me forgetting how real this must have been for all of them, but especially her.
“The threats are constant,” she said, irritation coloring her tone. “They come to our emails, they get mailed to the office, and even our home addresses. So far, we haven’t been able to trace the physical mailings, but Clive has been working on the subpoenas for the cable and Internet providers attached to the IP addresses that stem from the social media stuff. There’s so much that goes into it that we may not track everyone down for literally years.”
“But the guy who started this all, QFindr’s former IT manager, is already being hit with a lawsuit,” Jace said. “That’s something.”
“Not enough,” Stephanie said with a frown. “I just feel like this spread so far that you’ll never get everyone until they get bored and move onto something else. And even then, do you want them focusing on someone else?”
“Exactly.” Mere ran her hands through her butt-length blond curls and shook them out. “It’s just a big mess. Every time I forget about it, and try to focus on everything that’s going right, I’ll get an email or an envelope, and… I don’t know. It’s just always there.”
I didn’t know what to say, and I felt like shit for being so helpless. It was so easy to lose myself in my own problems and my own drama that I’d forgotten how much heavy stuff my friends were going through on their own. My version of self-care meant pulling back and isolating myself to feel safe. But what would happen when I tried to rejoin their fold full-time only to find that I hadn’t been there when they needed me?
I put an arm around Meredith and pulled her in for a half-hug. She wasn’t much of a hugger, but she pressed against me with a tired smile.
“The good thing,” Jace drawled, jumping up on the brick wall surrounding my neighbor’s house and walking along it. “Is that Clive thinks if he totally crucifies ole IT fuckboy, everyone else will back off so they don’t get the same treatment. And he plans to hit him with everything he has. He got all growly while talking about it.”
“I think his growliness is making him think he’s invincible,” Mere muttered. “He’s gotten more threats than us because he’s the one going after them legally. Yet he refuses a bodyguard of his own.”
Jace shrugged. “Can’t force him. He can take care of himself. I mean, he lives in fucking Whitestone.”
“Whitestone is mad racist,” Stephanie said. “One of those Queens holdouts.”
They all lapsed into a moody silence at that, Mere scowling at the ground, Stephanie watching her out of the corner of her eye, and Jace silently strolling along in his purple hat. If Ashton were here, he would have thought of a way to lighten the mood or find a bright spot through all the storm clouds, but that wasn’t really my bag. I didn’t have an array of strategies in my bag of social tricks to cheer people up when I spent ninety percent of my life pretending I wasn’t in a bad mood. The best thing I could do was distract them, but I was at a total loss as to how.
“Where’s my boy A-Town?”
I looked up to see Luis standing by the steps leading to our house wearing his usual around the house uniform of Nike slides, tight sweatpants, and a tank top. Usually this uniform meant he was about to either workout or practice in his dance studio or at the gym, and that meant I would be receiving an invitation to join him. Which I generally accepted.
The last couple of weeks had been… different. Very different.
As in, he and I wound up seeing each other every single day. Sometimes more than once a day. I’d go down to check the mail, and he’d randomly appear to do the same. Same with taking out the garbage or cleaning up the front of the house. Dinner or lunch time had turned into a texted question about whether one of us had cooked and if we wanted to share. And blasting music meant practice or workout time, which was more fun as a pair so I almost always found myself drifting down to his apartment to join him.
What made all of this so exceptional was that these random encounters usually started and ended with a kiss hello or goodbye. And sometimes, especially after an exceptionally enthusiastic dance session, his seemingly careless showers of affection caused a chaste kiss to escalate into a hungry make out session. We were like fucking teenagers.
It was honestly refreshing in a way I hadn’t experienced… ever. Even as a teenager, all my relationships had been plagued with an intensity and urgency that things had to work since things had been so disastrous with my parents. I’d needed other people to be the right people because there had been so few of those around me. Ninety-nine percent of my friendships had been spent with me overcompensating just so my friends wouldn’t abandon me. And it had been the same with Landon.
But my friendship with Luis? Everything had been aired and put out in the open right from the get go—my extreme anger, my messiness, my depression, my bitterness and how spiteful I could be. He knew everything, and yet he was still pursuing my friendship. Still pursing me.
It was why dancing and working out together had also turned into the dinners, the random kisses good morning. And of course us doing laundry together and lazily exploring each other’s mouths while sitting on the washers and dryers like two teenagers sneaking out. And the way we parted ways with no muss or fuss? It was delightful.
“Ashton had a thing,” I said as we stopped by the stairs. “And he hates being called A-Town.”
“Oh yeah?” Luis casually dropped a kiss on my cheek before jerking his chin at the others as a greeting. Such a New Yorker. Such a tough guy. “I’ll stick with Hollywood.”
“Or you could call him Ashton,” Stephanie suggested. “Since that’s his name.”
“Or I could wait until he tells me that and ignore you since I don’t know you,” Luis replied with a wink.
She rolled her eyes. “If you want him to sponsor your gym, you might try to be a little more respectful.”
“Sponsor?” Luis made an affronted face. “Mamita, I don’t need—”
“Fuck that mamita shit.”
