"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." -Mark Twain

227 days sober

The only good thing about the rest of the school day is that Sergeant Smitth gets a call and ends MLEP forty-five minutes early, giving me the chance to slip out of the room with everyone else, instead of sticking around for the first of my endless detentions. I’m home by quarter to five—plenty of time to take a nap that’ll get me through dinner with my friends and work at Rush after. Travis seems to have had the same idea. His car is in the driveway when I pull up, but when I come inside, he’s nowhere on the main level. I trudge upstairs and let myself into his bedroom.

He’s curled up in bed, dead asleep, with Omelette conked out between him and the window. The dog wakes up the second I close the door behind myself, and he barks loudly enough to bring Travis back to consciousness with a jolt.

“Shut up, Om,” I whisper, even though it’s too late. He doesn’t care what I’m saying, as long as I’m leaning over to pet him.

Travis pulls back the corner of the blankets and grumbles, “C’mere so he’ll stop losing his mind.”

I kick off my boots, strip out of my school uniform, and crawl under the blankets. I didn’t bother putting on boxers or a t-shirt after my shower this morning, so I’m sort of accidentally naked now, but Travis is too out of it to notice, let alone do anything about it. He’s just awake enough to remember his manners, though. “How was school?”

“It sucked really, really badly. I should’ve just stayed home,” I say, smushing my face against his shoulder.

“What happened?” he asks. He loops his arm around me and starts rubbing his palm in wide circles on my back.

It feels too good for me to say anything that might make him angry enough to stop. I shake my head and say, “Just stupid stuff with my squad. Don’t wanna talk about it right now. How was work? And class?”

“Fine. Boring.” He yawns. “Sleep now, though?”

I nod, and he’s out again before I even have time to kiss his cheek. It takes me longer to nod off, and by the time I manage it, I feel like I’ve only been asleep for ten minutes when I wake again to Travis gently shaking my shoulder and saying, “G. You have to get ready for work.”

“Ew. I don’t wanna,” I say.

He laughs. “It’s your first night having a job. How can you possibly be complaining already?”

“Easy—I’m lazy and immature and self-centered,” I yawn, clambering out from under the blankets. Travis startles at my nakedness, then turns quickly away, blushing. I smirk at his back, and I’m sure he’s aware of it. He glances back at me just long enough to shoot me a dirty look.

“Do you have anything you want to toss in my backpack? I met James between classes today, and he said that we should stay the night at his place. Stohler’s already made plans to claim his couch. It folds out into a bed, and she says she doesn’t want to sleep in the guest room, because she—her words— ‘doesn’t know what kind of perversions Goldwyn gets up to in that bed.’”

“I guess Jamie didn’t have the heart to tell her that he probably gets fucked on the couch at least as often as in the guest room.”

“Guess not. I, uh…” Travis winces. “I don’t think he liked the idea of us driving back home at four in the morning, when we’re both exhausted. You know how tense he’s been about anybody getting in a car since what happened with his parents.”

I duck my head to avoid having to meet Travis’ eyes now. “Yeah. He’s still on me to sell the Testarossa and get something safer.”

“He’s not wrong.”

“Not about the safety, no. But I like my car, alright?” I say, maybe too defensively. The Ferrari had been a sixteenth birthday present from my dad. Mom had gone ballistic. They’d been divorced for less than a year, and they hadn’t yet gotten the hang of the “friendly co-parents” thing they’ve got going on now. I hadn’t given a shit that the car was too expensive, too retro, too much for a sixteen-year-old who hadn’t even gotten his license yet to handle. It was gorgeous and red and the first good thing to happen to me since I’d started dating Dave Walczyk five months earlier. I love that car. Jamie is fucked in the head if he thinks I’m trading it in for some boring sedan.

The conversation—I don’t want to call it an argument—about the car continues for much longer than I’d like it to. The topic carries us from the bedroom to Travis’ car to the underground parking at Jamie’s building to the elevator to right outside his door. That’s where I finally say, “We’re done talking about this for now.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” Travis retorts.

“You’re being loud,” I hiss. “This isn’t a conversation I want to have in front of Jamie. He’s having a hard enough time handling what happened to his parents without hearing anything that’ll make him think he’s going to lose me, too.”

If Travis has any plans to keep arguing, those plans change the second I get the door open. James Goldwyn, picture of perfect sanity, is lying flat on his back on the floor, head turned sideways so that he can stare somberly under his couch. He looks worse off than he did a week ago, the last time I saw him. His skin is paler, like he hasn’t bothered going outside enough to maintain his usual southern tan, and he looks like he might be a bit thinner. His wrists look bony instead of elegant, and there are circles under his eyes that I’d bet anything he has tried to fix with some sort of under-eye cream that costs way more than it should.

“Jamie, love,” I say, as casually as I can manage. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find my cat,” he sighs. “She’s being a bit of a terror today, running all over the place. Keeps trying to claw the furniture, too. I could’ve sworn she was out here, but I can’t seem to find her.”

“Want help?” Travis offers.

Jamie sits up and extends his hands to me. I haul him upright, and he brushes himself off, straightens his shoulders, and says, “No, it’s quite alright. She’ll turn up soon enough.”

As if in direct response to his words, there is the unmistakable sound of fabric being attacked in one of the bedrooms down the hall. Jamie curses and takes a step towards the hall, but Travis jogs off before him, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll get her out here and close the bedroom doors. Be back in a minute.”

It isn’t the most subtle departure in the world, but it gives me some time alone with Jamie, so I can’t complain. I loop my arms around his neck and lean in to kiss his cheek, hoping that might soften the blow a little as I say, “James. Babe. Don’t, uh… don’t take this the wrong way, but you look a little… tired.”

His mouth curves into a wan smile. “Is ‘tired’ a euphemism for ‘like shit’?”

“Fuck no,” I lie. “You’re as gorgeous as ever, and I’d still do you every way I know how. But you just, you know, look like maybe you haven’t been sleeping so well.”

The silence stretches between us for too long to be anything other than awkward.

“Have you been sleeping at all?” I ask.

“Not much, no. Not since I came back from Georgia. I spoke to my doctor about it, but he was hesitant to recommend anything more than an over-the-counter sleep aid.” Jamie’s mouth is still drawn into a tight smile. It’s so obviously forced, I’m not sure why he even bothers. “It’s not… well, it’s not really medical, is it? Anyone in my position would have trouble returning to life as they’d lived it before. My doctor told me that he could refer me to a psychiatrist, if I thought I might benefit from… I’m not sure, exactly. Some sort of anxiety medication. We didn’t really discuss it that much.”

My palms skate from his shoulders down to his wrists and back up. “I mean, it might be worth a try, though, right?”

Jamie shakes his head. “Not if it’s something that a psychiatrist would want me to continue on a more permanent basis. Staying in any form of psychiatric treatment for longer than six months would disqualify me from military service. Giving up my long-term career goals would only make my anxiety worse.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, shrugging, “Declan’s got a shitload of drugs he’s trying to get off his hands before he heads to West Point in two months. Bet he’d sell me some klonopin real cheap, if I, you know. Smile pretty, bat my eyelashes a little.”

Jamie chuckles. “Yes, I know how absolutely charming you can be. But I’m quite alright. I won’t even need to worry about the sleeping trouble for the next few days. Ben is staying here all weekend, and I sleep much better when I’ve got someone in the bed with me.”

When I make another attempt to draw him into a hug, he tries to shrug me off. That’s way more bullshit than I am prepared to deal with. I smack his hands down and flatten myself against his front, with one hand balled up around the back of his shirt and the other knotted in his silky hair. The only way he’ll be able to get me to stop hugging him is to yank me off.

“If that’s true, I’ll be here every night. I’ll come here straight from MLEP, and I’ll stay until I have to leave for PT the next morning,” I promise. “If you need somebody here with you, then I’ll be in your bed whenever you want me to be.”

