Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Diego

AFTER THE INCIDENT in the library, I start avoiding campus again. So when Leo bursts through the door to our apartment, he finds me hunched on the floor with books all around me and my laptop sitting on the coffee table.

"This is the absolute saddest thing I've ever witnessed," he says.

"A grad student studying?"

"A grad student studying on Saturday night , which is what he does every Saturday night ."

Leo throws his keys at our kitchen counter and strides in, plopping onto the couch and sprawling in the way only a straight man can.

"Come on," he says. "Time to shut the books for the night. I'm taking you out. "

I shoot him a skeptical look. "I'm not sure you and I are interested in the same establishments."

"That's why we're going to this queer bar I know of over in Newark."

"What? Newark? Queer bar?"

"Those are the words I said, yes," Leo says. He stands and slaps me on the shoulder. "Finish what you're doing. I'm claiming first shower, but when I'm done I better find you out here pre-gaming."

"Leo, I can't. I have too much to do."

"I'm going to stop you right there," he cuts in. "You've been here an entire month and I've never once seen you have fun. This is non-negotiable."

I do shut up then, because he doesn't know about the drag show, he doesn't know just how much "fun" I had that night, and I'm not eager to tell him.

Against my better judgment, I let Leo boss me around. Within an hour, we've both showered and changed. I even down a couple drinks of cheap whiskey. Leo abstains so he can drive, and it only hits me to regret this when I'm in his car and we're leaving Montridge behind. The lights feel even more voluminous with my head faintly swimming. We're heading toward New York City, toward a place that seems more like something out of a story than a real location to me. So many millions of people in one spot. It's unfathomable. It's terrifying.

It's exciting.

The thought arrives in Avery's voice, bright and enthusiastic, and I shake it away.

"You doing okay there?" Leo says. "Don't get sick in my car."

"It was a couple drinks," I say. "I'm not sick."

"Hey, I don't know how you do it in those small towns. Maybe that was a lot for you."

"If you think we don't drink far, far harder than that in small towns then you know nothing about small towns."

Leo laughs and drops the subject. We leave the highway, but the roads we turn onto seem just as busy and chaotic. We're in some sort of city, or would Leo call this a "town" too? It seems too large and sprawling for that. When Leo parks, we exit onto a sidewalk crammed between buildings along a four-lane road.

"The bar is this way," Leo says, taking the lead.

The dark is liquid around us, a writhing, inky thing, like a snake slipping between my hands. It's vast and terrifying and full of possibilities.

Leo steers us toward one of those possibilities. Club music thumps out of a black door set into a building painted entirely black. I would have missed it if it weren't for the bouncer standing in front of it checking IDs.

Thank God. If there's someone checking IDs, that means the only people here will be at least twenty-one. Avery's twenty. There's no possible way they'll be here tonight. Even if they were twenty-one, it would be some kind of statistical marvel for us both to end up at this club tonight.

I catch myself relaxing at that thought. Nothing weird will happen tonight. Heck, maybe I'll even meet someone who isn't my student. I'm not against it. It can't be that different from my gay bar back home, can it?

Yes. Yes, it can.

The moment the bouncer waves Leo and I inside, I realize just how different this bar can be from what I'm familiar with.

The inside sports nearly as much black paint as the exterior. Multi-colored lights flash through a big main room that's mostly dance floor. A bar sits to one side, but there's also a hallway leading to, I assume, more rooms and more bars and more dancing.

And the people. I'm not sure I've ever seen so many people in one room all at the same time. The place is absolutely packed, bodies from wall to wall, all of them cloaked in concealing darkness until the lights flash over them to paint them in neon hues. They're like something out of a cartoon or a dream, all these unfathomable people either pitched into darkness or flaring as bright as Christmas lights.

Leo is the straight guy here, yet I'm the one feeling out of place as we shoulder our way toward the bar. A lot of people are wearing leather or studded belts or harnesses over bare skin. The amount of dyed hair could keep every salon in the state in business, and perhaps does. A lot of them have shaved off part of their hair, but only part.

"What do you want to drink?" Leo shouts when we reach the bar.

I shrug, too overwhelmed to think. Leo flags down the bartender and orders something, I have no idea what, and I go back to observing the place. It's just so … so much. So much everything.

Leo nudges me and hands me a glass of what looks like whiskey. He clinks his glass against mine.

"Don't worry," he says. "I'm only having one. We'll dance it off before driving anywhere."

