Anything I want to say to Kira, I refuse to say with Adam breathing down my neck.And turning my back on her to knee Adam in the balls will cause unnecessary drama.I require a third option, which is right when I notice Ronnie eyeing the two stick-figure marked doors as if they’re a logic problem.
Ronnie’s my friend.
Ronnie will save me.
Kira’s pissed off, but she’s not going to muscle in on a conversation I’m having with a legitimate guest, not while her boss is watching.Adam, on the other hand, won’t be put off by a chat.That man is oblivious to hints, subtle or otherwise.Therefore, something more intimate is necessary.
It’s hard to say of the four of us who’s most shocked when I lurch sideways and grab Ronnie.Adam grumbles, Kira’s jaw hits the floor, and Ronnie…dear God, Ronnie… I’m pretty certain that if we weren’t such old friends I’d have been kicked in the bollocks by now with a severely pointy-tipped shoe.
I’m shoring up extra trouble for myself as I snog Ron as if we’re desperate for one another, yet, miraculously, my plan sort of works.Leastways, it gets me away from the two people I need to avoid, as Ronnie rears back, only to then grab me by the lapels and march me over to one of the private booths towards the back of the club, where I’m shoved unceremoniously onto the leather banquette.Ronnie stares down at me from the lofty spikes of a pair of killer heels and points a finger at me.I swear my bollocks instantly climb back inside my abdomen, to inhabit whichever space they were in before they dropped.
“What the ever loving fuck was that about?”
It’s a relief the music is so loud, so blessedly no one will have caught that question besides me.
“Jeezus motherfucking Christ, Dylan, at no point ever has there been or will there be an acceptable reason for you to stick your tongue in my mouth.You know how I feel about…about…”
Apparently there aren’t words evocative enough to express the requisite degree of loathing.Ron turns an impressive shade of puce, which prompts me to raise my arm before my face, in anticipation of blows raining down.
It doesn’t come to that, and after a few seconds I’m daring enough to lower my defensive shield, whereupon I get to witness a dramatic spitting, gagging routine, with a finale that involves tongue scouring motions.
Okay, I screwed up.Again.I ought to know better.I do know better.“I’m really sorry, Ronnie.That was dickish of me.”
“You are a dick.A great big fucking enormous one, and if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve been violated enough already and I’m going to have to scourge, I’d beat you black and blue.”
Shit!“I really am a slug of a human being.”
Ronnie stills, and one elegantly painted brow arches upward.I squirm with the uneasy feeling that my whole history is being read right off my skin, but then Ron blinks and I can breathe again.“Don’t ever do it again, D.”
“I won’t,” I swear, hand on heart.“Honestly, I wasn’t thinking.I know how you fe—”
“It’s done.We’ll say no more about it.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yes, well, you’re constantly so pre-occupied with your prick that it’s no wonder you can never think straight.”
Thinkingstraightis a large part of the problem.
“I’m super sorry.”
Ronnie makes a waspishharrumph, then settles on the opposite side of the C-shaped banquette from me.“I said it’s done.”
Yeah, except when is anything ever done and forgotten?I close my eyes, and dig the heels of my hands into the lids, trying to ground myself in the resulting darkness.I shouldn’t have got Ronnie involved with this.I should have been a man, told Adam to pee off and gone outside or something with Kira and let her vent her fury.I’m no expert on women, but no one appreciates being used.At the very least she deserves to know what is going on inside my dumb head, and that she is most definitely not the problem.I just don’t know that I’m ready to face the world and confess to being something other than what they imagine me to be.Or hell, what I imagined myself to be.If I like men and women in a proportion of about a million to one, does that still make me something other than purely gay?
My guts tell me it does, possibly.
I don’t like it.
I’m not bi.That isn’t me.
I’m Dylan Drake.I’ve openly identified as gay since I was eleven.
Shit!
I uncover my eyes to find Ronnie gazing contemplatively at me, dark brows drawn down tight, and skinny fingers holding on to the cuffs of both sleeves.
“Do you think labels matter?”I ask.If anyone has a worthwhile opinion on the subject, it’ll be Ronnie.After all, Ronnie is frequently referred to asthey,like Ron’s more than one person, not a singular entity with multiple facets.
