Chapter 2

Contrary to popular belief I wasn"t the type to bring someone home, motel or hotel, sure. Even my office on occasion, but my sanctuary never. I"d noticed Trinity earlier in the night. She"d been with some pretty boy. He had a reputation for hooking up with several people during a night. When Trinity stepped up to the bar, it wasn"t difficult to see she"d shed at least a few tears.

She was a woman who should never be without a smile. The second she"d told me she wasn"t fucking me for payment of a drink, I"d decided she was coming home with me. When she'd told me she was straight, that disappointed me a bit. Yet that didn"t change the fact I wanted to cook her dinner.

No one should think someone was going to give up their bodily autonomy for the nicety of a dinner offer or a kind word. That was just shitty humanity. The company of a beautiful woman and a thanks was more than enough in my opinion. To be honest, I was probably more than a little out of practice in the way of charm. It had been a few years since I"d tried it out.

My club pretty much had the same employees for the last decade or more and ran itself for the most part. If my dad knew one thing, it was how to make his employees loyal. When mom and dad decided to turn the club over to me, I"d only taken a part-time interest in it. Increasingly, I"d become disillusioned with my corporate lifestyle. When a conservative-run company had bought out the one I worked at, I"d given my resignation.

I was a visibly Queer person who wasn"t going to go back into the closet for anyone, especially when I had a successful backup plan. They"d tried to talk me into staying but when they decided to take Mx off my door plaque because it didn"t fit with the new management's image, I told them to kiss my ass.

The timer beeped on my rice cooker, and I threw the thinly sliced chicken and veggies into my wok. I"d told Trinity to take her time and stir-fry was the quickest and easiest thing I could think of to make at almost midnight.

"I thought you were ordering delivery."

I glanced over my shoulder to find Trinity in the entryway to the kitchen, finger-combing her dark, damp hair. Her face was free of makeup and again I took in how beautiful she was. She was a few inches taller than my five-eight and curvier than my slimmer build. I"d never thought I had a type; I was a lover of women. Thin, fat, short, tall, I just found them all irresistible, but there was something special about Trinity

That was one of the reasons I invited her home with me, I wanted to discover what about her drew me from the second I spotted her walking through my club.

The unconscious grace in the sway of her hips beneath her flowing skirt. A dress that conformed to perfect breasts. Her back straight. Her head held high like the Queen she should be treated as. The moment she"d come to the bar with her brilliant shine dimmed, I"d considered that a crime.

"I don"t remember saying anything about delivery. Food's almost ready and I already set the table. You want wine? Or I have some sodas or iced tea."

"Iced tea would be great, I think I"ve had enough to drink. Glasses?"

I told her where the glasses were and she poured our drinks while I made the plates. "Forks or chopsticks?"

"Either is fine."

As I took two sets of chopsticks and a couple forks from the drawer, I watched her as I carried everything to the table. I set everything down and pulled out her chair. She smiled shyly and whispered thank you. I waited for her to sit and then took my own seat.

"You didn"t have to go to the trouble."

"No trouble at all. My schedule is opposite of everyone else"s, so it"s just better to cook than rely on takeout or whatever is open twenty-four hours. Even when I worked my corporate job, I still cooked for myself. What do you do for work?"

"I"m a server at a bistro on the other side of the city. It"s a really nice place. I worked as a cook at a truck stop before I moved here. What was your corporate job?"

I groaned and she chuckled.

"I was a marketing exec. I had an entire team who worked under me and we did everything from product launches to non-profit fundraising stuff. I started at the company as a graphic designer in a cubicle."

"Why did you leave? Other than owning a club?"

I tapped the table in front of her plate to get her to eat. "A few years before I quit, another company bought into the one I worked for. We were told everything would stay the same and for about a year it did. Until I was told that Mx would need to be removed from my door. That our LGBTQ companies and organizations wouldn"t be displayed in our portfolios. When I refused, they started to initiate policy changes to force our hands and I walked out… quite a few went with me."

"Did you love your job?" she asked, then took a bite of her dinner.

"I did, and as much as they begged me to stay, I couldn"t under the new owners. I"d been out of the closet since I was twelve; hell, I never was in the closet. I got a crush on a girl, I told my parents."

"Were they okay with it?"

"My parents were divorced a few years earlier. I told my gestational mom; she was not happy. My Trans mom—her coming out led to the divorce—was happy for me. I moved in with Mama about a year later, when shit got too heavy with my mother. Mama was always supportive about everything." I glanced at her when she didn"t say anything and I set my chopsticks on the side of my plate. "What"s wrong? I can make you something else."

