“Not here.” Cooper shook his head. “We’re just two strangers in an abyss of strangers.”
In his most panicked moments, Cooper had a way of calming Nico like nobody else could. Like the night in the tent, but here Cooper’s words weren’t enough to ease his mind of the terrifying reality that they could be caught red-handed. “I’m going to need something stronger than a drink.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Nico pulled a rolled baggie out of his pocket. Two pills. One for Nico and one for Cooper, assuming the other man accepted.
Cooper’s eyes bore through the silver openings of his mask. “What the fuck is that?”
“Something to take the edge off.”
Cooper pried the bag from Nico’s hands and stuffed it into his own pocket. “Do you do this a lot?”
“No,” Nico whispered, his heart racing. The last thing he wanted or needed was to be scolded. Not because it’d hurt his feelings, but because, to be quite frank, it’d scare him. “Just thought that this being our first time in public, I would need a little push. But you’re totally right. We absolutely should not do this.”
“I’ll keep these little magic pills of yours somewhere safe, like the bottom of a toilet drain. We have the playoffs and the championship coming up. We’re not going to risk that.”
“Yes, daddy.”
Cooper shot Nico a glare, and if looks could kill… they’d find Nico’s body a hundred years in the future, buried somewhere deep underneath the thumping warehouse.
“So…” Nico sputtered. “How about a drink?”
“That we can do.”
By the time they found the bar, Nico was coated in a thin layer of sweat. Cooper slid through a tight space at the crowded bar and pulled Nico to stand right behind him.
To their right were two twink-type men wearing matching thongs and masks. Because of how sweltering it was in the makeshift club—even in the middle of winter—Nico wished he had the courage to go out in public like that. He wished he had the freedom to do so, but the tattoos on his body would be a dead giveaway.
To their left, some man wearing a plague doctor mask was on the receiving end of a handjob by a man nuzzled against the side of his throat. Nico glanced down at the man’s sizable cock. It was long, thick, and leaking.
Nico knew exactly what he was getting himself into, and yet it still dawned on him that he hadn’t considered the extent of what exactly that meant. Thus the need for something to take the edge off. Something strong. He had every intention of letting Cooper fuck him on the dance floor, but his stomach twisted into tiny knots.
Cooper passed him a shot in a clear Solo cup. It looked to be a double or even a triple, and when he raised it to his nose, the smell of tequila hit him like a singed match at the back of his throat. He threw his head back and swallowed itin one go, and by the time Cooper twisted to cheers him, the shot was already gone.
Nico wiped the back of his lips as Cooper passed him a disappointed glare.
“Cheers to the end of a great year and the start of an even better one.” Cooper raised his cup filled with what Nico assumed was also tequila and gulped it down.
Cooper grabbed both cups, set them on the bar, and spun back around with two drinks in his hand. Nico expected a vodka soda or something else similarly clear, so it was a shock to the system to realize it was only water.
Nico eyed Cooper suspiciously.
“We have all night to party. Let’s at least try to make it to the ball drop,” Cooper said with a grin.
After finishing their water, Nico and Cooper disappeared into the crowd and found a spot with enough space to breathe between them. Nico glanced upward at the catwalk that wrapped around the entirety of the warehouse. It was sparsely filled with spectators, voyeurs, and those looking for a reprieve from the crowded space.
Nico wondered how Cooper was handling all of this, knowing of the other man’s claustrophobia.
Blue and white strobe lights flashed above, lighting up the obscured faces of the people surrounding them, but only for brief moments at a time. Nico watched Cooper in the dark and then in the light. Only for his face to be lost in the darkness again. This was an all-too-familiar show of the life they shared together.
He shook the thoughts from his mind and closed the distance between them. It was time to dance, and Nico took the lead. He placed a palm on Cooper’s shoulder and began to sway to the beat while Cooper remained still. Nico had danced with Cooper before, but he’d never seen him dance to anything other than a slow beat in slow circles. This was going to be different, and he wasn’t sure Cooper had the feral moves this kind of environment required.
Cooper grabbed Nico by the waist and spun him in a quick circle. He pulled Nico’s body close to his, held Nico by his hips, and began to sway.
Nico hated being proven wrong and he would never say he was wrong out loud. But he was wrong. Cooper could dance. He had rhythm. The kind of rhythm that synced with the music, and when Cooper loosened his grip, Nico realized it was he who had a lot to prove.
He took control, pushing his body against Cooper’s. Already, he felt Cooper’s cock hardening beneath his trousers. He leaned his head back, cradling it on the crook of Cooper’s shoulder.
