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“Oh,” he says, then squints toward the ocean again. “It’s you.”

“Yes.”

“Come to kick me out?”

The words are slurred, but the fear under them is perfectly clear.

“Not tonight.”

He laughs once, low and rough. “Sure.”

“I’m just seeing how you’re doing.”

“These Mexican bartenders pour strong.”

“I think that’s more of a gay thing than a Mexican one.”

Another small laugh escapes before he can stop it.

“This is gay,” he says, looking vaguely around the rooftop. “Very, very gay.”

“It is.”

He reaches for the drink by his foot and misses by several inches. I put my hand back on his wrist. This time, he doesn’t pull away.

“Maybe we should get you home.”

He leans back like I’ve insulted him. “I’m workin’.”

Despite myself, I laugh. “I think your work here is done.”

It takes him a second, then he smiles.

“Yeah,” he says softly.

The rooftop keeps moving around us. Men laughing, music pulsing.

Clint’s wrist is warm under my hand. His skin is bare almost everywhere. And for one reckless second, I forget why touching him should be impossible.

The cab driver doesn’t look at Clint twice. Just another night in the Romantic Zone.

Clint talks most of the ride, head against the window, neon underwear hidden beneath his shirt I draped across his lap.

“City’s weird,” he mutters. “Pretty, though. Like it knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Everything. Just, like, all of me.”

He says something after that about rough fingers and a man named Emiliano. None of it really connects. I stop trying to organize it and focus on keeping one hand lightly against his shoulder when the cab turns.

Back at the house, I help him through the gate and into the living room. He’s taller than me, heavier than he looks, warm all over from liquor and night air.

“I can walk,” he says, while not doing much of it.

“I can see that.”

He drops onto the couch with a soft, defeated sound.