Trey stopped teasing her about it after she showed him YouTube videos of real homes infested by ants, because yeah. Gross.
“Okay, maybe going out is a good idea.” Trey glanced at his clothes. Red sleeveless tee and board shorts. Basic uniform for summer. He liked blending in with the tourists. Made people less likely to stop him and ask for directions. He wasn’t the goddamn visitors’ center.
“Put some liner on,” Danielle said.
“No.” He saved that for performances, and only because she demanded it. He had green eyes and really thick, girly eyelashes, and Danielle swore the liner made him even sexier, especially to his female fans.
What he really wanted to know was how sexy it made him to his male fans, because that was his target audience.
“Spoilsport,” she said.
He found his phone under a pile of old music magazines. Plenty of charge to get him through to the end of the evening. He slipped into a pair of red flip-flops, then tucked his earbuds in and cued up Katy Perry’s latest. Always music when he was walking. Outside, the humid June air settled around him like a hot, icky blanket. Only a week into the month, and it felt like August already.
The tang of salt from the nearby ocean tickled his nose. He loved that scent. He’d loved it from the first family vacation here when he was six years old, and he’d loved it even more when he left home two years ago and moved in with Danielle and Bobby.
Alexandria could suck it.
Their house was six blocks from Off Beat. Not a bad walk now that the sun was setting, casting a lot of towering hotel shadows on the very packed, very busy sidewalks. He moved to the music in his ear, darting around idling cars and skipping over curbs, existing in the two songs that carried him to his destination.
An actual red-and-white-striped pole rotated next a small, hard-to-read sign that simply said “Off Beat” in blocky text. Nothing fancy, nothing to draw attention, except for the constant open and shut of the door, the stream of male and female patrons, and the squad of twenty-somethings loitering outside smoking thanks to Maryland law.
He returned greetings from several chicks he knew by face, but not by name. Fading Daze had a very loyal fan base in the area, and the females always seemed to be divided into twogroups: the girls who shipped him and Danielle in some fantasy romance they weren’t having, and the girls who hated Danielle because of this fantasy romance they weren’t having.
Poor Dani, because damn, chicks could be vicious.
The main floor was an actual, converted barbershop. All of the chairs and mirrors remained in place, but instead of wheeled equipment carts and racks of products, the faded tile floor hosted mismatched couches and armchairs that patrons moved around at will. The rear wall was all chalkboard paint, with tubs of sidewalk chalk available to use. The owner’s only rule was “No Fucking Cussing,” which was painted at the top of the board. Jazzy music was piped out over half a dozen speakers.
He threaded his way through the packed upstairs to the repurposed Atlantic Bell phone booth at the back of the room. The back of the phone booth was another door, like an entrance to an old-time speakeasy, and led to the cement steps down to the basement. The moment Trey opened that door, male a cappella voices drifted up, doing a barely passable arrangement of “We Are Young.”
Two girls in bikini tops and short-shorts were ascending the stairs. He leaned into the wall to give them room to pass, then continued down.
The bar was as eclectic as the upstairs. No single set of tables and chairs was the same. Some regular table height, some counter or bar height, most of them painted bright colors. The small U-shaped bar was made out of old surfboards, with fake potted palm trees on each end. The stage in the rear was painted to resemble an open clamshell that reminded him of that famous painting of Venus.
For all the tourist-trap features, nothing about Off Beat felt faked or overdone. It was comfortable.
“Trey! You picking up an extra shift?” Dina bumped his hip with hers, all while balancing a tray full of food meant for one of her tables.
“Nah, here for the open mike.”
“I think we’re full up on tables, but there’s probably a spot at the bar for you.”
“Thanks.”
She sashayed off to the deliver the food. Dina, like most of the staff, had been there since Off Beat opened twelve years ago, which meant she knew everyone.
He found a seat at the bar facing the stage. Sasha was creating something in a metal shaker. She nodded in his direction, acknowledging his arrival like the pro she was. He admired Sasha because she was an out and proud lesbian, while he still hid behind untrue gossip about himself and Danielle in order to maintain their band’s growing image.
Sasha usually worked the weekends with him, so she mixed him up a virgin strawberry daiquiri without him asking. He was only twenty for a few more weeks. She plunked the drink down with two extra strawberry garnishes.
“Anything from the kitchen?” she asked.
As much as he worshipped their crab dip with soft pretzels, he was stuffed from dinner. “Maybe later, thanks.”
“Anything you need, Coop.”
She chased down another drink order. He sipped his daiquiri, and the sharp flavor of rum made him do a double take.
Classic Sasha, sneaking a little in for him.
