As much as I want to do all that, oddly even piss in the bushes, I won’t make things worse for Luke. I just want to help him get through the night. They put him in a bad mood, so I’m the buffer.
Wren
That works too.
Ty
Yeah, alright. Not as fun, but keep us posted.
Percy
Be safe!
Jack
Get laid for your efforts.
Ty
Fuck, fine. I’m leaving. You two go at it like rabbits.
Cal
Ty, come back!
Did you seriously just text that instead of telling him in person?
Cal
It’s more fun this way.
Lol. Thanks for the laughs, y’all. I needed them before this shitshow begins.
Percy
You got this.
Michael/Jamie
But if you don’t, we’ll all piss in their bushes.
“What’swrong?”heaskedwhen I opened the passenger door for him, then added, “Other than this party.”
“Isn’t that enough?” I asked in return, snippier than intended.
Asher nodded but didn’t say more.
Mother didn’t care about Asher. She didn’t want to get to know him. She wanted to get to know his family, his lineage, hisclass. All so she could then ridicule him for it and remind me why she knew better.
Instead of telling her to fuck off or that I was a grown-ass man and could date who I wanted, I tucked tail like a good boy and requested Asher show me what he planned to wear so I couldokayit. How fucked-up was that? I hated that I did it, but that didn’t stop me.
And Asher was perfect, of course. Not that I didn’t want him to be, and not that I shouldn’t have expected otherwise. The high-waisted, black dress pants with a wide leg and the silver blouse with delicate ruffles lining the high neckline were beautiful on him, accentuating his tall, slender build.
He was the only bright spot getting me through this,reminding me what was in store for me at the end of this nightmare. As it should be, I supposed.
With his usual way of finding whatever he could to put a positive spin on this New Year’s Eve party, he had deemed this the ultimate test of whether he could pass as a woman. It didn’t matter he’d done so several times now, but he understood, without me having to say it, that my parents would be examining him closely to find every flaw they could exploit. They wouldn’t stop at one. They would call out all of them.
I took his coat and bag and put them on the back seat as he settled in. Tonight, I picked him up from his aunt’s house. Asher had comically described his own attempts at putting on makeup and fixing his own hair—donning Ashley, as he called it. His cousin was up to the task, however. I hadn’t asked what his family thought about all this, as it was another layer that might be one too many for me to handle just yet.
