He winked at me. I felt slightly dirty. “Or maybe, somehow we’ll all learn a valuable lesson about truth and freedom and love, and this will end in a choreographed musical number where you ride off into the sunset with the man of your dreams.”
I stood up quickly and leaned over the table, grabbing a fistful of his chest hair and yanking him forward until his face was inches from my own. “I’m going to say this once, and once only, so you better be listening. Are you listening to me, Mike?”
He nodded slowly as a little bead of sweat dripped down between his eyes and onto his nose.
“I’m doing this only because Vaguyna loved this place. I’m only doing this because you’re paying me to. I’m only doing this because I will never want the fucking bigots to win. But I am not doing this because of Darren Mayne. There will be no happy ending with him because I don’t want there to be, got it?” I jerked his chest hair a little.
“Clear as crystal, princess.” He winced.
“Good. Now, how long do I have?”
“Uh. End of first quarter 2016. So, March.”
I pulled on his chest hairs a little tighter. “It’s October. And I have a wedding to plan.”
“What? Who?”
“Vince and Paul.”
“Oh, well, isn’t that lovely. Congrats to the lovely couple.”
“Yes, it was. Vince proposed over brunch last Sunday. It was rather sweet.”
“Mazel tov. Tell them to come in this weekend. Their drinks will be on me.”
“That’s nice of you, Mike, thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do. I love love, you know?”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve seen how much you love love in the back room.”
He shrugged. “I have a big heart. And a big dick.”
“Gross.”
He shrugged again.
“Right. Now, where were we?”
“You were threatening me.”
“Right, okay. You distracted me with the whole Paul and Vince thing.”
“Sorry. You want to finish the threat?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Seems kind of pointless now. Too much time has passed since I started and it might not carry the same weight.”
“I’ll still be scared,” he said. “I promise.”
“Okay. Give me a second. I got to get back into it.” I thought about how Mike was essentially blackmailing me (with my enthusiastic consent, of course, because I had big dreams and expensive tastes and next summer would be the qualifying run for Miss Gay America, so little time), and how Darren had treated me like shit. And, of course, the anger at myself for not being able to get over a slight from the Homo Jock King that happened years ago, because really, what did it matter? Why did I even care that much to let it get to me?
Maybe it was because for a brief, shining moment, I thought Darren was going to be different.
And holy shit, was I wrong.
I was pissed off again. I showed many teeth when I smiled at Mike.
His eyes widened in fear.