Jamie’s soft laugh tickles the side of my face. “Oh, what I wouldn’t have done to hear you say that a few years ago.”

“I mean it.”

“I know. Let go of me,” he says.

Reluctantly, I obey. Fortunately, when I get a good look at his face again, I see that a wry smile has replaced the horrible tightness from before. That’s got me feeling so relieved, I can’t stop myself from darting back in to give him a quick kiss on the lips. He rolls his eyes and waves me off.

“Sweet merciful Christ, Garen. Are you ever going to let McCutcheon have a boyfriend who you don’t try to kiss?”

“Dunno. Is he ever gonna date somebody I haven’t already slept with?”

“I doubt it. You’ve slept with quite a few people, sweetheart.”

“I know. And you love that about me. Just remember, I called dibs on you when we were fourteen.” I make a grab for his crotch, and he swats my hand away, laughing.

From somewhere down the hall, Travis says loudly, “Can I come back out yet?”

“No one told you that you needed to stay away in the first place!” Jamie calls back.

Travis wanders out of the guest room, herding Zooey ahead of him. “I know. But you guys sounded like you were trying to have a serious discussion, right up until the laughing. I thought you’d want privacy.”

“Privacy only gave Garen the opportunity to make untoward advances,” Jamie says loftily.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, tramping off to the kitchen to find myself something to snack on. “I am a gentleman, and my behavior is always exemplary.”

Travis shoots me a look that’s half amused, half exasperated, but any snide comment he wants to make is cut off by a huge bout of swearing from Jamie as Zooey darts around his legs and launches herself onto the side of the couch, digging her claws into the leather. Jamie drops to his knees and begins his massively unsuccessful attempts to pry her off. It’s pretty entertaining, actually. I retrieve a bag of chips—gross, healthy, whole grain bullshit chips, but chips nonetheless—from the cupboard and chomp down on a couple of them like I’m eating popcorn at a movie.

Over on the kitchen counter, Jamie’s phone pings with a new text. He shifts his attention from detaching Zooey from the couch long enough to say, “Can one of you check that for—God fucking damn it, Zooey, stop—check that for me? I assume it’s—”

“Ben, yeah,” Travis says, scanning the text. “He and Stohler just got off the subway, so they’ll be here in a few minutes. He wants to know if they should come in through the garage so you can buzz them up, or if they can go through the lobby.”

“Lobby. Stohler hasn’t been here before, but Ben has. I’m betting the doorman recognizes him by now,” I say. “Also, once you’re done telling them that, scroll up a little, I wanna know how many dick pics they’ve traded this past week.”

Travis starts tapping away at the phone and says, “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s what snapchat is for.”

“And Skype,” Jamie says. When he looks up this time, he appears to be schooling his beautiful features into an expression that is pleasant, but not overly excited. I guess he and Ben are still trying to pretend they don’t really like each other. “We text a bit during the day, then video chat at night, once he’s home from work.”

“Cute!” I say with as much exaggerated enthusiasm as I can manage to put into one word.

“Necessary!” Jamie says in the same tone. “If we ever want to actually see each other, that is. We’ve got plans to alternate weekends between here and Connecticut, but neither of us is even sure how that’ll work out. I’ve already committed to something back home in Savannah next weekend, and then Ben has finals, and then the week after that, I’ve got finals. After he leaves on Sunday morning, I’m not entirely sure we’ll be able to have a substantial conversation until halfway through the month of May. But it’s--why are you so awful?”

Zooey has scratched her way out of his hands and under the couch, where we can all hear her trying to shred the furniture from below. Jamie drags her back out and says fiercely, “No. Stop it. Just sit here and stop.”

“She doesn’t look like she’s going to stop,” Travis says doubtfully. Sure enough, the second Jamie releases her, the kitten stretches herself out and digs her nails back into the leather, looking smug as shit. It’s pretty adorable, but it’s also not my couch.

“She’s so terrible sometimes,” Jamie sighs. “She’s a beautiful little thing, and she was meant to be my mother’s, so I’m somewhat obligated to love her. But sweet fucking Christ, she’s terrible. And I suspect she’s possessed. She stands sometimes.”

I slowly lower the chip I was just about to put in my mouth. “She stands? Like… on her back legs, like a person?”

“Yes. It’s horrifying. She does it every time I try to feed her. She crowds in close to the food bowl so that I can’t even reach it to put the Fancy Feast in, so I tap her nose with the edge of the can so that she’ll back up. Except she doesn’t. She sits back on her haunches, with her front paws hovering in mid-air, and as soon as the food is in the dish, she falls back down and devours it. And now we’ve progressed to the point where she thinks she’s training me, because whenever she’s hungry, she comes over to me and gets up on her hind legs, as if to say, ‘you may feed me now, I’m ready for my meal.’ It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen in my life, I don’t understand why I can’t just have a normal cat.”

Zooey’s little gray head perks up at the sound of the apartment door opening, and the moment Ben and Stohler have stepped inside, the kitten neatly detaches herself from the couch, dodges Jamie’s attempt to grab her, and trots over to wind herself leisurely around Ben’s ankles.

“I hate you,” Jamie says flatly. It’s unclear whether he’s talking to Zooey or Ben. The latter raises his eyebrows and slowly lowers himself to one knee. Once he’s within reach, Zooey scales the side of his hoodie and settles herself across his shoulders like a living shawl. Jamie repeats, somewhat louder, “I hate you.”

“You do not,” Ben says. He drops his bag on one of the dining chairs and wanders over to where Jamie is standing up and brushing imaginary dirt off the knees of his trousers. “Were you trying to—oh—”

That and a somewhat surprised look are all he manages before James tugs him closer by the front of his hoodie and raises a hand as a shield between himself and Zooey so that he can kiss Ben without getting his face clawed open. It’s a lingering kiss, but not exactly pornographic—there isn’t even any tongue. Jamie trails another kiss to Ben’s bearded jaw, then another down to his neck before leaning away. Ben still looks surprised by it all, and I’ve got no idea why. I’ve given guys more passionate kisses than that just for returning from a trip to the fridge during a movie.

“Hello,” Jamie says simply.

Ben McCutcheon, Actual Freak of Nature, ducks his head so that his face is hidden close to Jamie’s chest. “Hi. Um. Were you trying to pet the cat again? Because you know she hates it when you do that.”

“No, I wasn’t trying to pet her, though I should damn well be able to, if I so choose. I was trying to stop her from ruining my furniture,” Jamie says. “She’s being a terror, and I’m four seconds away from making an appointment to have her declawed.”

“Shut up, you’re not having her declawed. Do you even realize how barbaric that practice is? They cut the tips of the toes off, right through the bone so the claws can’t grow back. You scratch me all the time, and you don’t see me chopping off the first joint of your fingers, do you?”

“The main difference being that James doesn’t nut himself when his cat scratches the furniture,” Stohler says. Ben turns to glare at her, but she hip-checks him out of the way so that she can loop an arm around Jamie’s shoulders and press a very quick kiss to his perfectly carved cheekbone. “Hello again, Goldwyn. Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Thank you very much. There’s an open bottle of Rioja in the kitchen, if either of you would like something to drink,” Jamie says. Predictably, Ben burrows deeper into his hoodie and shakes his head in refusal. Even more predictably, Stohler immediately joins me and Travis in the kitchen and begins rooting around in the cabinets until she finds the wineglasses. She pours herself a generous helping of wine and raises the glass in a silent toast to Jamie, who retrieves his own glass from the coffee table and mimics the gesture. “I’m delighted to see you again, without all the screaming, violence, and humiliation involved in last weekend’s encounter.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I wasn’t humiliated at all last weekend. Just you and Ben were,” Stohler says brightly. She hops up onto the counter and directs the toe of her motorcycle boot into Travis’ ribs. “You missed quite the show, baby gay.”

Travis is too busy frowning over at Ben to do much more than bat ineffectually at Stohler’s boot. “Yeah, I can… see that. Ben, have you been to a doctor for that? Your face is, like… really fucked up. I mean, I saw it on Skype yesterday, but it looks so much worse in person.”

