I don’t, Sal had replied.And I wasn’t just judging you for your numpty opinions. I also factored in your dogshit personality. Ya blocked.
A satisfying experience, but not one that was going to lead Sal to have any fun at an increasingly horny-vibed party. There were a lot of people attending tonight, and all of them seemed to be hot.
Cautiously optimistic, Sal took another lap around the place, collecting a fresh beer as they went. Everyone was starting to pair up—sitting together in groups of four or five. If they didn’t catch a crowd soon, they’d be left behind. Luckily, they could see a few people checking them out. The red thigh high boots, matching lingerie and nipple adornments were very much doing their job.
Sal pushed their shoulders back, displaying the goods at their highest possible quality. People sometimes asked how they could be non-binary and rocking a H-cup rack. Sal usually replied with some version of ‘Why does anything do anything? I love my tits.’ Hopefully, they’d be able to find someone who loved them too, at least for about forty-five minutes...
“Sal?”
They turned to find some dude smiling down at them. He looked familiar. That was the first thing they noticed. The second wasJesus H Benjamin Christ. Hot people might be packed to the rafters at Pyramid tonight, but this was action movie shit. Square jaw, massive chest, light brown hair falling into icy blue eyes kind of nonsense.
“Hey,” he said.
“Um, hey.” Sal’s heart hammered in a way that felt vaguely lethal.
The guy leaned in, as though determined to blind her with his sapphire eye-lamps. “It is Sal, right?”
“Do we… know each other?”
The guy laughed. “Kind of? I’m Curt. Curtis Ingram?”
No bells rang in the vicinity of Sal’s brain, but panic wouldn’t let them acknowledge that. They wished phones were allowed in Pyramid, but everyone had to leave them in a cupboard at the front door, for obvious reasons, so Googling the name wasn’t an option. Sal decided to do the only other sensible thing—lie. “Oh yeah! Hi, Curt!”
The guy looked relieved. “Been a while, hey?”
I dunno, is my whole life ‘a while’?
“Yeah, totally,” Sal agreed. “Having fun?”
“For sure,” he said easily. “It’s not my usual scene, but it’s been great.”
“What’s your usual scene?”
He raised a brow. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“Curtis Ingram,” Sal said promptly.
“And we met each other…?”
“Once upon a time…?”
He laughed, but it was obvious he felt stung. “At your place. I’m mates with your brother, Byron. At least I was back in the day.”
“Oh.”
That narrowed the margin, but the truth was Byron had a lot of mates ‘back in the day,’ and those footy-beer-Nintendo guys all looked the same.
Still, Sal wanted to believe they’d have remembered Curtis Ingram. There was a chemistry burning between them that Sal hadn’t felt since… Sal didn’t think they’d ever felt it. Not this tight ironclad connection like a train cable yanking them closer and closer.
Then they remembered coming home from a party to find a bunch of guys yahooing on the couch. Byron was off having a fight with his girlfriend, and Sal had wanted to leave, but they’dleft their headphones on a shelf. As they’d looked for them, all the dudes had started talking—asking how old they were and whether they liked footy. Sal had been a little bit flattered, a little bit hopeful all these hot dudes were feeling it. But as soon as they accepted a beer, things had gone haywire. They remembered a flash of ice-blue eyes and a smirk.“What bra size you rocking these days, Sally? Triple F?”
“Oh my God!” Sal whacked Curtis on the arm. “You’re the guy who was a complete dick to me about my rack!”
They had never seen anyone go as red faster than Curtis Ingram. It wasn’t just his cheeks; it was his neck, his ears, his chin. He looked like someone had thrown a bucket of paint in his face.
“I am s-so, so fucking s-sorry,” he sputtered. “That was full bad behaviour on my end.”
“Yeah, it was,” Sal said, whacking him again. “You said, ‘Has anyone ever told you your jugs are like high credit loans?’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ and you said, ‘They just keep gaining interest,’ andeveryone laughed at me!”
