2. A Wild August Night

CHAPTER 2

A Wild August Night

Tristan

Doors around the apartment banged a few times while I dried myself with a coarse white towel, locked in the bathroom, humming to the tunes of Billie Eilish coming from my phone. I could hear the distinct noise of the freezer drawer scraping the mounds of ice I'd never gotten around to defrosting and clearing out. I wonder if he'll take the peas , I thought. I have big plans for the peas . Then again, frozen peas were the most versatile when it came to taking down the swellings.

I held a sigh, sprayed deodorant over myself, shaved off the hint of a mustache and chin beard that had grown in the last two days, and wrapped up my skincare routine in haste. I dressed for the party just as quickly. The cloud of steam preceded me when I stepped out of the bathroom, but as it dispersed, the sight before me made my heart sink a little. "You scruffy fucker," I muttered, shaking my head.

"Don't get spooked," Rome said. He spread himself on the sofa, deep in the middle seat, one foot on the cluttered coffee table. The left sleeve of his black T-shirt had ripped at the upper seam, and my bag of frozen peas cooled the right side of his face. His lip had split and was a little bloody. "This is nothing."

"Was it the cops?" I asked in alarm, anxiety fountaining in my chest. I crossed the floor in a hurry and reached for Rome's chin to turn his head around.

Roman grabbed my wrist and thrust my hand away. "Said I was fine," he growled.

The rebuke stung more than I wanted to admit. Catching a breath, I pushed it all away. "Who did this to you?"

"Stop, Tris," Rome said in a no-nonsense tone.

My chest rose as I filled my lungs with air. Baring my teeth, I glared at my friend. "I want to know."

"And do what?" Rome asked in a tone that almost had a hint of helplessness or hopelessness to it. "Kick their ass? You're not getting involved, Tris."

"I just want to know what happened," I said without a trace of defensiveness that was starting to fill my chest.

"No. It wasn't the cops," Roman replied. "And it's done now, anyway. They're moving on with closing the center. We were too late. And too few."

I wondered if he blamed me for not showing up. Had I not gone out to exercise at the park, or to fetch Mama Viv's cupcakes, or to that goddamn class that was never going to get me anywhere, I could have added to Rome's numbers. "I'm sorry," I said.

Roman rolled his one visible eye, the other being covered by the bag of peas. "Here we go again. "

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?" I asked, taking a step back and putting my hands on my hips. Wet locks of hair fell over my brow, but I refused to be distracted by them.

Roman looked at me from under his eyebrow, lips pursed. He held his breath a moment, then sighed. "Nothing. Sorry I said anything."

"No. Tell me what you meant," I demanded, half-aware that I was torturing a guy when he was already down. But it was his fault for making it personal.

Roman moved the peas around his face, flinching once, glanced at me, and promptly looked away. "It's not about you, Tris. You couldn't have changed anything if you'd gone there, so don't act like it's all your fault."

"That's not…" But as I stammered, I knew I had nowhere to take that sentence. Nowhere completely true, at least.

Roman looked at me with that burning passion that never fully left him. "Don't play a failed hero, man. You didn't punch me. And you're not the one destroying the soul of this place. Just…don't act like you could have saved shit."

"Right," I whispered. If I apologized, I might just trigger him more. "Who punched you, though?"

Roman cracked a small smile. "I have no fucking idea," he said. This amused him. He wasn't really a troublemaker, even if certain people defined him that way, but even I had to admit that he didn't exactly run away from trouble. "It was a peaceful protest. The next thing I knew, commotion erupted. Two guys started wrestling. I looked around and spotted a few guys with balaclavas marching in our direction. And…" He shrugged, his words fading away. He removed the peas and revealed the dark red bruise over his sharp cheekbone. "They got me once. The lip's from falling down."

"Fuck," I said in a voice tight with fury.

"Calm down, bad boy," Rome teased, but it didn't take the edge off. "I got worse beatings from my mom."

I didn't laugh.

My friend dropped the peas on the coffee table and hopped onto his feet. "You take things too seriously, Tris. It's not like I can't defend myself."

"You need to go to bed," I said, holding back a sigh. I'd been looking forward to the party at Neon Nights. Mama Viv was going to kill me for missing this one.

"Tris, I can handle myself," Roman said.

I was already moving toward the kitchen. "Liar," I said with a touch of playfulness. "Nobody can handle you, Rome. But I have the most experience."

My friend crossed his arms, biceps swelling with tension even as he seemed unsteady on his feet. "You're dressed for going out."

"I'm dressed like a guy who forgot to do his laundry," I said. My best attempt to sound light was still a little strained. I put water to boil and turned toward the bathroom.

"Who's the liar now?" Roman asked softly.

I ignored him as I walked to the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and rummaged for what I needed. He wasn't badly hurt, but his pride was bruised. Nobody liked losing battles. I collected the items I needed and carried them through the living room, under Roman's firm gaze, into his bedroom. I didn't need to fetch him. He followed when I didn't show up again.

When Roman sat down on the edge of his bed, I poured iodine solution onto a gauze pad and dabbed his lip, then dabbed the bruise on his face just in case there were tiny cuts I couldn't see. I thrust ibuprofen into his hand and brought him water from the kitchen. Sullenly, Roman observed me as I prepared him a cup of chamomile tea and brought it into his bedroom.