“You’re pretty mean.”
Stephanie shrugged, unapologetic, while Meredith did a poor job of covering her amusement. Jace seemed more interested in the pitiful flowers growing by the gate than the entire conversation. He was shaking his head mournfully, probably sad that no one had taken better care of something so fragile. My gentle-hearted friend had a way of making me feel guilty over ridiculously small things.
“You remind me of my friend Raymond,” Stephanie said. “So, I feel obligated to give you a hard time.”
“That’s real nice of you.” Luis looked at me for a support and laughed when I only shrugged one shoulder. “All right, well, I’m gonna assume you’re busy.”
“I am.” I shot a quick glance at my friends, then back to him. “At the moment.”
“Hit me up later?” he asked, not masking his hopefulness. “I want your opinion on something. It’s semi important.”
“Semi? I dunno. I only give my opinion on majorly important shit.”
He scoffed. “Just come down.”
I sighed tragically, like it was a hardship. “Fine.”
“Bet.”
Luis kissed me again, this time a slightly longer kiss on the mouth. Even with the audience of my friends, I couldn’t help but respond. The flutter in my
belly and in my chest wouldn’t allow me to do anything else.
He pulled away, nodded at my friends as if everything was totally normal, and jogged up the stairs to return to his apartment. I could feel stares on my face burning like the heat from the sun, but I stayed shut as we entered the house and trooped up the staircase to my own apartment. By then, music was blasting in Luis’ place, and I knew he’d needed my opinion on something dance related. That was another delight.
Although we’d been dancing together several nights a week for the past two weeks, and I felt like I was learning things from him I’d never learned in a formal class, he constantly asked for my feedback on his routines. For me, my time at Julliard was a giant reminder of my failure. To him, it meant I’d worked with professional dancers who’d taught me things he wanted to know. It was the first time in a long time I’d used that time in my life for something constructive.
“So…” Mere drawled once we were plopped onto my mismatched living room furniture and recovering from overstuffing ourselves at Staten Island Diner. “You and the weird neighbor are dating? And you failed to mention—”
“We’re not dating,” I said, laughing incredulously. “Not even close. We’ve become friends. That’s it.”
Stephanie side eyed. “Carlito. I do not kiss my friends that way.”
“Yes you do,” Jace said between fake coughs.
Meredith dissolved into giggles.
Stephanie flipped him off. “Okay, I don’t anymore.”
“Just keeping everyone honest,” Jace said helpfully. “But I too want to know about that very couple-like series of smooches I just witnessed.”
“Oh my God.” I rolled my eyes and grabbed a throw pillow, pressing it to my face. “That’s just how he is. Affectionate as fuck. He’s always hugging and kissing on me.”
“And you kissed him back. Sooo… hate to break it to you daddy, but that’s how I greet my men not my pals,” Jace said. “Don’t be weak and in denial.”
“You’re making too much of this. For real.” I threw the pillow wildly, uncaring where it landed, but was satisfied to see it knock Jace’s hat off. “We have a lot of shit in common. For example—”
“Sucking dick?” Stephanie asked.
I looked around for another pillow. “Y’all are seriously some assholes today. You should be glad that I’m starting to be less of a miserable bitch, not hassling me about my new acquaintance.”
“Now he’s been downgraded to acquaintance?” Meredith waved her hand like it’d just been burned. “Yowch.”
“Girl. Shut up. We barely know each other. It’s not a diss, he’s simply not on the same level of friendship as Caleb or you guys. He’s just…” I waved my hands around, looking between them helplessly. “I don’t know. Hanging out with him makes me forget about Landon and all that shit, which sounds nuts, but is undeniable. We have so much in common, like for real. We connected on this weird artsy level over dancing, and that hasn’t happened with me in a long-ass time. Not since Julliard.” A grin stole over my face as I listened to him flipping between songs or videos downstairs. “And he’s so fucking talented, you guys. He has so much natural talent that I envy. We’ve been practicing some of his routines for the burlesque show he does. They’ve finally let him come up with his own choreography, and he’s so dedicated. It’s fucking adorable.”
My gaze had drawn to the windows running alongside the house as I spoke, but now I returned it to my trio of friends. They were looking at me with varying degrees of relief and happiness. I knew they still had the wrong idea about what me and Luis were to each other, but them not worrying about me was a bonus of the misunderstanding. So, I let them believe whatever the hell they wanted just so the topic could shift away.
The less they interrogated me about our friendship, the less likely I would be to analyze it. Over analyzing my relationships never led to anywhere good, and this weird connection was something I desperately wanted to hold onto.
***
Luis
“You really think it’s good?”
Charles squinted at me, hands on hips and sweating all over the wooden floors. “I already told you it’s brilliant. What more do you want? A star sticker?”
“Yeah, right on my dick hole.”
Charles rolled his eyes and grabbed the remote, pausing the song before it replayed again. “Hun, do you really think I have enough kindness in my foul black heart to bullshit you? Because I don’t. If I thought it was shit, I wouldn’t have wasted my time helping you to perfect it.”