“That’s such a sweet thing to say, dude. I can’t begin to figure out why Ben ever broke up with you,” I say, but Travis isn’t wrong. Ben’s face is pretty fucked right now, and I think the only thing that has kept me from pointing it out already is the fact that I’ve spent the last two weeks watching Declan’s bruises slowly fade from the beating he got dealt at his birthday party. I’m used to that sickly fading yellow color, but Ben’s not quite at that stage yet. The swelling is all gone, but the skin around his nose and on his left cheek is still a mottled purple, just starting to melt into a nasty greenish color.

Jamie curls a finger under Ben’s chin and carefully turns his face from one side to the other. After a moment of inspection, he announces, “Travis is right, you’re revolting. Our relationship is over. You may see yourself out.”

“Fine, but I’m keeping the cat,” Ben warns.

“I hope that’s a promise,” Jamie replies. His hand is still resting under Ben’s jaw, and he only has to move a few inches to lightly trace the pad of his middle finger over the bridge of Ben’s nose. “Honestly, though. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore, does it?”

Ben shakes his head, but any comment he’d been planning to add is cut off by Stohler, who abandons her half-empty wineglass on the counter and slinks over to pull Ben away. “Well, it probably does when you fucking poke at it, Goldwyn, Christ. And don’t worry about the bruising. I brought my makeup kit with me, so I’m sure I can get a bit of concealer on there and have him looking nice and pretty for you before we all head out for dinner.”

“Is this really necessary?” Ben sighs, even though he’s letting himself be towed down the hall to Jamie’s bathroom.

“You look like you took a brick to the face, so, yeah, I’d say it’s incredibly necessary. Besides, don’t act like you’re a stranger to makeup. You wear more eyeliner to church than I wear to the strip club.” She shoves him unceremoniously into the bathroom and locks herself in there with him… and Zooey, who seems to have conked out on Ben’s shoulders.

The second they’re out of earshot, Travis looks around at us, still seeming distressed. “You guys didn’t tell me it was that bad.”

Jamie grimaces and comes to the kitchen to slip a coaster under Stohler’s wineglass before refilling his own glass. “It was worse last week, believe me.”

“He bled so much when Alex first hit him,” I say quietly. “Honestly, I think mine bled less when I broke it, and I ended up having to get a goddamn nosejob to correct mine. Thought we were gonna have to take him to the hospital.”

“The bruising got worse before it got better,” Jamie says. He sets the wine down on the counter and traces the lip of the glass with his forefinger, watching it instead of us. “Nearly had a fucking heart attack when I woke up next to him the morning after. With all the swelling, he was barely recognizable. I made the absolute worst impression possible on his family, showing up to church the next morning with him in that state.”

“Come on. Hillary can’t have held that against you,” I protest.

He hitches his shoulder lightly. “Certainly didn’t help my cause, but she was most likely going to hate me regardless, given what Alexander said about Ben’s sex life. There was a very terse conversation after dinner, once all the little things—the siblings, the children, whatever. Once they’d been sent to another room.”

“About sex?” Travis asks. There’s a hint of a blush rising in his own cheeks, secondhand embarrassment in its most adorable form. “God, I’d rather die than sit through that conversation with Ben’s parents.”

Jamie raises his wine to his mouth again, but not quickly enough to hide the sudden flash of a grin. “I’m sorry to hear that, Travis, because you might be sitting through it sooner than you’d think. From what she said to me on Sunday, Ben’s mother seems to suspect that you’re the rebellious sex fiend who coaxed him out of an abstinence pledge whilst y’all were dating. You bad influence, you.”

Travis gapes at him for a moment, then flings an arm out towards me. “Are you kidding me? I mean, I know I was Ben’s first boyfriend, but he was hanging out with Garen before that, and anyone with the slightest hint of common sense should be able to see that Garen is a worse influence than I am.”

“Um, rude,” I huff. “Like, sure, I’m a drug addict and a go-go dancer now, but I wasn’t then. Besides, if anyone out of the three of us is going to get shit on for convincing Ben to break his abstinence vow, it might as well be Jamie. He’s a blood relative of the dude who actually took Ben’s virginity.”

The corners of Jamie’s mouth melt out of a smile and right into the deepest, most sullen frown possible. “Thank you for reminding me of that, Garen. When that image suddenly springs into my mind later tonight while I’m actually in bed with Ben, I’ll be sure to come right over to the guest room and smother you with a pillow as a sign of my gratitude.”

Travis goes to respond, but then does a double-take at something over my shoulder and says, “Jesus Christ. Is that what you guys were doing in there?”

“What? Oh, the—no, that happened yesterday,” Ben says, and I turn. Stohler and he have returned to the living room, and Zooey has disappeared from his shoulders, giving him a chance to remove his hoodie and toy awkwardly with… well, what’s left of his hair. The sides and back are cropped a hell of a lot shorter than they used to be, damn near shaved, but the top is still long, shoved up and back into a tousled quiff. Stohler has managed to even out his skin tone with the makeup, muting the dark purple of his bruises and drawing attention away from what remains by lining his eyes with thick, smoky smudges of black.

“You lovely little rockabilly trashmonster,” Jamie announces, and… okay, I guess he’s not too far off. If I was still Ben’s boyfriend, I’d be a little more interested in the fact that Ben’s black skinnies are so tight they look painted on, and his long-sleeved shirt is so thin that I can see the shadows of his rib tattoos through the black fabric, but, I mean, if Jamie wants to get all hard over a haircut instead, that’s his business. He’s got one hand raised, like all he wants in the world is for Ben to come closer so he can bury his fingers in that dark hipster-y mess. “When did this happen?”

“Stohler cut it last night, when she was at my apartment,” Ben says, ducking his head. “She said I needed to be better-looking, if I was going to date someone who looks like you.”

“You are absolutely full of it,” Stohler huffs, returning to the dining table to drown herself in her wineglass again. “Baker’s the one who said that, not me.”

“Alex said what?” Travis says sharply.

Ben shakes his head—already trying to downplay Stohler’s words so he can cover Alex’s sorry ass, as usual—but Stohler continues over him, “I was cutting Ben’s hair in their bathroom, and Alex had some friends over. He kept making these snide-ass comments to them about how Ben must have realized that he needed to up his game in order to keep James from cheating on him, too, because apparently, Alex is still rejecting the reality where he refused to go out with James and insisted that they be totally non-monogamous fuck buddies. And do you even realize how loudly he had to be talking in order for his voice to carry from the living room to the bathroom? Whatever. It’s utter bullshit. And of course this one—” Stohler gestures towards Ben with her wineglass, “—didn’t say a single fucking word to defend himself. Didn’t even bother to point out that Alex has been sweating him since they went through puberty.”

“Cue the makeover montage, complete with a humiliating motivational speech about how I’m not the same pathetic loser I was in high school, so I should probably stop looking like it,” Ben says dryly.

“It was all a ruse,” Stohler says loftily. “As much as I adored the whole ‘emo lesbian’ look you’ve probably been rocking since you were fourteen years old, you needed to try something new.”

“I liked the old hair,” Travis says, frowning. “I mean, this is nice, too, but he had the—” a vague sideways sort of gesture in front of his forehead, which I’m guessing is meant to signify bangs, “—the whole time we were dating, and I always thought it was really cute.”

“Yes, well, you wore cargo shorts on Wednesday, so you don’t exactly get an opinion on personal style, do you?” Jamie says sharply. I can’t tell if the sudden attitude is because it annoys him to be reminded that Travis and Ben were a couple last year, or because Jamie just really, really hates cargo shorts. Either way, it’s clearly a sore spot of conversation with both of them, ‘cause Jamie looks like he needs an Ativan, and Travis looks like it’s taking every shred of his concentration to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

Jamie’s hand is still extended, has been for several minutes now. Always the martyr, Ben heaves a sigh and shuffles close enough that Jamie can tangle his fingers in his hair. With the two of them, it’s sort of a given that hair-touching is going to quickly give way to hair-pulling, which’ll probably end in dry-humping, so I turn to Stohler instead and say, “You’re pretty good at this whole hair-cutting thing. I thought it was just a one-off, when you buzzed mine off.”

