Ramin didn’t send the name of the club. Or the address. Or a little map pin.
Instead he sent a photo.
Despite everything, Noah laughed. Ramin was holding a drink, standing at the bar, posing in front of the lower half of some sort of go-go boy in gold booty shorts. The faceless bulge was perilously close to Ramin’s head.
Something burned its way through Noah’s chest, something primal and dangerous and perhaps even a bit problematic. But he didn’t want Ramin dancing with other guys. Or looking at their bulges.
Ramin was his.
It wasn’t a mature thought. He knew that. It was selfish and reductive and it didn’t matter, because after twenty years he was finally getting a chance with Ramin, and he wasn’t going to let some muscled Italian in booty shorts come between them.
Noah sprang off his bed and pulled his shoes back on. He started googling clubs nearby to see if he could find photos, find some clue—the shape of the bar, or the lights or, ugh, even evidence of gold-booty-shorted dancers. He had to find Ramin.
He had to.
Noah had never been to a gay club before.
He’d never been to any kind of club at all. His twenties had been spent working, saving money. Not hanging around Westport testing the limits of his liver. Part of him had wanted to, but he’d been careful with his budget, desperate not to have to ask his parents for anything.
Though now that he thought about it, he had been tooneclub: the Green Lady Lounge, a famous jazz club off Grand. Angela had taken him when they were first dating. They’d had overpriced drinks and danced until closing. She’d been so beautiful, so full of life, Noah had fallen in love that night.
This club was nothing like that.
Neon lights painted the walls of the entryway. Bass-heavy EDM thundered in the air. He wished he’d brought his earplugs. He took his hearing protection seriously.
Still, he was almost certain this was the right club. He’d spotted Ramin’s bartender—a shirtless guy with a truly epic mustache—in several of the photos of this place. Hopefully the guy didn’t work at other clubs, too.
Noah didn’t know the protocol—the folks he’d followed had flashed some sort of card to get in—and there wasn’t a bouncer. Instead there was a front counter, where a young guy with a shock of pink hair explained to him in shouted, accented English he could pay for a one-club membership or do a three-month pass instead.
He handed over a few euros, took his card, and slipped into the dark club.
The bass thrummed in his chest, so loud he could barely make out the actual music. Pink and purple lights strobed. He weaved his way through the press of bodies—some clothed, some half naked. Some fat, some skinny, some muscled and smooth, some burly and hairy, all painted with color and light and shadow. For a second Noah imagined letting himself get lost in here. Dancing the night away.
He’d finally figured out he was bisexual when he was twenty or so. Started telling people a few years after that. But for a multitude of reasons—ranging from heteronormativity to convenience to his parents to how expensive gas was when he was in his mid-twenties—he’d never really gotten to live a queer life the way he wanted to.
On his own terms.
He wanted to dance, wanted to touch, wanted to laugh.
But he didn’t want to do any of that without Ramin.
To his relief, he did indeed find the mustachioed bartender, spinning bottles and smiling. Ramin’s picture had been too blurry to show the guy’s pierced nipples, though. Noah wondered if they’d hurt.
If this was the right place, then where was Ramin? Noah made a circuit of the dance floor, checked the bar on the opposite end, dipped into the bathroom and then immediately dipped back out because it wasextremelyoccupied in a way Noah thought was just a myth.
Had Ramin left? Or worse, leftwithsomeone?
Noah clenched his fist. No. Ramin wouldn’t do that, would he? Just because Noah didn’t get back to him fast enough? They were both adults. It wasn’t like Noah ghosted him. Not on purpose, at least.
He angled his way toward the DJ stand. Maybe he could beg them to make an announcement or something.
Ramin Yazdani, please report to the front office.
But then Noah spotted him.
Ramin swayed on the dance floor, eyes half closed, wearing a teal T-shirt and the most sinful pair of orange shorts Noah had ever seen in his life. His mouth went dry. His whole body flushed.
Ramin looked like heaven.
