“Did you get married,” one shouts.
I lift my hand in an acknowledging wave and turn back to the golf course.
“You’re not gonna answer them?” Vance asks me.
I grit my teeth as I lock my eyes onto his face. “Why would I?” I ask quietly.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, keeping his voice low to match mine. “Could be fun. Or not.”
“Experiencing the public is rarely fun.”
He shakes his head. “McD in the ivory tower.”
“Yeah, where no one will fuck with us.”
“McD with the F-bomb,” he hisses.
I shut my eyes and let a breath out. I want Vanny happy. If he wants me to tell them we just tied the knot, maybe I should.
“I see a ring,” someone says. They’re maybe twenty feet away from us—so, close enough to see.
“Dude, let’s call Casey,” another one says.
“You wanna tell them?” I ask V, at the same time he says, “Doesn’t matter, man. Let’s just not.”
“No, I think you’re right.” I squeeze my golf club’s handle. “This is Vegas. If not here, where?”
“We do live in San Francisco.” I look at Rayne’s face—his sparkling eyes and buoyant, teasing grin. He doesn’t care what we do; I can see he really doesn’t.
So I turn toward the crowd—it’s grown since I last looked up—and I cup my hands around my mouth, and I say, “YES!”
I hold my left hand up, and then I pull Rayne in for a kiss. I try to make it look straight out of Disney: my arm slung around his neck, my other arm around his mid-back…and my lips crashing down on his—a gentle crash—before I slip my tongue into his mouth and kiss him like I want to take him—hard and rough but with some tenderness, because I love him so much.
I hear cheering, and I realize he was right. They’re not haters.
“Can we play too?” someone shouts.
Rayne and I pull apart, and he smiles like a concession, telling me with just his eyes that we don’t have to do that.
“What do you think?” I murmur.
“You just said the public sucks, McD.” His hand cups my shoulder. “We’re going home soon, right? So you can get some rest for—”
“Would you mind?” I ask him.
“If we let them putt-putt with us? Hell no. You wanna do it?”
I look at them out of the corner of my eye—at their clothes and hats and faces, at two of them draped around each other. Stereotypes aside, these guys are gay. I can just feel it. They’re in Vegas; they’re probably drunk. They want to play putt-putt with us and cheer us on.
It would be the outest that I’ve ever been. The gayest. It might feel good.
“It’s okay, girls,” one of them says.
“We don’t want to fuck your night up,” a green-haired dude offers.
“It’s okay.” I shrug and then wave. “If you can catch us on the course, we’ll play you.”
The guys look at one another. I spot a couple who look more femme, and I count about twelve as they murmur to each other and a black-haired guy says, “Fuck yeah.”
“Don’t cuss!” another guy says.
“Freck yeah!”
They take off toward the check-in building, and Vance chuckles. “You wanna fuck them, Sky babe?”
“What?” I frown.
He waggles his brows. “We’ll play you.” He says it like a phone sex operator, and I roll my eyes.
“Do you want us to do that,” I ask.
“I just want you,” Rayne says.
“But you’d be down if I wanted to bring another person in?” I’m honestly curious.
He shrugs. “Whatever you wanted.”
I wrap an arm around him. “Only you, V. Only you and me, forever.”
I look up to find a dozen or more guys jogging toward us, looking queer as queer, holding neon putt-putt clubs.
“So much speed walking,” Rayne says, grinning.
“Lots of gym rats,” I murmur.
He chuckles.
“Welcome to The Queer Team, Sky babe. You think you’re drunk enough for this?”
I lean my head against his shoulder for a second. “I hope so.”
“I love you.”
That’s the last thing my husband says to me before we get a bunch of company.
It’s four and a half hours before we hobble up the plane’s stairs, laughing, smelling like a bar, and holding hands marked by big, black Xs. I’ve never felt so happy. I’ve never felt so married…or so gay.
We go straight to the bed—the bed where I proposed—and lie down. Rayne urges my head onto his shoulder.
“Popped at least one cherry,” he says. I can feel him grinning against my hair.
“Yes, I know.” My gay bar cherry.
“You still good about it?”
I swallow before I whisper, “Yes.”
His hand sifts through my hair, making my eyelids drop shut.
“I’ll be here with you,” Vance whispers against my hairline.
“I know. But this is what I want. I’m okay.” I hug him hard, and when the plane lifts off the ground, I peel his clothes off and then mine and I do what I’ve wanted to do all night. I bury myself in him, taking all Rayne’s strength, smelling his skin, tasting his throat, and then we fall asleep wrapped up together like we always do, and things are okay.