She shrugs. “Picked it up a few years ago, actually. I used to cut people’s hair in the dorms for some extra cash when I was in college. But since you bring up the buzzcut, I’ve got to say, we should make a point of trimming it sometime soon. You don’t have to buzz it again, but the ends are getting kind of ragged.”

I reach up to scratch at the hair that’s starting to grow out near my collar. “I know. I’m looking pretty nasty tonight, to be honest. I’ll be surprised if I get any tips at all.”

“You don’t look bad. You never look bad,” Travis says, shuffling a few steps closer to me.

We’re both standing behind the breakfast bar, so I don’t think any of our friends can actually see when he reaches over and covers my hand with his. Heat blooms on my skin at that point of contact, then spreads out through the rest of me; it reaches my face and my dick at pretty much the same time. I duck my head, just in case I’m actually blushing, and turn my hand over to squeeze his. “You’re biased, dude.”

“No, I’m not. You’re just stupidly attractive,” he says. Even if I’m not blushing, he’s managing it enough for both of us. Unable to stop myself, I lean over and press a soft kiss to his cheek.

“Wow, this is all so cute,” Stohler says flatly. I look over at her, and she sticks her tongue out at me, then tries to repeat the face at Ben and Jamie, but neither of them are paying her the slightest bit of attention. The hair-pulling is still kind of happening.

Generous, tactful man that I am, I release Travis and say directly to Stohler, “Well, I think you did a great job on Ben’s haircut. And the makeup. He’s not me, he could never pull off the whole Fight Club aesthetic. You cleaned that right up.”

“I did, didn’t I? But I think his necklace kind of ruins the overall look,” Stohler says, shrugging. “Not the cross as a concept. Religious iconography has been a staple of the club scene since before any of us were even born. But the red and gold—”

“—cuts him off at the neck. And not in a glamorous, Marie Antoinette sort of way,” Jamie says.

Ben’s eyes are barely open (and will probably stay that way until Jamie gets around to letting go of his hair) but he manages a shrug. “Whatever. It’ll have to do for now. Haven’t had a chance to get a new chain for it yet.”

“You don’t have to. I already got you one,” Jamie says.

Ben’s eyes flutter all the way open. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said, idiot. Hang on a moment, it’s just in my room.”

Jamie disappears down the hall to his bedroom. Ben frowns after him, and my stomach clenches. Anybody who has spent more than five minutes listening to the Ben McCutcheon dating soundtrack knows that every track has got some twenty-word, Fall Out Boy type of title, like “I Sometimes Hate Myself So Much That I’ll Be Annoyed at You for Liking Me,” or “Every Dick I’ve Ever Sucked Has Been Attached to a Millionaire, But I’ll Kick You in the Testicles if You Try to Buy Me Dinner (Do I Look Like a Whore to You?)”. It’s fucking exhausting, and I barely even dated the dude. And I sure as hell wasn’t dating him while nursing the three-luxury-department-stores-a-week shopping addiction that Jamie’s got.

Thankfully, Jamie’s at least smart enough to realize that coming back in here with an actual jewelry box will get him dumped. He returns instead with just his wineglass and a fist closed around something small. There’s a glint of silver as he gives it a light, underhanded toss; Ben barely catches it. Jamie flashes that supermodel quality smile of his. “Told you I’d take care of it, didn’t I?”

“No,” Ben says slowly. He’s looking down at the tangle of silver in his palm, but he makes no move to straighten it out and put it on. “You said we would get the original chain fixed.”

Jamie’s smile remains intact, but his brow twitches a little, like he’s confused. “It doesn’t make much of a difference, does it? One of my good friends from back home has a birthday coming up, and since I was in the jewelry department at Saks getting her gift anyway, I thought I’d see if they had any suitable replacement chains. All the gold ones seemed a bit too heavy to look right with the crucifix you already own, and getting a broken chain fixed seems to be more trouble than it’s worth. But they happened to have that one, so I got it for you.”

Ben says nothing, pokes at the necklace with the tip of one finger. I can feel that Travis is standing rigidly next to me, and over at the table, Stohler has lowered her wineglass. Jamie’s smile has settled into something politely forced. “I thought you would like it.”

“I do like it,” Ben says. His voice is too even, and it comes out sounding like a lie. “It’s nice.”

And it is nice, now that the necklace has been neatened out enough that I can get a good look at it. The chain and the outline of the cross are made of silver, and the cross itself is jet black, maybe made of onyx. Ben’s still poking at it. He turns it over. The back of the cross is all silver, with a deep chevron pattern carved into it. It’s pretty and sharp at the same time, not unlike Ben himself.

But right now, Ben’s posture is stilted, and he finally looks back up at Jamie as he says, “But I wish you hadn’t gotten it for me.”

“Why the hell not?” Jamie asks. His tone makes me flinch, but at least he has dropped the awful fake smile.

Ben hitches his chin up, maybe a little defiantly, but he doesn’t answer. It’s taking every ounce of my self control not to blurt out because Ben’s super fucking poor and can’t afford to buy you shit like this in return. Stohler looks like she’s struggling with the same thing and taking large gulps of wine to keep herself in check. At my side, Travis still hasn’t moved.

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Jamie says flatly.

“I’m pretty sure that’s part of the problem,” Travis says.

Jamie shoots him an annoyed glance, then turns his focus back to Ben. “Listen. If this is something that you are actually upset with me for, I would greatly appreciate it if we could go to another room to discuss it without an audience. Because while I do not even remotely understand what the issue is here, I am very much getting the impression that everyone else does, and frankly, that makes me uncomfortable.”

Wordlessly, Ben takes Jamie by the wrist and leads him down the hall. The bedroom door clicks shut behind them, and the rest of us can’t make out their hushed tones, but somehow, that doesn’t make it less awkward.

“If they break up, is the sleepover canceled?” Stohler asks. “Because if I have to catch the last train back to New Haven, I’m going to need to leave the club by, like, at least one thirty.”

“They’re not going to break up,” Travis says, at the same moment that I say, maybe more strongly than is reasonable, “They’re not allowed to break up.” Travis raises his eyebrows at me. I frown right back and say, “I’m soul-bound to take Jamie’s side any time he breaks up with anyone, but Ben’s one of my best friends. The idea of choosing which one to stay friends with sucked badly enough before they went out. If they break up, it’ll be unbearable.”

“So, what, your friends have to stay together forever because you’re needy?” Stohler scoffs.

“Yeah, and right now, I need you to not call me ‘needy.’ I’m not needy. I’m just—” I break off and scowl down at Zooey, who is batting at my bootlaces. I’m not needy. Really, I’m not.

I just like to get my way.

The bedroom door opens, and Jamie strides out, presenting us all with a pageant queen kind of smile. “Right then. That’s settled. Shall we head to the restaurant?”

Ben shuffles out of the bedroom, his face a mask of neutrality. He’s wearing the cross necklace, and the silver chain stands out brilliantly against a bite mark I am almost positive wasn’t on his neck before he went into that bedroom. I can’t even begin to guess who won the argument.

An hour later, once we’ve finished dinner, I set out for the club by myself, my gym bag slung over my shoulder. The bag has become my brand new Sex Worker Emergency Kit, fully stocked with hair products, skintight shorts, my cashbox, a combination lock, bottled water, and—at Stohler’s urging, and for reasons I don’t want to even begin to contemplate—baby wipes. It’s the shadiest goody bag ever, and I’m kind of relieved when I get up to the dancers’ locker room and can dump it in a locker.

