As I turned to Casey and Steve, who were a few feet down from us at the bar, Casey gave me a thumbs-up, as though he thought my flirting with this guy was going well. Really, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going or if it was going at all. Hell, I didn’t know if I even liked this guy, considering how he’d treated me. I couldn’t deny the obvious physical chemistry between us. But he’d been nothing but rude and aggressive and angry, and even if he’d mistaken me for someone else, he should have been a hell of a lot nicer to me than he had been when he bolted out of the bathroom like that.
“And your name is…” I pressed.
He looked at me strangely for a moment before saying, “Oscar.”
“Well, it seems we’ve met on really weird terms.” I noticed his redhead Peter Pan friend down the bar, talking to Kendra and Lana and eyeing me, an almost annoyed expression on his face. “And is your friend okay with us talking?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s my fault. A lot’s happened in the past twenty minutes. And I don’t really have a great explanation for what happened back there.”
“You must really be annoyed at this guy you thought I was,” I said, still struggling to believe his excuse. Maybe he was just super closeted and hadn’t known how to deal with it in the restroom? But then how was he magically able to kiss me in front of his friend and everyone in the bar?
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
I was starting to believe he was deliberately trying to make this shit even more convoluted than it needed to be.
“I think another belated apology is in order for how I treated you in there,” he went on.
“Well, you made up for it afterward, at least a little,” I joked, and he seemed surprised by my playfulness, studying my face, his eyes settling on my lips for far too long.
“So you guys are Americans,” he said, shaking himself so that his gaze shifted back to my eyes. “Where do you live in the States?”
“It’s a town called Fever Falls. It’s in Georgia.”
“And what made you decide to come to Parlaisa?”
“My buddy found a deal on the flights and hotel, and we were looking for kind of an easy, cheap vacation. So…”
“Praeve is a great city. I hope you’ve made sure to see all the sights.”
“I like your accent,” I said. “It’s very…sexy.”
“Yours is too,” he said. “I’m sorry, I guess I should go ahead and tell you, I don’t usually do that.”
“What?”
“Kiss men. That was definitely a first for me.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He smiled, but then his expression turned serious, hesitant, like he was thinking carefully about what to say next.
“Does Peter Pan know you kiss guys?” I asked.
“Wait? Who?”
“Your friend dressed like Peter Pan.”
“Oh, of course. I thought you meant the real Peter Pan for a second.”
I laughed. “We’re not the best at communicating today, are we?”
“Certainly not. But to answer your question, no, that was surely the first he’s seen of that.”
The more he talked to me, the more I thought maybe I was on the right track in thinking that at least part of the awkward bathroom exchange had been due to his own questions about his sexuality.
Before he had a chance to go on, his Peter Pan friend approached and whispered something in his ear.
“What the fuck do you mean they lost her?” Oscar asked. His body tensed up the way it had in the restroom, like he was about to punch his friend in the face. Intimidating as it was, the way his muscles tightened up in his costume was hot as hell.
