Those words shouldn’t affect Dara like they did. It was like swallowing a gulp of whiskey too fast, a sudden heat blooming in his chest. “Youdon’t get to call me that.” He sucked in a shallow breath, one hand clenching in a fist. His heart raced. “Don’t.”
The man held up both hands. Surrender. “Sorry. It’s just rich kids don’t come in here that much. Kinda out of their way, you know?”
“Whatever,” Dara muttered. He tipped his head forward, pressing his brow against the chilly wood.
He imagined long fingers pressing against the nape of his neck, holding him in place.
Dara jerked upright, for one reeling moment sure—so sure—he was going to vomit. But the moment passed, and the bartender was looking at him with a frown on his lips, and he was gonna kick Dara out, make Dara wander up and down the icy street because he couldn’t go upstairs, not now, couldn’t pace circles round that tiny apartment for another six hours, couldn’t.
“You okay?” the bartender asked. He sounded uncertain. But of course he didn’treallycare if Dara was okay. He had to ask. It was a liability thing.
“Fine.” Dara smiled, and it almost felt real. He pushed back his chair and stood, then hoisted himself up onto the bar. Swung his legs over the counter. Dropped back onto his own feet, this time behind the bar, where he could step forward and press both hands against the bartender’s warm chest. “I live right upstairs,” he said, trying to focus on the man’s eyes. His face was blurry, featureless. “Apartment 304. You can come up with me. But you have to bring the bourbon, that’s the rules.”
The man didn’t say anything. He held on to Dara’s arms, but he didn’t push him back, didn’t stop him as Dara leaned in, as Dara slid his fingers into his hair and kissed the line of his jaw. His skin was stubbly under Dara’s lips. Rough. The room swayed, and good thing the man had such a firm grip on him, because Dara’s legs couldn’t hold his weight anymore.
He closed his eyes. Took in a shallow breath that tasted like cheap aftershave. He murmured, “That’s myonlyrule.”
He stumbled, and the man hauled him up again, had him pinned between his body and the edge of the bar—good, good.
“I’ll do ...,” Dara mumbled, “whatever you want ...”
He didn’t remember anything after that.
Consciousness returned with all the subtlety of a freight train, crashing into Dara full speed, all glaring light and motion sickness. He groaned and kicked the sheets off his sweaty body, but moving sent another lance of pain throbbing through his skull.
“God,” he muttered, and wanted nothing more than to burrow under the pillow and pretend the rest of the universe didn’t exist. His stomach had other ideas.
He lurched up and grabbed the trash bin next to the bed to spew bourbon and bile into the liner bag. He’d just had time to wonder at the bin’s convenient placing next to the head of the bed, between heaves, when someone pressed a cool, wet cloth against the nape of his neck.
“Better out than in,” said a semifamiliar voice, and after Dara spat the last of the nasty taste out of his mouth, he looked up.
The bartender from last night perched on the edge of the bed, even more stubbly than he’d been before. It turned out he was, in fact, attractive. So at least Dara’d been right about that much.
“Hi,” Dara said when he was finally sure he wasn’t going to puke again—or at least, not immediately.
“Hi,” the bartender said back. He withdrew the cloth from Dara’s neck and offered it to him; Dara took it, wiping his mouth.
Did we have sex last night?The question perched on the tip of Dara’s tongue, but there was no point asking. He knew the answer.
“You didn’t have to stay all night,” he said instead.
The bartender’s brows went up. “Really? Because last night you kept sayingstayanddon’t leave me here aloneover and over, and I figured I should stick around. Just, you know, to make sure you didn’t have alcohol poisoning.”
Well, that was embarrassing.
Dara felt color rising in his cheeks and hoped the man blamed it on the hangover. “How considerate of you,” he said. “But as you can see, I’m fine now. You can go.”
“Fair enough.” The bartender pushed himself off the bed, but he didn’t leave. He just stood there in the middle of Dara’s tiny apartment, both hands stuck in his pockets.
“You aren’t going.”
“For the record,” the man said, “we didn’t sleep together. You were trashed. Like, barely even conscious. I wouldn’t do that to you. I want you to know that. I only came up here to make sure you were okay.”
Dara narrowed his eyes, not entirely sure he believed him. But the man was shifting from foot to foot, uncomfortable butstill here. And now that Dara thought about it, he was still in the same clothes from last night. The bartender had apparently taken off Dara’s shoes, but that was it.
“Okay,” Dara said.
But instead of leaving, the bartender turned and paced the narrow length of the studio, from the rickety radiator to the far wall and back again. “Listen,” he said eventually, stopping and examining a chip on the corner of Dara’s dresser. “So. You got kind of talkative last night. I don’t know if you remember.”