There are a few other dancers getting ready upstairs, but from the first minute I lock eyes with any of them, it is clear that I’m not actually invited to join their conversation. Most of them seem like they’re veteran dancers, and I don’t recognize anyone from last week’s audition. The other dancers aren’t the only thing that’s different from last week; I started off my audition in tight, ripped jeans, but tonight, all the other guys are only wearing shoes and their little shorts. Not wanting to invite any shitty comments, I carefully fold up my jeans, don a pair of blood-red booty shorts, double-knot the laces on my boots, and head downstairs.

I’ve barely cleared the door when I hear someone say, “Hey. Hey, you’re one of the new hires, aren’t you?” I turn and find myself facing Marissa, the cute dancer who talked us all through the rules of the club last weekend. I nod. She holds out her hand and introduces herself.

“Yeah, I remember. Hi. I’m Garen,” I say, then, “Wait, no, I’m not.” She raises her eyebrows. “They renamed me at my audition. So, I guess I’m Cash.” Mostly to cover up the awkwardness of that slip, I gesture to the rest of the club. “Looks like everything’s ready to get started. Is, uh, is it all the same as it was last week?”

“Sorta,” Marissa says, snapping her gum. “Instead of getting a ten-minute break every hour, you get a fifteen every two. It’s up to you whether you use it to relax, hustle, or mix the two. Usually, I pop up to the locker room for a couple of minutes first—fix my makeup, pee, check Facebook—and then I go downstairs and see if I can find somebody who wants to come to the VIP lounge for a private dance.” I don’t know what my face does in response to that, but it must show my confusion, because Marissa says, “Did nobody tell you about the private dances?”

“Private dances,” I echo. “Like, lap dances? Because I’m not—they told me I was going to be a cage dancer.”

“You aaaaaaare,” Marissa sighs. “You’re in the cage all night, and if that’s where you want to stay, that’s your choice. But most of us like to do private dances in the VIP, ‘cause that’s the easiest way to score some real cash. You charge twenty bucks a pop, and that goes a long way towards payout at the end of the night.”

I press my lips together in a thin, flat line. Stohler had asked me a couple days ago if I knew what the club expected as a payout at the end of every shift, and I’d told her there wasn’t one. There wasn’t, not when I did my audition. She had tried to explain something about the differences between being an employee and an independent contractor, but I’d been out in the backyard, playing with Omelette, so I’d barely been paying attention to the phone call at the time. Kind of regretting that now.

“Right,” I say. “And the payout—is that like, a flat rate? Or—”

“Yeah, it’s sixty for the whole night. That’s why most people do the private dances, too. ‘Cause if you do just one during each break, that covers the house fees, and you can keep every dollar you make in tips.” Marissa sticks two fingers in her mouth and pinches her wad of gum, stretches it out a few inches, then sucks it back into her mouth. “You look freaked.”

Of course I look freaked. The whole point of getting a job here was to make a lot of quick, easy cash just for being young and having a good body. Now this girl is telling me that I could dance my ass off in a cage for six hours, give out a couple of lap dances to random creeps, and still make less than Travis gets for a minimum-wage Starbucks gig. But now is the time to put my game face on, not the time to complain to a stranger. I fix my mouth into what I hope is a casual smile and say, “Nah, not at all. Just wanna make sure I understand everything before the doors open.”

“Riiiiiiight,” she says, and shows me to my cage.

It’s stationed in a corner, kind of wedged between the end of the bar and a wall of TV screens playing Top 40 music videos. If pressed, I’d be more likely to call it a tower than a cage. The base is an enormous, upright cylinder—five feet tall and barely three feet across, with a drink ledge attached around the outside, presumably so that the club clientele can have someplace to rest their refreshments while they stare up at the underside of my bulge. Marissa shows me the footholds built into the back so that I can climb up and slip between the bars.

The moment I’ve been left alone in the cage, I curl my hands around the bars and… test them. Grip them hard, give them a little shake, just to see if there’s any give to them. They’re perfectly secure, and somehow, that only makes me feel more nervous.

When the club doors open at ten o’clock, I start dancing, and right off the bat, it’s awkward as hell. Some of that has to do with the fact that I’m not wearing pants, and some of it comes from the sheer impossibility of trying to be the right kind of sexy for an entire room full of people at once. Everyone who comes near the bar pauses to stare idly up at me while they wait for their drinks. When I smile at them, some offer me a brief, awkward chuckle in return, but most turn right back to their friends. I’m guessing that nobody’s drunk enough to throw away their cash on the go-go dancers yet. I’m hoping that nobody’s drunk enough to throw away their cash on the go-go dancers yet, ‘cause if the other dancers are pulling in more money than I am, or if things don’t pick up as the night wears on, I’m fucked.

It takes approximately six and a half years for me to catch sight of my friends. I don’t know what the fuck took them so long to get here. It was nine thirty when I left them at the restaurant, but by the time I catch sight of Jamie’s handsome face towering a head above everybody else, it’s almost eleven o’clock, the club is mostly full, and my confidence is waning. My tips amount to a fistful of one dollar bills that have been passed awkwardly through the bars of my cage, and I’m trying to swallow my panic. How the hell am I supposed to make any money when I’ve got to make about fifty more bucks just to break even? Nobody’s even coming over to this corner of the club. Paul, the dancer who helped me out before, was telling the truth last week: the cages are too inconvenient for anyone to bother tipping the dancers in them.

I had these delusions of success. I figured I’d show up, take my clothes off, and dudes would be falling over themselves to load me up with cash. Instead, I’m stuck faking a smile when Jamie cuts a path through the crowds to lead Ben, Stohler, and Travis over to me. “Hey, guys!” I say, hoping my cheerfulness sounds more genuine than it feels. “Check out my cool cage. It’s like being in prison, but with slightly less guy-on-guy sexual contact.”

“It’s great practice for the day that all of your felonies inevitably catch up to you,” Ben offers.

I beam at him and say, “I’m smiling at you because I’m at work, but in my head, I’m beating you up.”

“That’s the spirit,” Stohler says. She flashes me a thumbs-up and takes a sip from a plastic cup. Guess they went to the bar before they came over to see me.

“Travis assures me that it would be condescending to tip you, but Stohler tells me it’s perfectly acceptable,” Jamie announces, winding one skinny arm between the bars of my cage to offer up a few bills. “Besides, I have change from my drink, and you know how I feel about singles.”

Jamie is and has always been convinced that one dollar bills are dirtier than other money because more people have probably handled them. Usually, he tries to avoid carrying anything smaller than a twenty. I’m guessing that he’s giving me a deeply significantly look right now because he’s not stupid enough to discuss this further in front of the boyfriend who has already snarled at him about money once tonight. I kind of want to snarl at him, too; it feels like cheating to get some of my money from my friends. With less than twenty bucks on me and a sixty-dollar payout coming up, though, I can’t afford to be a brat.

Since I’m dancing around in my underwear for cash anyway, I might as well put on a show. I do the most dramatic, lascivious hip swivel that my body is capable of and hitch my side towards him so that Jamie can fold the dollars into my waistband. He is absolutely delighted by the experience, and when he glances down at his lover, Ben tries to roll his eyes to cover up how clearly amused he is. He doesn’t do a great job of it. I turn my grin on Travis, but the moment I meet his eyes, I know that something is off about him. His own smile is fixed awkwardly in place, like he’d give anything to let it melt right into a scowl, but he thinks he should know better.

“What’s up?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he says immediately, which is normally Travis-speak for I’m having a mental breakdown. I reach through the bars to take his hand, and he gives it a quick squeeze, but then withdraws, smiles even more brightly, and says, “I’m going to run to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, Trav,” I try to say, but he slithers between two people at the edge of the crowd and disappears into the glow of the colored lights. I blink after him, surprised and… not hurt. I don’t want to say that I’m hurt. But it’s something pretty close to that.

Stohler reaches into my cage to touch one of my calves and says easily, “You’re going to have a great night. You look hot enough to have any man in here, and the fact that you don’t want any of them will just make you even hotter to them. Now take their fucking money.”