I nod. I'm not worried about Leo's sobriety tonight. What's really here for him besides a drink and some dancing? I didn't actually realize straight guys did this, but Leo seems completely at ease, even when some guy sidles up to the bar and offers to buy him another drink. He's not freaked out or angry or offended or any of the things I've learned to expect from a straight guy. He simply declines and goes back to bopping to the music while we drink.

"Hey, let's check out the other rooms," he says.

Other rooms?

I nearly choke on my drink. Is this not enough? But before I know it, Leo is leading me down that hallway running beside the bar and we find, as promised, more rooms .

The first one is soaked in red light and playing deeper, slower music. The people here are getting so shamelessly handsy that I urge Leo to move on quickly.

Stairs lead us into a basement where three more rooms await. One has trippy, psychedelic lights whirling on the ceiling. One is far too well lit and bright. The last one has contraptions hanging from the ceiling and an awful lot of people in an awful lot of leather.

We opt for the psychedelic room, and head in with whatever remains of our drinks. Once we start moving around a bit, the lights washing over us, I have to admit that I catch myself getting into it. Something about the constantly shifting colors pairs well with the alcohol I've had tonight. I sink into the flow of the whole thing, dancing with Leo and the strangers filling the room.

"Hey, look at you," Leo says. "I knew you remembered how to have fun, but I'll confess you were scaring me for a minute."

"It's not that I don't want to have fun," I say. "It's just…"

Leo cocks his head to the side. "Something wrong?"

"No. Not really. I just… I did go out one night. You remember that drag show I mentioned?"

Leo's eyebrows creep up, but he just nods. This is not the right place to talk about this. I probably shouldn't talk to anybody ever about this. But the whiskey and the lights and the dancing and the darkness have loosened me up, tricking me into lowering my defenses. A piece of me is desperate to expel this secret and let Leo judge me for it, see how appalled and disgusted he is when he knows what I'm really like.

"Okay, well, I went to the drag show," I say. "And … my student was there."

"Okay. Yeah. You said it was their idea."

"It was. And it was great. The show, I mean. It was really fun. I do think it's … valuable or whatever."

If I was sober I might be able to soften the blow of what I'm about to admit, but I'm not and I can't. It just comes out.

"We danced afterward," I say. "They asked me to dance. And we … it might have gone a little past dancing."

Leo's eyes widen. I cringe, waiting for the hammer to fall.

"They asked you to dance," Leo says. "And you said yes?"

I cringe even as I nod.

"Was it fun?"

"Yeah," I admit. "It was. But it's totally inappropriate. I'm probably going to get fired or worse."

Leo shocks me by laughing. He claps me on the shoulder, then leads me out of the psychedelic room and into the hallway where it's a little quieter. He never lets go of my shoulder.

"Listen, man," he says, "I'm not saying it's a smart plan, but the world didn't end, did it? It seems like it's okay."

"It's not okay. What I did is not okay."

"If you weren't a TA and you were only here to study, would it be okay?"

"Sure," I say, "but I'm not only here to study."

"Not disagreeing. I'm just saying. Maybe you should wait a semester or something. Let the … conflict of interest work itself out. Then see where things stand. It's not like this is a kid. They're almost your age."

"Six years."

"You make that sound like six decades."

"It might as well be as long as I'm their TA," I groan.

Leo squeezes my shoulder, but he looks sympathetic and not reproachful, which is something of a surprise. Part of me wants to try what he suggested. If we wait a semester will there still be something there? Will Avery still be interested? I'd need to be cautious regardless. If I'm working as a TA at all then hooking up with a student is an ethics violation at best, but at least I wouldn't have that specific student's grades in my hands.

"Let's go upstairs," Leo says. "You need to dance with a stranger tonight."

I'm not feeling as enthusiastic about that as I was a few moments ago, but I follow Leo anyway. Our drinks are empty, and we leave them on a table along the hall with other empties. Then we head back up the stairs.

We have to pass through that strange red room before we reach the front of the establishment. But we hardly make it two steps into the main room before I stop dead and grab Leo by his sleeve. He stops short, confusion knotting his brows when he looks back at me.

"What—"

"It's them," I say.

He looks where I'm looking, looks in the direction of the person who has my feet cemented to the floor and my blood running cold. They've stopped as well, and a girl who looks as confounded as Leo is cocking her head at them.

I swallow. Avery smiles at me from across the bar. Before I can recover, they're marching toward me.

"That's them?" Leo says. "That's your student who you—"

"Yes," I cut in before he can say it out loud. "That's them. Shit."

I'm frozen with terror. Avery's eyes are deadset on me. They're cutting through the crowd on their way to me, and I don't know what to do.

Before I can decide, Leo shoves me forward.