I peeled off my sweat rag of a T-shirt and tossed it in the corner. He was right, but I couldn’t help going over things in my head repeatedly. The concept was cheesy but it had that mixture of outrageous and sexy that Marquis—the manager of Man-dated Attraction—loved. It wasn’t exclusively a queer troupe, and so far he’d cast me in the role of Punch Drunk Louie—a character who was so obsessed with boxing that seduction attempts went over his head. We were adding a bit where my previously seemingly straight character was seduced by an out-and-proud queer guy who’d had “seduce an athlete” on his queer agenda.
The bit had been my idea, my last minor fuck you to the boxing world, so Marquis had agreed to give me a shot at the choreography, so I wanted it perfect before I drew it out and presented it to Marquis and my partner. If I screwed up at the debut of the bit, we’d take it out completely and he’d likely never trust me to choreograph anything again. Considering my asshole manager at Male Revue had gone right back to ignoring the shit out of me since I’d failed to bring a minor celeb along since that one night, it was nice to be recognized in the one thing I actually gave a damn about.
Well, beyond opening my gym. But that was nowhere near to becoming a reality. I had no idea when it would become one unless I randomly became independently wealthy and didn’t have to use all my stripper cash to pay actual fucking rent.
“Let’s go over it again,” I said.
“Oh my fucking, God, Luis—” Charles spun around but stopped talking after he took one look at me. I knew how I looked—like a puppy covered in tattoos. It was my special gift. And it helped that I was chewing my lower lip and clenching up my fists as worry ate at my guts. “Oh boy. Fine, fine, fine.”
I grinned and yanked him close. When he slumped against my sweaty chest, smirking coyly as I kissed both his cheeks, my heart thudded. “Gracias, lindo.”
“Ugh. Your words mean nothing to me.”
“Uh-huh, right.” I smacked his ass then shoved him away. “Let’s do this. I’ll order dinner after.”
Charles brightened considerably and grabbed the remote again. Food was definitely the way to his allegedly small dark heart. Even after getting groceries delivered to him, he’d gone through them all in under a week and had gone right back to holing up and refusing to go to the store. I compensated by cooking way too much food for myself—a product of growing up in a household of six—and forcing him to eat it. Since he knew I’d get tired of my own cooking and order in a day later, wasting what I’d cooked, he tended to not turn down an invitation.
He restarted the song, and I took my place to launch into the bit. On stage, it would start with me strutting my way into the center of the stage wearing my boxing trunks, gloves, and a fake belt. It would be full time swagger as I bragged through body language alone about defending my title, and beating someone’s ass, before launching into a taunting solo dance. That was the easy part since it was what I’d actually done in the ring for years. Flex, strut, wear the Dominican flag all over the ring so people knew who the fuck was about to whoop their ass, and be as cocky as possible. The more arrogant I was, the more intimidated people became. The trick to psyching people out was pretending to be invincible. If you believed it, they would too.
The tricky part of the bit was when whoever my partner would be joined me on stage. Ideally, they would be dressed in the same ass bearing booty shorts as a ring girl. They would flash a big number card while bending over and showing off t
heir goods while bragging to the audience about their agenda to seduce an athlete.
Charles was sinfully good at strutting those long legs of his and bending over to rub his round ass all over my crotch. He was so good at it that when I dramatically dropped to my knees in front of him and transitioned from Punch Drunk Louie in the boxing shorts to Queer Struck Louie who stripped down to tiny rainbow boxer briefs, it was barely an act. Covered in sweat, we launched into a teasing flirtatious dance that eventually went from him leading me, to us dirty dancing together.
It was a filthy routine. A lot of ass humping, grinding, and kissing, but interspersed with reggaetón dance moves that required was to move in perfect unison in the exact spot we needed to be in order to transition to the next round of seduction.
The whole routine was only six minutes long even though it felt like a eternity in my head, and we nailed it once again. We nailed it so hard that the last part, where we wound up crushed together with my hand in his hair and his hand twisting my underwear enough to show my ass cheeks to the crowd, heated my blood and hardened my dick.
There was nothing between our bodies but tight flesh and beads of sweat. I had no doubt that Charles could feel the way my body was responding to the earth-shaking sensuality of his post-dance exhilaration. I’d been with a lot of people in my life, but ever someone who looked close to an orgasm from the pure joy of dancing. Never someone who looked at me so smoldering, with dilated eyes and parted lips, because us performing together heated his blood as much as our combined sweat and energy warmed the room.
I held him against me, heart pounding and not wanting him to move away. Not when his lips were so close and his dick was as hard as mine, pulsing through his tights and straining against my own. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
Those generous lips turned up in a sneer. “Shut up.”
“Kiss me.”
The sneer twitched into a smile he desperately tried to hide. He leaned in to brush our mouths together in the barest of kisses, like a ghost of a touch, and moved away again. I kept staring at his mouth, obsessed. I was dying to have those big lips drag all over my body and slide over my dick, but for now I’d settle for a real kiss. The guy he only seemed to let me have in the basement.
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