She takes Ben’s wrist in one hand and Jamie’s hand in the other and tows them away from me. Jamie twists back around to mouth something at me before the crowd swallows him up. I can’t read his lips, but I pretend he’s telling me he loves me. It’s the only thing that makes me feel better about the fact that Travis never comes back to see me.

By the time my first scheduled break rolls around at midnight, I’ve only earned a handful of other bills, most of which have been singles offered up as change from the bar. I climb down from the cage and stand behind the platform to count them—twenty-three dollars. My heart thumps harder against the inside of my ribcage. I’ve got four hours left, and I need to earn thirty-seven dollars to keep myself out of the red, or ninety if I want to pay off my house fees and still earn enough to have managed minimum wage each hour of my shift. My only real option is to head out into the crowd and try to find someone I can hustle a private dance or two out of.

One of the strangest things about getting sober is that I tend to recognize people more easily now. I probably should have expected that; it’s got to be a lot easier to remember faces when you’re not trying to recall blurry double-visions of them from your last bender. There’s a group of guys at one of the tables near the video screens, and I’m sure I’ve met them before. It takes a minute—I’m sober now, but I was drunk for about three months straight last year, so I’m still not great at this—but eventually, it hits me that this is the same group of guys who Stohler half-tricked into tipping me so well last week. They had mentioned being regulars, had told me that they take over the VIP lounge on Friday nights, but right now, the only thing I care about is the fact that I distinctly remember walking away from them with almost eighty extra bucks.

I make a bee-line for their table, slips right between the elbows of two of the men, and lean down to grant them my most welcoming grin. “Hey, gentlemen. You all having a good night so far?”

There’s a chorus of affirmation, whether genuine or not. One of the men in the group looks around at me and furrows his brow. “You,” he says. “You’re one of the new boys, aren’t you? I feel like I recognize you, but I also feel like you’re not normally here.”

“Maybe he’s done some modeling?” one of the others suggests. There’s a clearly audible slant to his voice, and I don’t have to be a genius to figure out that ‘modeling’ is a euphemism for ‘porn.’ The dig is just enough to switch Garen off and Cash on.

I let my mouth twist into the sly sort of smile that I know will carve dimples into my cheeks and say in a light, lilting voice, “I haven’t, but I’m flattered you think I could.” I turn to the first man and let that smile explode into full and blinding wattage. “And you’re right, I’m new. This is my first real night here, but you might remember me from my audition last week. My name’s Cash.”

“Right!” the man says, snapping his fingers a couple of times and then clapping his hand down on my forearm, giving it a tight squeeze like we’re just the best of friends. “You’re the lovely little thing who set up our bottle service for us. Cash, Cash, I remember you, Cash. I’m Joey, I’m sure you remember me. And I’m so glad you got the job!” He pauses, knocks back the rest of his drink, then shifts his hand further up to curl around my elbow. “Of course, I knew you would. We told Jonathan and Mikael how much we adored you, and they’re always interested in what we have to say. We’re—”

“Regulars. I remember,” I say. “I’d say you all must know this club even better than I do. There are a few things I’m still learning about the way this place works, me being new here, and all that.”

Joey raises his eyebrows. “I’m sure I could answer nearly any question you’ve got. I would love to help you out.”

I glance down at the toes of my boots, then up through my lashes. It feels embarrassingly dumb, but I’m hoping it looks coquettish or something. “Earlier, I could have sworn I heard some of the other dancers talking about the VIP lounge. They said that sometimes people like to pay for private dances in there. And I know that you and your boys spend plenty of time in the lounge, so if anyone would know the truth about that, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Joey says. He drags the second word out into a few playful, sing-song syllables. “The truth is, some of the naughty boys and girls here do like to tip a little extra for a private dance in VIP.”

“And the naughtiest boys and girls will pay for more than that,” one of the other men in the group says. He stares at me without blinking, his chin tipped slightly downward so that his gaze feels that much more calculated. I wish he would look anywhere else.

I turn my attention back to Joey and lean into the grip he has on my elbow. “Well. If you’re in the mood to be a little bit naughty yourself, I’m on break right now. Maybe we could head back into the lounge, and you could show me how this private dance thing goes.”

One of the other men lets out a shrill giggle. The one whose stare makes bile rise in my throat looks away, scowling at the dance floor like it has personally offended him. Joey smirks, brimming with the confidence of a man who’s much more attractive than him. “That sounds like such fun. Why don’t you lead the way?”

Lead the way so he can stare at my ass while I walk. Great. I grit my teeth on a smile and guide him through the crowd, over to the VIP lounge. The security guard at the door gives me a polite nod, then makes a small gesture towards one of the couches populating the far side of the room. It feels like it might be an instruction, which is kind of awkward; I hadn’t really figured that positions would be assigned in here. I lead Joey over to that couch, and he deposits himself primly on the seat and spreads his arms across the back as if it’s a throne. He smiles expectantly up at me, and I… I dunno, I’m sort of fucked. I’ve given exactly one lapdance before. It was sometime during my junior year, and Jamie and I had commandeered the hammock in the backyard at one of the Ward house parties, and all I really did was straddle his hips and grind against him, vaguely on beat with the music. He kept telling me how sexy it was, but we were both completely shitfaced, and I couldn’t stop laughing, and we ended up flipping the hammock. I doubt that I can charge for the same experience.

Some of the other dancers who are scattered throughout the lounge seem to actually know what they’re doing. There’s a girl in the far corner who is twisting and winding herself around the butch chick on the couch, without settling too firmly into her lap. It’s like she has mastered the art of teasing, keeping her girl focused without giving her enough to really satisfy. When the dancer steps away, the butch chick immediately gives over another bill, and it starts over again. Not everybody is so adept. A couple of people aren’t doing much more than swaying around, shoving their tits, crotches, or asses in the face of whoever’s paying them.

On the next couch over, one of the other dancers is straddling a man who looks like he might be in his thirties. Calling him a “dancer” is more generous than accurate, because there isn’t any dancing involved at all. There’s sitting, and there’s thrusting, and there’s dry-humping, and there is absolutely no dancing whatsoever.

“Come on, baby,” Joey coos to me. “Show me what you’ve got.”

In the end, my method is a half-assed combination of dancing in front of him and grinding the air over his lap when he pulls me in closer. If Stohler happens to come in here and see this, I think she’ll weep with shame. There isn’t anything graceful or cool about the way I’m moving, though I’m guessing it must be sexier than it feels. At one point, I make the mistake of settling too heavily onto Joey’s lap, only to jolt back off when I feel his hard-on pressing against me through his jeans. The whole time I’m dancing, I keep sneaking looks over at the girl who can really move. There aren’t any speakers in here, so we’re only dancing to the dull thump of music coming through the wall. Watching the girl dance is the only way I can judge the amount of time that’s gone by. When she steps back from her chick again, I scramble off Joey’s lap.

“Thanks for the ride, man. It was a blast,” I say. “My best friend’s got a show pony who should take lessons from you.”

“God, you’re just the cutest thing, aren’t you?” Joey chuckles. He shifts half his ass off the couch so he can get his wallet out of his back pocket, then passes me a crisp twenty-dollar bill and a couple of ones. He winks up at me. “You come back and find me on your next break, alright?”

“Of course,” I say, even as I’m thinking, fuck no, fuck no, fuck no. I manage a saunter out of the room, a sprint up the stairs, and a stumble into the employees-only area of the club. Part of me is convinced that, if I don’t hide my twenty away in my cashbox, I’ll lose it and have to start all over.

The terrible dancer I saw dry-humping a dude in VIP is the only other person in the locker room. He’s naked and unconcerned, his old shorts crumpled up on the bench and a fresh pair folded neatly next to them. He’s swabbing at his thighs and ass with something that looks like a baby wipe. Our eyes meet for a brief second. He tosses the baby wipe into the trash can and reaches for his clean shorts.

