Diego says it so matter-of-factly, soeasily. I wish I could do that. It’s not like I haven’t been honest with myself. It’s not like I haven’t had relationships. But I’ve never felt the need to label myself before now—that felt like it would have been claiming something that didn’t belong to me. Even though that doesn’t make sense, because identity is something you belongto,not the other way around.
But apparently I’m giving off major gay vibes, at least per Diego’s radar, so.
“I guess…Well, I’ve dated both girls and guys,” I venture at last, which seems like the safest answer. “But gender doesn’t really matter much to me. It’s more about the person.”
Don’t overthink it,I order myself, but of course it’s too late; I’m overthinking it. What I said is true, but I worry it comes across as pandering. That maybe Diego and Ophelia can tell how badly I want them to like me—and if they can tell that, they might think I’m making this up to seem tolerant or whatever.
Only I shouldn’t have worried, because as it turns out, most people don’t have my habit of being bitterly suspicious of everyone they meet. Ophelia and Diego simply exchange looks, some silent conversation passing between them that my anxiety desperately wants to hyperanalyze, and Diego rubs his hands together like a Disney villain. “Iknewit. You’re coming to Revel with us, pansexual icon.”
2
Revel, as it turns out, is a gay club.
Aqueerclub, to be more accurate, as the crowd mingling out on the sidewalk is a mishmash of genders, not the standard flock of cis gay dudes I associated with places like this in LA. No, these are New York queers—painfully, effortlessly cool queers—and…I can’t relate. I tried the baggy jeans trend once, and it made me look like Gumby. The only style I typically muster is best described as “grunge meets cottagecore.” Not that my day-old airport clothes even rise to that level.
Diego’s brought a flask, which he surreptitiously offers to me as we stand in line. I shake my head and one of his eyebrows flicks up. “Don’t like tequila?” he asks.
“Not my favorite,” I say, becauseI don’t drink, periodis always a bombshell to drop on people. As soon as you admit you’re sober, they start asking questions. Worse, they start insisting that you should loosen up. Have a drink. Or three. Or six. What, are you watching your figure?
Half the time they don’t let up until I lose my temper and snapthat I’m clean, I’min recovery,my brain literally wants to kill me and I cannot be trusted with the weapons of my own destruction.
Which tends to put a damper on things, and I want these people to like me. So, personal-disclosure hours can wait.
But to Diego’s credit, he just shrugs and passes the flask to Ophelia instead, and by the time we’re at the front of the line, they’re both slightly tipsy. I’m better than I used to be; I can be around drunk people now. Good thing, considering the nature of the photography social circuit out in LA, a booze-drenched, drug-fueled fuck fest where the quantity and lethality of the drugs you consumed while creating a given work were treated almost like accolades.I heard she went into rehab right after the gallery opening,someone would whisper.Heroin. And they’d all hum discerningly and make comments about artists and their vices.
We make it through the line faster than I expected. The bouncer up front barely even glances at our IDs before letting us in.
Stepping into Revel is like stepping into the past. Forty years into the past, specifically; the décor is firmly eighties chic, all neon lights patterned like the zigzag slashes on vintage dad jackets, everyone dressed in polyester and denim. Some guy with bleached-blond hair has taken over one of the poles and is doing an impromptu show up there, and he’s wearing overalls for some reason. The DJ plays a mash-up of Madonna and Hayley Kiyoko, and honestly, it kind of slaps.
Being here wakes me up, as if I’ve been underwater for years and have finally surfaced into the sun. It’s the feeling I used to chase with whiskey and drugs and the bodies of strangers. I take a breath and my lungs expand. My head clears.
And for the first time since I got off the plane, I think maybe being here—maybe New York itself—will be okay.
“Come on,” Ophelia says, and she grabs my hand, pulling me deeper into the club.
She and Diego get shots at the bar. I make an excuse to go to the bathroom, and when I come back, they’re already dancing. It’s easy to slip into the crowd alongside them, to let our bodies become fluid and anonymous. I end up with Ophelia, my hands on her plush waist and her hips grinding against mine. It’s not even sexual, not really; it’s the kind of hyperphysical flirtation queer girls get into sometimes, where movement becomes its own language. It’s special. It’s something I worried I wouldn’t find when I left LA and its queer-lit bookshops, as if people like us only exist in the spaces I’m familiar with. I knew I was wrong, of course, that this was just me being self-absorbed and navel-gazey about my own experience, but still.
I thought I wouldn’t be able to make friends anywhere else. That if I left the people who’d been putting up with me for the past eight years, I’d find I was in fact an intolerable person to be around.
We dance until the heat gets to be too much and I have to excuse myself to catch my breath and find something cold to drink. I end up at the bar, leaning in past the crowd of brightly colored gays, trying to get the bartender’s attention. Which is kind of difficult when you’re the only one present who isn’t plastered in glitter and glow stick goo. I’m starting to get low-key irritated about it, which probably shows on my face, because when I accidentally make eye contact with the guy standing next to me, he laughs and says, “Yeah, around here you need to be wearing about seventy percent less clothing to get service. Sorry.”
I feel my cheeks flush. The comment would have landed a lot differently if it had come from a different sort of guy—or at a straight club, where douches outnumber reasonable people four to one. But this man isn’t looking at me like I’m a piece of disappointingly overdressed meat. He’s smiling, has the kind of face that aggressively readshimbodespite his scruffy jawline and strong features. The thick Carolina accent certainly helps. He’swearing a plain white T-shirt, James Dean style, and I can’t avoid noticing the way his black jeans cling to his muscular thighs a littletoowell.
Statistically speaking, I remind myself, he is almost definitely gay, so there’s no point in fantasizing.
But holyshit. He looks like he could crush my head between those thighs, and to be honest, I would probably let him.
“I suppose I could always take my shirt off,” I say, and his grin widens slightly, revealing—fuck me—dimples.
“You could,” he says. “Or you could let me give it a go. I’m kind of a regular around these parts.” He rises up on the balls of his feet, which is necessary considering he’s around my height or maybe even a little shorter, and extends a heavily tattooed arm over the bar. “Greg!”
The bartender, presumably Greg, who has somehow heard hot guy’s voice over the throbbing bass line, glances over his shoulder at us and shoots my new friend a thumbs-up.
“There you go,” says my friend, dropping back onto his heels again. “All sorted out. Maybe I could buy your drink for you?” He pairs that question with an arch of a brow. I wish my arched brow looked that sexy.
My blush deepens, which is humiliating because I’ve never been an attractive blusher. My whole face tends to turn red, not just my cheeks, making me look more like I’m doing a lobster cosplay than flirting with a sexy stranger.
“Sure,” I say. “I mean…yeah. Okay. If you want. But you don’t have to actually…. That is, it won’t cost much. I’m just ordering seltzer with lemon.”
