“C’mon, dude!” I tell Skylar. “There’s no need to be afraid!”
“I’m not afraid!” he shouts back through all of the noise, but his eyes are darting around in every direction. Someone bumps into him and he appears alarmed, looking over his shoulder.
I grip his shoulders and face him to me. “You look like you’re about to shit a diamond brick.”
Skylar frowns at me. “Dude, I’m not afraid!”
“Open your mind and heart to some fun! Sure, it may not be your usual place of entertainment, but look, there’s a giant drag queen in ten-inch high heels on the stage. How can you not like that??”
Skylar gives the stage a diminutive peek. “They aren’t ten-inch high heels,” he mutters back.
Somehow, I hear him. “Hey, you said your sis is way into the gay scene. This is the gay scene. If she’s happy, aren’t you? So let’s let loose and have a little fun with her tonight!”
Before we can continue our conversation, Lena and Maria find us in the crowd, and after shouting something unintelligible at the pair of us (between fits of their own manic laughter), they yank on our unsuspecting hands and pull us into the throng of dancing men and women.
Maria makes me hers right away and dances with me. Lena takes her brother, pulling him out of his daze, and gets him to move. I watch her say something into his ear, and he cracks a smile.
The next while is lost to the thumping beat and colorful lights. Maria is a fucking great dancer, by the way. I’d not have guessed that from the rigid, terrified-of-everything look that was pasted on her face at the start of our night. I guess the ladies just feel safer in the gay part of town, or perhaps more easily able to let down their hair, so to speak.
When a certain song plays that both Lena and Maria clearly recognize, the girls scream, take hold of each other, and get lost in the crowd. Skylar and I are left on our own, moving to the rhythm and glancing at each other uncertainly. He dances his way up to me, then narrows his eyes.
That look he’s giving me makes me laugh. “Is there something on your mind?”
“You know damned well what’s on my mind,” he throws back.
“And what’s that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re into guys?”
I shrug. “Maybe a part of me was afraid taking my straight bro to a drag bar like Dames & Dudes was going to be too much for you.”
“I meant back then,” he amends. “At the frat. Years ago.”
We’re still dancing. And while we have to yell at each other to be heard over the music and the thick, moving crowd of sweaty men and women, it feels like we’re all alone somehow.
“We could’ve been so much closer,” he adds.
I laugh. “Seriously? Knowing I was gay—?”
“Dude, you don’t know the half of it.”
“What don’t I know?”
“Everything, Brett. Fucking everything.”
Something explodes over us. Confetti in every color of the rainbow drops from the ceiling, and a wave of shouts and hollering rush over the crowd.
“Birthday,” I explain to a startled Skylar, who looks at me. “It’s something they do for birthdays. You gotta pay for it, and talk to the DJ, and—Hey!” It suddenly hits me. “Did your sister already have her bachelorette party planned? I’ve got a great place she and the ladies could totally crash. A gay strip bar. My roommate works there.”
Skylar is beside himself as his frustration is at once traded for disbelief. He starts laughing. “Who are you, Macintyre??”
“Same ol’ Macintyre I was back then, just … more forthcoming about what I’m doing. Y’know.” I nudge him. “Not hiding my ‘ladies’ from the frat house anymore.”
Skylar’s eyes go somewhere else, contemplative and faraway.
Lena and Maria crash into us suddenly, all of the colorful confetti in their hair. “I want to live in this place,” Lena cries out. “Me, too! Do you have to get married?” asks Maria. “I love Emilio, but you’re never gonna have this much fun again, girl!”
“Remind me to tell you about Aubergines and hot male strippers,” I shout. “Have you planned a bachelorette party yet? If you did, you’ll want to cancel! I’ve got the perfect place for you ladies!”
“Canceled!” Lena shouts out, laughing.
The music lifts up again, the beat builds, and as it comes crashing down, the whole room blows up into a new rush of dancing. Lena grinds against me while Maria spins a still-bewildered Skylar around. Then we trade partners, and I’m throwing both my hands in the air with Maria. Soon, all four of us are lost once again to the noise.
Normally, I’m drunk off my ass when I get like this. The house parties I throw can be epic, huge, and threaten to topple Piazza Place when the music is turned to full blast. By the morning after a party, I can’t remember half the night, if any of it at all. I always feel cranky and wasted, and there is usually a guy (sometimes two) who I have to politely kick out of my apartment.