“Dude,” I say. “Did that guy in the VIP fuckin’ nut on you?”

The other dancer’s lip curls back in a sneer. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

So what? I want to say. I press my lips together and nod. The other dancer rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I figured as much. Look, you’ll figure it out eventually. You find one or two guys a night to do that, and you can make some real money. That guy downstairs paid me seventy bucks for two songs. I can put up with a little spooge for that.”

“Really?” I say, unable to stop myself. Two songs, and the every dime of the house fees would be covered. “Is that the kind of thing that—I mean, I heard some of the people on staff here will do more than private dances, if the money’s right. Is that what everyone’s talking about?”

The other dancer hitches a shoulder. “Sure. That, and maybe some other shit. I’ll grind on a guy ’til he finishes for sixty and up. There’s this other customer who comes in once or twice a month, and he likes for me to pull my shorts down so that he can rub his dick right, you know, between the cheeks. I don’t let him put it in, though, not if he’s only gonna pay me eighty bucks for that.”

“Right,” I mutter. The idea of letting a random club patron rub his dick all over my bare ass is almost vomit-worthy.

“And then there’s the easy stuff. Blowjobs and whatever. Plenty of people do that, and they’ve all got their own prices,” the guy continues. He stops in the middle of adjusting his junk in his shorts, turns to look at me, and says, “Of course, I don’t do that. Just the grinding. I don’t really have sex with the clientele, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Of course not,” I say quickly. “It’s just, they said during my audition last week that we weren’t allowed to do that kind of thing.”

The other dancer snorts. “Yeah, well, it’d be a little difficult for Jonathan and Mikael to bitch at us for bending over for the club patrons, considering the shit they get up to with most of the staff.” He slams his locker shut, replaces the combination lock, and heads for the stairs, patting me on the shoulder and smirking at me as he goes. “Just you wait and see what you’ve gotta do for them in order to get out of working on a night when they’ve got you scheduled.”

Alone again in the locker room, I find myself anchored in place. My boots feel so heavy on my feet that I don’t think I’d be able to move even if the building started burning down around me. I try to take a few deep, calming breaths, but my lungs will only allow short, harsh shudders.

I threw myself into this job, and I fucking shouldn’t have. Everyone was right to be worried about me, because god, I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to be touched by strangers, I’m not ready, I’m not ready.

“Hey, Cash,” Marissa says, breezing right by me into the locker room, unclasping her bra as she goes. “You’d better head out. Your break’s gotta be almost up, right?”

I clear my throat, suck in another shallow breath, and nod.

Once I’m back in my cage, I stay there for the rest of the night. I don’t take my second break, or my third. Stohler, Jamie, Ben, and Travis come by a couple of times throughout the night to try and coax me down for a rest or to sit down with a bottle of water, but I shake them off. I don’t want to give anyone else a private dance, but if I’m going to turn down easy money like that, I don’t have any choice. I’ve got to dance for hours, I’ve got to shake every part of my body that can be shaken, I’ve got to wink and smile at every single body that passes my cage. The tips come in slowly, but they do come. That’s the part I keep clinging to.

My friends come by for the last time at around half past three. Travis beckons me down low, and I drop to my knee so that I can hear him say over the music, “We were all thinking we might head out. Stohler’s exhausted, but there’s a diner down the block. Do you want us to go there, grab a cup of coffee? We can wait for you and all take a cab back to James’s apartment together.”

I glance over his head at the others. Ben is tucked comfortably under Jamie’s arm, looking a little tired, but not too bad. The shadows under Jamie’s eyes are even more prominent under the glow of the flashing lights. Stohler barely manages to stifle a yawn. I look back to Travis. “Don’t worry about it. You can all head out. I’ll get a cab back as soon as I get out at four.”

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Positive.” I thread my whole arm through the bars and drag him towards me. We both have to press our faces to the metal, prison-style, but we manage a brief kiss. “I’ll see you in a bit. I love you.”

“You, too. Be safe, okay?” he says.

I knock my knuckles against the bars. “These keep people out just as much as they keep me in.”

With my lifelines gone, the last half hour of my shift drags by. I hadn’t realized how much I was relying on the comfort of their presence until it has disappeared. The second the overhead lights come on, I practically fling myself down from the cage and book it back up to the locker room. Travis will probably want me to shower before I get in bed with him back at the apartment, and honestly, I just want to hurry up and get there. Instead of changing into fresh clothes, I zip myself back into my jeans and jacket and settle onto the floor in front of my locker to count my tips.

There is only one twenty-dollar bill in my stack, earned with the only private dance I could manage. I smooth it out and set it down in the lid of my cashbox, then dig through for some tens, but there aren’t any. I dig out the fives—three. I feel like I’m going to puke. Six hours on my feet, pretending to smile at strangers, fake-flirting with dudes I’d never normally give a second glance, four excruciating minutes grinding up on that guy in the lounge… and this is all I have to show for it? There are a few fistfuls of crumpled ones in the box, too. Feeling a little desperate now, I flatten them all out, add them to the stack, and count everything together.

Seventy-six dollars.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

I count it again, just to be sure, but I was right the first time. Sixteen, after the sixty dollar payout. Two dollars and some-odd cents an hour, really. I press the heels of my hands against my eye sockets until I see bright flashes of white against the inside of my closed lids. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been awake for going on twenty-four hours now, or if it’s because I’ve had a long, shitty week, or if I’m honestly just this much of a pussy, but I can feel the hot pinch of tears starting to come.

“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Sixteen dollars profit. It’s nauseating. It’s humiliating. It’s so, so awful. I wanted this job because it was supposed to be the only thing I’d be successful at, and it turns out that I fucking suck at this, too.

A locker slams in the next row over. I can hear a couple of the other dancers laughing together, and it’s enough to remind me that I’m not really in a position to throw a tantrum right now. I shuffle my tips back into one stack and shove them into my cashbox.

The idea of turning over that lone twenty, three fives, and twenty-five painstakingly counted ones makes me want to shoot myself. There’s no fucking way I’m going to let anyone see that I have to hand over small bills because I couldn’t manage to make any real money. A kid they call Cash can’t embarrass himself at the fucking cashout. Glancing around to make sure that no one is paying me any real attention, I sift through my crumpled ones to find my wallet in the bottom of my cashbox and slip out all of the money inside it. Thank god I hit the bank after school yesterday—there are a few twenties there. Enough that I can at least hand over three crisp bills and be done with it. It’s not nearly as badass as being able to pay with a fifty and a ten would be, or paying with a hundred and having to ask for change, but it’s still respectable. At least I don’t have to let anybody know that I was too freaked out to give three dances in VIP, like Marissa said I should.

I’m the first person in line to pay the house fees. It’s less of a polite transaction, and more just me shoving the money at the collection chick and hauling ass out of the club. All I want to do is get back to someplace that feels like home and curl up with anyone who’ll let me—I don’t care if that means falling asleep wrapped around Travis, or wedging myself right in between Jamie and Ben in Jamie’s room. Shit, at this point, I’d be Stohler’s little spoon, if she was willing. I just need someone to make me feel like I’m not a piece of garbage.

When I get back to the apartment, Stohler is dead asleep and sprawled out on the couch, which has been unfolded into a comfortable pull-out bed. Jamie is standing near it, flicking absently through channels on the television, and Ben is tucked into one of the other chairs, with Zooey in his lap. I steal the kitten away from him and tickle her belly so she’ll kick at me with her tiny paws. “Where’s Travis?”

“He said he was going to take a shower and head to bed,” Ben says. He glances towards the hall, then beckons me closer. When I’m near enough that Jamie probably can’t hear him over the sound of the TV and Stohler’s deep breathing, he adds in a murmur, “I think something might be bothering him.”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure I figured that out at the club, thanks.

“What happened?” I ask. I don’t know why I look to the hall, like I can see through the walls to check on Travis. It’s not like it makes me feel better.