"No, no, your mom is Trans?" Her voice broke over the question.

"Mama very much is. She"s openly Trans so I"m not telling any secrets." I picked up my glass and took a swallow of my tea. "She works at a LGBTQ community center as a Trans counselor and activist…advocate. She helps people find resources to start their transition or just offer an ear when someone needs to talk."

"How did your mom and dad meet?"

I was concerned about another slight break in her voice. She was too focused on her plate. Her hair fell forward to conceal her face from me. I wasn"t used to resisting my urges and I really wanted to tuck her hair behind her ear, and make her look at me. I wondered if I"d said something wrong.

Instead of asking her, I answered her question. "Mama went on a roadtrip in her converted van. I think I was thirteen, I was away at a camp for Queer youth for a month. She broke down in the middle of nowhere. It was a dead zone, no cell service at all. A few hours had passed and not one vehicle had gone by. She checked her map and saw that there was a town about six miles ahead. She figured if she started walking, she had to get service sooner or later, or she"d reach town."

"How far did she have to walk?" She was finally watching me, clearly interested in my mama and dad"s love story.

I grinned at her. "She got about two miles and then heard motorcycles, not just one or ten, but thirty of them coming up behind her. As a woman that can be terrifying, being a Trans woman, it"s like the start of a horror movie. The lead bike pulled up behind her and she just kept walking… ignoring that anyone had stopped. A deep, growly voice called out to her. There"s this massive, tattooed guy. He asked if the van was hers, and offered her a ride to the nearest town. She didn"t have much choice, so she took the offer."

"It seemed to work out."

"It did. Mama got a room at a motel and offered to pay for his as a thank you. He said no told her to have a good night, and said that if she needed a ride back to her van, he"d give her one. They parted ways and Mama went to her room. An hour later, Dad knocked on her door and invited her to eat with him. He didn"t feel like eating alone."

"So clichéd."

"Babygirl, it works though, doesn"t it?" I winked at her and she rolled her eyes.

"I fell for it." She shook her head. "What happened afterward?"

"Nothing much, they had dinner, exchanged phone numbers, and they talked for about a year as friends. Dad didn"t have any family other than the guys he rode with, and he liked having someone to talk to. Mama didn"t think Dad would like her romantically."

Asshole teenager or not, I'd seen how much it hurt Mama believing what she'd felt was one-sided. Being young I hadn't known what to say to make it better.

"One weekend Dad said he was going to be in the area and wondered if he could see her. She offered to let him crash with us. I was a bit dubious when I met him. Not that he wasn"t a nice guy, but I was an asshole who was used to having my mama to myself. He was around for about a week, and he surprised her with a goodbye kiss." I paused to take a drink and a few more bites, and I drew it out because her little, impatient huffs were adorable.

"And…"

"Impatient. He stayed away for about two weeks and then he was back banging on the front door. They"ve been inseparable ever since. They are disturbingly obsessed with each other." Honestly, I didn't believe obsessed came close to describing the relationship between Charlotte and Bruiser Barrister.

"Was he like a dad?"

"Oh, big time. He"d always wanted kids, but he was never able to have any. The first time I called him Dad, he teared up. He bought me my first motorcycle when I was sixteen, to the horror of Mama. I had the largest cheering section at graduation. The sound of revving engines drowned out the applause." Bruiser had taught me so many lessons about life acceptance. "He taught me how a woman should be treated with love and respect. But more importantly he made my mama happy. Typical teenager I was, I hadn"t fully understood how miserable she was before him, my mother made mama"s life hell, after she came out and before, actually."

"Did you know I was Trans when you invited me here?" she asked.

I finished what was left on my plate and picked up a napkin to wipe my mouth. "I don"t assume anything. I"m a Nonbinary person who loves my suits and a bit of makeup. I have cis-male friends who love skirts and dresses. My mother is a straight Trans woman, and my dad is a straight cis-male. People say ‘love is love' so much that it lost its meaning for the most part. There"s always a hierarchy in groups. You didn"t correct me when I said I bought a beautiful woman a drink, that"s all I needed to know."

"Thanks."

"For what?" I asked as I just sat there as she slowly finished off her dinner and shook her head when I asked if she wanted more. "Are you going to answer what you"re thanking me for?"

"I left home without telling anyone except Freida. She"d always known. We made all these plans; the minute she knew I was accepted to school she said it was time to go. Next day, everything we owned was packed into our car and we took off. Halfway here, I changed in a gas station bathroom into my favorite dress. I never looked back. I"d secretly started hormones a few years earlier and the changes started to get noticeable."

