I put a hand to my chest and pout. “Damn. You didn’t even hesitate before rejecting me.”
“Out of the truck, Lance.” George gets out before I can continue ruining his evening.
“Oh my God, it’s a date.” I grin to myself and climb out after him.
The warm San Diego night wraps around us immediately, carrying music that bleeds softly through the walls. There are no pounding club beats, but something smoother with a heavy, rolling bass underneath vocals. The closer we get to the entrance, the more aware I become of everything. The energy feels brighter. Louder. More alive.
I notice things I normally wouldn’t. A guy with subtle green eyeliner laughing into his drink near the door. Two men touching casually at the small of each other’s backs like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Someone in polished boots and pearl earrings smoking while his date gently fixes his collar.
And almost at once, I realize that I don’t feel out of place.
Overstimulated? Absolutely. Heart racing a little too fast? Definitely, but it’s so welcome.
George glances sideways at me while we wait near the door.
“You good?”
I scan the sign again, then the people spilling in and out beneath it.
“Good?” I say, proudly. “I think I’m about to thrive here.”
A real laugh slips out at that. Brief, low, and gone almost immediately.
Inside, the whole place is gorgeous. It looks like somebody took a luxury cocktail lounge and handed it over to gay men with exceptional taste.
Dark green velvet booths curve along the walls beneath warm brass lamps. Smoked mirrors catch fragments of movement everywhere. The long bar stretches nearly the entire length of the room, black marble gleaming under amber lighting with rows of liquor bottles glowing like jewels behind it.
There’s a dance floor further in, crowded but not packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Men dancing together openly, casually, like breathing. Some are dressed sharp enough for magazine covers. Others look like they came straight from the gym or the beach. Nobody seems particularly interested in pretending to be cooler than they are.
And Christ, everybody here is attractive. They’re not even intimidatingly attractive either—they’re just…alive-looking, confident, and comfortable.
I’m still processing all of this when somebody brushes past me and says, “Nice shirt, blondie.”
I blink.
The guy’s broad-shouldered, probably around my age, dark curls shaved short at the sides. He’s wearing a sheer black mesh shirt under an open satin button-up in deep red.
“Oh.” I glance down at my own black T-shirt with the words “If lost, return to the hot bearded man.”
The lettering stretches across my chest in obnoxiously confident white font.
I bought it as a joke in an Arizona souvenir shop halfway through a road trip with George, purely to annoy him. Now, standing here, it doesn’t feel like a joke so much as accurate advertising. Especially thehotpart, which feels aggressively relevant in hindsight.
“Thank you. It was on sale.”
The guy giggles immediately before disappearing into the crowd.
George gives me a look.
“What?”
“You flirt differently with men.”
I turn to him so fast I nearly pull a neck muscle. “I do?”
“With women, you act like you’re hosting a gameshow.”
I fix him with a look of pure offense. “That’s fucking untrue.”