Ben shakes his head. “Nothing, that I’m aware of. He’s just been… fading over the course of the night, pretty much since we left the restaurant. I asked if he was okay, and he said sure, but the look on his face… can you talk to him when he gets out, before you go to sleep?”

I nod, and Ben gives me a grateful smile before rising to his feet and hooking two fingers over the top of Jamie’s belt. “Bed?” he offers.

“Finally,” Jamie says, flashing a sharp, white smile. He turns off the TV, drops the remote control next to Stohler, and leans over to press a quick kiss to my cheek. “Congratulations on your first night in the workforce, darling.”

“I’m taking the train back to New Haven with Stohler later this morning so I can meet Doc for a therapy session. If you really want to congratulate me, you’ll keep the screams of ecstasy to a minimum and let me get some sleep.”

“I’ll find something to gag him with,” Jamie offers, and Ben lets out a startled bark of laughter.

“The fuck you will! I’m not the one who makes all the noise.” As if to prove his point, he digs his fingers into Jamie’s ribs and earns a loud sound of protest.

Down the hall, the bathroom door opens. I’m expecting Travis to join us in the living room; it’s not like we’re being quiet enough for him to think we’ve all gone to bed. Instead, I hear the guest room door open and close. Even as he’s being tugged down the hall towards the master bedroom, Ben twists to shoot me a pointed, somewhat pleading glance over his shoulder. It’s the last thing I see from him before Jamie hauls him into the bedroom, cheerfully declares, “Goodnight, Garen, sweetheart,” and snaps the door shut behind them.

A shower affords me the chance both to scrub away the sweat and grime of the night, and to give some thought to what I’m going to say to Travis. I’m bone-tired, and all I want to do is sleep, but if he’s fucked up about something right now, I need to fix it. That’s sort of the whole point of me.

When I let myself into the guest room, Travis is curled up in bed. He almost looks like he’s already sleeping, except for the fact that his eyes are half-open. I close the door, shut off the light, and join him under the covers. There’s still next to no reaction. I brush his hair off his forehead, and he leans into the touch, but that’s all.

“I guess I should start with the most obvious question,” I say quietly. “Does this have anything to do with my job?”

His eyes flicker a little further open, but he’s unwilling to meet my gaze. Instead, he settles for blinking at my collarbone as he says, “I don’t have a problem with your job at all. If I did, I would’ve brought it up before you actually got the job.”

“Okay. So, what’s wrong?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Is that a no, nothing’s wrong, or a no, you’re not telling me?”

“Both,” he says. He is literally the dumbest liar in the entire world. He huffs out a laugh, like he’s only just realized how stupid that sounds, and it’s cute enough to make me shuffle in close and wrap an arm around him. I don’t think that helps. His voice cracks a little when he says, “I don’t want to tell you what’s wrong. If I do, you’ll be so pissed at me. And when you go to your therapy session later today, you’ll tell Dr. Howard all about it.”

That’s the last thing I expect him to say. I blink. “What the hell does Doc have to do with this?”

Travis closes his eyes. “Nothing. I don’t know. Can we please go to sleep, G? Please? I don’t want to talk about this tonight, I’m too tired.”

He is, is the thing. His eyes are barely open, and his shallow breathing suggests it’s maybe taking too much effort to stay awake right now. The last time I saw him this exhausted was last November, when he went back on his antidepressants and the sudden change in chemicals threw his entire body for a loop.

The realization hits me like a punch to the stomach.

“Travis, baby,” I say slowly. “You, uh… your new shrink, the one Doc referred you to. You said he was going to help you gradually wean yourself off of your medication, but did you maybe… you know. Skip ahead? Did you just stop taking them completely?”

Travis’s spine goes rigid under my hand. He shakes me off and sits up, says, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore tonight.”

“So, that’s a ‘yes’.”

“No, it’s an I don’t want to talk about this anymore tonight. God, Garen. Why do you act like you’re the only one who’s allowed to have shit they don’t want to talk about?” he snaps. “I respect your boundaries, and it would be great if you could maybe try to do the same for me.”

I sit up, too. “That’s a fucking joke, right? Because you absolutely don’t respect my boundaries when I’m doing something that’s stupid as hell. If I decided that I wanted to quit going to therapy, or that I wanted to start drinking again, you’d stop me. You’d stop me because you love me. How can you expect me to just, like, hand-wave away the fact that you did something that we both know is so stupid?”

Travis rolls his eyes. “It’s not the same, and you know it. The plan has always been for me to get off the medication. Excuse me for doing it faster than you and the magnificent Dr. Howard think I should. Excuse me for wanting to skip ahead to the part where I’m back to being someone you can actually enjoy being with, now that we’re involved again.”

It’s the sort of sentence that I have to play over in my head, trying to break it into separate pieces so that I can understand what he’s even talking about. But it doesn’t work. A minute of silence rolls over us, and I’m still absolutely clueless.

“I don’t—Travis. Travis, what the fuck are you talking about?” I say. “You’re already someone I want to be with. That’s the whole goddamn point of—you friggin’ moron, I love you. I don’t—”

“I know that, okay? I know you love me. But you like me better when I’m not so heavily medicated. You like me better when I’m not so out of it, when we can go to bed and not have to worry about whether or not I’ll even be able to get it up. That’s probably—” Travis curls in on himself, drawing his knees up so he can plant his elbows on them and tangle his fingers in his hair. “That’s probably half the reason you took up with Declan in the first place. He might be an asshole, but at least he can—”

“Shut up,” I say fiercely. “Shut up, that is bullshit, Travis. There isn’t a single thing that I would change about you, whether you’re on antidepressants or not. There isn’t a single thing that Declan can do for me that you can’t.” The image of the burning Lexus rises unbidden into my mind, but I shut it out firmly, mercilessly. “I just want you to be okay, Travis. I need for you to be okay. You can’t do shit that we both know is just going to hurt you.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing,” Travis demands.

“What, tell you I wouldn’t have done something fucking crazy because I thought it’d help me be with you? Sorry, dude, but I’m pretty sure we both know I would. That’s half the reason you didn’t want us to get involved in the first—”

“No!” Travis interrupts. “No, I want you to look me in the eyes and swear that you wouldn’t do something crazy if it meant that we could have that again.”

He flings out an arm and points right at the wall separating the guest room from Jamie’s bedroom. For a second, I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about. If it meant we could have… what? A tastefully decorated second bedroom? Weird, black-and-white Modern art in a frame that I’m absolutely positive my best friend spent three hours hanging perfectly straight? And then I hear it. The faint thump-and-creak of a headboard being driven into a wall over and over. The soft rumbling of Jamie’s moans, mixed with a quiet slur of speech that I’m pretty sure is Ben begging. Christ.

I bang the heel of my hand against the wall a few times in the desperate hope that they’ll shut up for five minutes so that I can get Travis out of his own head and fix this. To their credit, they try. Sort of. One of them shushes the other, and somebody laughs, and I get maybe twenty seconds of quiet before Jamie apparently just can’t stop himself from crying out.

“His birthday’s in a month and a half, and I swear to god, he’s getting rocks,” I hiss. I smack the wall again, but they ignore me this time, and I have no choice but to pretend it’s not happening and turn back to Travis.

The good thing? When I look at him now, he doesn’t seem angry anymore.

The bad thing? He seems like he might be trying not to cry instead. I fling an arm around his shoulders and drag him closer so that both of us have our faces buried in the crook between the other’s neck and shoulder.

“Trav. Travis, god. If that was all I wanted, I wouldn’t care who it was with. Sometimes--most of the time, even—sex is just sex, alright? But I want more than that. I love you, Travis, and I want to be with you. You don’t have to do anything different for me to want you. And you sure as shit don’t have to do the kind of idiot things I would do.”

Travis’s quiet breath flutters over my throat. “I just wanted to give you everything.”

“I know. I know,” I murmur.

The thing is, I kind of thought he already had. And I don’t know what it means, that he’s so sure there’s still something missing.

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