"Are you happy here? That you don"t have to hide?"

"Yes, it"s freeing, but terrifying too. I"ve been thinking about why I felt so different since I was eleven, but outside my apartment I was always waiting for the floor to fall out from under my feet. I feel guilty I haven't told my parents but part of me… I don"t know, I"m scared they won"t understand."

"You"re not alone. Mama said she"d felt the same way. She"d worked so hard to be something she wasn"t because she didn"t want to lose me. Stayed in a marriage that was slowly killing pieces of her. She hit her lowest and over dinner one night as mother was bitching about a long list of things that mama always did wrong, Mama blurted out she was Trans. A week later there were divorce papers and a nasty fight over custody for the next year. Have you dated?" I asked to shift the subject. Those weren't happy years I cared to remember.

"I hooked up with a few guys in my hometown who were all in the closet, or whenever Freida and I went on vacation. She"s told me recently that I"m acting like a nun."

I snorted. "That"s pretty bad."

"No it"s not, two years isn"t that long." She glared at me as I grimaced. "Be nice. Look what happened tonight, I hooked up with some strange guy and then came home with the owner of the club where I found said hookup."

"Terrible sex, I was your reward for suffering through." I smirked at her adorable glare. There was this almost uncontrollable urge to kiss the tip of her scrunched nose.

"How do you know it was terrible?" she asked.

"Five minutes of bathroom sex with a guy who has terrible taste in cologne… Why do you think I asked if you wanted to clean up?"

"No wonder you"re single."

"I was made handsome to make up for my lack of charm."

"You"re an odd one," she whispered as she leaned back in her chair and reached for her glass.

"Normalcy is boring."

She glanced at the microwave display and then back at me. "It"s getting late." She set her glass back down on the table.

"Ready to escape already?" I asked.

"No, but I"m sure you have better things to do."

"Nope. Help me clean up the kitchen and we can find a movie. What would be more fun, my company or going home all alone? I may even let you snuggle with me."

"How many times a week do you do this?" she asked with a roll of her brown eyes.

"You"d be surprised, but none. I just got incredibly lucky you decided to have a subpar hookup in my club and I got to rescue your night." I stood up, grabbing our plates and utensils.

We worked in silence as I washed and she dried. I liked her closeness. Other than my employees and parents I didn"t spend much time with other people anymore. Typically, my evenings started with me in my office taking care of the previous night"s accounting. Inputting orders from inventory Gigi had done, and then taking up my usual spot at the end of the bar.

Clubs were fun for an occasional visit. Most people assumed club and bar owners lived in a constant state of partying. Maybe some did, but that shit wasn"t for me. To me it was a job like any other. At the end of the night, I waited around to walk the closers out and headed home to spend a quiet night on the couch. I think a year had passed since I"d taken advantage of spending an evening with someone, even longer since I"d been on an actual date.

At my not-so-advanced age of thirty-three, financially I was comfortable with a nice investment-and-retirement portfolio. But contentment only got you so far before it led into boredom.

"Rogue?" She said my name as I put the leftovers in the fridge.

"Yeah, babygirl?"

"Thanks for this. The meal and company."

"You"re welcome. Want to watch a movie or we can do what you really want."

"And what is it that you think I really want?" She turned toward me to lean back against the edge of the counter.

I closed the few feet that separated us. Curling my hands around the edge of the sink, I nudged her chin with the tip of my nose. She smelled like my soap and I teasingly brushed my lips against the side of her neck.

"We both know you"re lusting after me. Just give in, I won"t judge you." I retreated enough to take in her beautiful face.

She smiled and rolled her eyes, her fingers tugging at the hem of my t-shirt. "How do you carry around that ego of yours and not become crushed under the weight of it?"

"Years and years of practice. What do you say about that offer of a movie?"

"Are you sure?" she asked.

I hugged her waist. "Yes, but if you want to go home, I"ll order you a car."

"A movie sounds good; I doubt Freida will be home. She"s been out with the guy a few times and she said he seemed promising. She"s Aromantic and just had to break it off with someone who wanted a relationship. Freida isn't built to be a girlfriend in any way."

"Then you"re all mine the rest of the night. I"ll refill our drinks and you go find us something to watch." I brushed a kiss to her cheek and patted her hip as I stepped back to let her go.

I waited until I heard the TV turn on in the other room and took a deep breath. She"d already had one person be an asshole to her but that wasn"t me. We"d watch a movie and hang out. Maybe I could have more dinners with the beautiful woman in the future. Let"s just hope my mama never found out, I was tired of the you"re not getting any younger conversations.