“I won’t cry if a ball hits him in his face. Repeatedly.”
Nicky laughed and smacked me again. “You going to Black Out tonight?”
“Why? That newly minted legal ID of yours burning a hole in your pocket?”
“Wondered, is all. Because I know you do that stuff… that weird furry stuff, or whatever.” Nicky got the sort of look on his face that usually meant he was up to no good. His smile tipped the slightest bit to the left and his eyebrows curved higher.
“It’s animal role play, puppies, not furries.” My interest officially piqued, I held the unicorn head out toward him like I might charge him with it, and he grinned, biting the tip of his tongue between his teeth. “How would you even know about anything like that?” I tried to get him to take the unicorn head, but he pushed it back toward me. “Can you even get into an R-rated movie?”
He laughed outright and rolled his eyes. “Whatever. That weird shit you like is there tonight. They’re having a party for it upstairs in their new private rooms. Most nights it seems to be leather, but this weekend is the fuzzball thing. If you were on Insta, you’d know already. They have some hot pics up.”
“Not that I regret Enrique getting drunk and announcing what we did together, but you should be aware I hate that meet and greet crap.” I shrugged at him. This time when I handed the unicorn head off to Nicky, he took it. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
He sighed. “Maybe if you had fewer dad jokes, you’d be over there humping MacBain. I don’t know why you’re lying to me. I know you like to do things the old-fashioned way. Meet people in person.” He visibly shuddered, and I didn’t think his reaction was one-hundred-percent fake.
“How do you stand checking boxes in an app? I like my balls rubbed.” I mimed poking an imaginary phone screen. “Yes. I like getting fucked in my sleep.” I checked another imaginary box.
He smirked. “None of them ask that.”
“I swear, I tried to fill one out for a site once that asked if I thought that was okay, someone waking you up with sex. I was really confused. Doesn’t everyone like that?”
He blinked slowly at me and then rolled his eyes. “It’s nonconsensual.”
“Listen.” I turned and dropped my hands to his shoulders, and he let me. Nicky was super cute, and if he didn’t already have five different guys fighting over him, I might have been interested. He batted his long eyelashes and flirted and did a thousand other things that made me want to… well, play with him. But that was another problem—he wasn’t into the lifestyle, and I needed that. “Listen,” I repeated myself, and he leaned forward with his ear cocked toward me. “Find me a man who doesn’t consent to a morning blow job. Do you guys all consent to morning blow jobs?” I asked loudly toward the beer coolers, and I got a general cheer from the men, and a few of the women too.
Nicky shook his head, and I swear I heard him mumble “dinosaur” under his breath, but I was only thirty-one, so that couldn’t be right. I let him go, and he punched me lightly on the shoulder.
“You planning on going to Black Out, then?” I asked. Mulling over my options for the night, I noticed Enrique tugging his new… whatever the hell MacBain was to him, toward the parking lot. I knew what they were up to.
“Yeah. Later. It’s early.” Nicky hit me with another eye roll. I was beginning to worry he’d strain a muscle.
“It’s after eight.” Another crack of thunder sounded in the near distance and the speed of everyone packing up around us noticeably increased.
He squinted at me. “Exactly. It’s only after eight.”
Snorting, I shrugged. “I worked the morning shift today, drove the vampire van around collecting blood. There’s no way I’m staying up till midnight.”
“You’re going to miss all the cool people if you go this early.” The stricken frown he sent me was too much, even for him.
“Nicky, baby, I am the cool people.”
He laughed and waved me off, drifting toward the coolers that were being overrun now with the celebrating Dolphins .
No one really noticed when I started toward the parking lot alone. I left the game with a smile on my face, even though we lost, trying really hard not to think about Enrique. I hadn’t been lying to Nicky. We weren’t right for each other, that much was true. I didn’t like going home by myself every night, though, and I enjoyed having someone to take care of and spend time with.
Instead of turning out of the parking lot toward my house in the country, I went right along the tree-lined narrow two-lane road and followed it until I reached the highway. Four or five classic rock songs later, including the extended version of “Stairway to Heaven,” I found myself reaching downtown New Gothenburg. If I were trying to meet someone at a normal bar for a one-and-done fuck, I would have gone home, showered, primped. A quick check in the rearview mirror let me see that my hair was everywhere, as usual, because it was just long enough to turn into a mess at a moment’s notice. This wasn’t a hookup, though. If there really was a group of animal-play people getting together, I highly doubted a puppy would mind me being in my kickball uniform, which consisted of board shorts and the Mighty Unicorns team shirt.
It took me half an hour to find parking downtown; it was Saturday night after all. By the time I got to the sidewalk under the giant, dark violet neon lights that curved into the words Black Out over the front door, there was a massive line, in spite of the early hour, and I almost said fuck it. Another crack of thunder sounded nearby, close enough to rattle my rib cage, and this time a fork of wicked lightning streaked the sky above the tall building and blinded me for a few seconds. As I turned to walk back to my car, I heard, “Widstrom!”
Shifting around, I did a double take. My college roommate, Ashton Steel, a man I hadn’t seen in years, was headed directly for me. I’d recognize that smirk and easy, loping walk anywhere, but the white-blond dye job and the slightly morbid, yet oddly entrancing, tattoo of a heart scrawled up the left side of his neck were new to me. I held out my arms, and he laughed and stepped in for an enthusiastic hug.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Ashton said. He stepped back and beamed up at me. I was struck for a second by his good looks, which had only gotten better with age.
“Wow. That’s some crazy artwork you have.” I nodded at the psychedelic, yet somehow realistic, tattoo on his neck.
“You like that?” He grinned and tipped his head so I could see the ink better.
“Casper, we need you upstairs.” Behind him a tall man with shaved-short hair who had tattoos on his neck too—only the centerpiece of his was a creepy skull with flaming eyes—stood there with his muscly arms crossed. He could have given MacBain a run for his money. Ashton turned and hooked an arm around my shoulders.