"Tonight's the party, right?" Rome asked.

I sucked my teeth. "Is it?"

My friend snorted. "You're really getting on my nerves now, Tris. Go. I'll be fine on my own."

"What if you get bored?" I asked.

"Then I'll stroke one out and watch memes until I pass out," Roman said.

It was my turn to snort. "The usual?"

"Go, Tris. And have fun for both of us," he said.

"Or we could play Scrabble," I proposed.

"For the love of fuck, Tristan. Can't you see I'm busy?" He grinned as I rolled my eyes and retreated. Even if he was lonely and gutted over losing the fight for the center today, he wasn't going to let me in. So I reminded him that he could call me if he needed me, to which he said he could always just ask Oakley or Madison to hang out with him instead.

I returned the medical stuff to their place, washed my hands from the scent of iodine, and debated shortly whether to just stay in the living room. Rome would undoubtedly find me and make a thing out of it. Besides, I was only going across the street.

Cedric

The eighties extravaganza roared within the dilapidated walls of the bar. Today, over brunch, it had hardly delivered on the promise of its name, but tonight, the mood matched exactly what I would have expected from a place called Neon Nights.

I stood at the bar in the furthest, most intimate corner. Before me was a sea of bodies. People moved around, fetching drinks to their tables, passing over the cleared area left for dancing. Some even danced, but most only tapped a foot in the rhythm of the lesser-known samples of the era, swung their hips, or bopped their heads.

My drink of choice was an elderflower spritz with an extra shot of peach schnapps, which the queen running the place had recommended. I was still on my first one when the light-headedness tickled me.

As one song melted into another under the careful mixing of a girl wearing a mix of eighties and punk aesthetics, the atmosphere warmed up.

Although my gaze kept darting to the front door as if I expected someone—truly, I had no reason whatsoever to expect or look forward to a dark-haired, well-built guy I had only ever seen once in passing; that was preposterous—I also scanned the crowd filling the bar. Some of the wall lamps were still on, shedding enough light to reveal the colorful people gathered here.

My whole life, I had been kept from the commonality of such affairs. In college, attending parties among people closer to my class and status had denied me the experience of simply enjoying myself at a party. Half the time, appearances had been more important than what I felt about the entire affair. Duty always comes first , Alexander said in my imagination. But that is not something you ever understood, little brother. I could even picture the flexing of the muscles in his face as he clenched his teeth. It was like he clung to his duty by his teeth and nails.

He wasn't the only one I thought of when I thought of the palace. Father's stern, uncompromising features lending strength to our small, proud nation floated before my eyes, too. Even then, amidst their critical stares and their droning, there was something good. There were Sophia and Maximilian, my younger siblings and the mischief twins of the palace. Well, Maximilian was the prince of chaos these days when I was off duty, while Sophia slowly grew more serious and controlled.

My gaze went over the crowd again. Close to twenty-five years of living on this planet, and I hadn't had a chance to be just another guy at a bar until tonight. Young men danced with one another, girls made out in shadowy corners, and more than one drag queen glided through the thickening crowd.

Was there a clearer image of freedom? Not one person here worried about the burdens of duty that would weigh them down tomorrow. They simply existed in the moment, in the movement, and lived more in a single night than I had in a year.

As the beat quickened, I found myself tapping my foot and moving my shoulders, albeit awkwardly, to the rhythm of the music. Lights dimmed, and lasers pierced the air and whisps of artificial smoke. The disco ball sparkled brightly, breaking the lights and spinning at a slow, steady pace.

The front door opened, and a couple more guys entered. My heart stumbled, but it was nobody familiar. Why isn't he here? But I pushed that question aside. I was on the very edge of becoming eerie even to myself. That guy was nobody I knew. To be this eager to catch a sight of him one more time freaked me out, but not enough to hold my gaze firmly away from the door.

And when he entered, shoulders swinging to catch the beat before the door shut behind him, I glimmered as brightly as the disco ball. A pool of white light passed over him from a swirling reflector, and I realized his hair wasn't as dark as it had been earlier today. He was sweaty from the heat and effort, hair matted and face glowing , I thought. Now, he was in his best, most presentable edition. As he moved through the crowd, his aura beamed like a beacon. He danced like his life depended on it, greeting people along the way between the front door and the bar. It seemed to me he knew every single person in Neon Nights. Except me.

My pulse quickened as the beautiful stranger stood three feet away from me, his hands tapping the bar to match the music. He waited until the bartender looked at him with a bright smile.

I couldn't hear the order over the music, but the two shifted slightly toward me as the bartender began mixing a drink.

"Where's Mama Viv?" the handsome one asked. Truth be told, the bartender was handsome, too, but everyone paled in comparison with the one. His eyes were so warm yet so penetrating. It was like everything he looked at was the most important thing he had ever laid his gaze on.

"Upstairs, getting ready," the bartender replied.

"Oh, that's alright, then," my guy said.

"She was looking for you earlier, Tris," the bartender said.

My heart leaped. I had a name to put to those naughty, disobedient locks of dark. Tris. It suited him nicely, but I wondered what it was short for. Tristan, no doubt. As I formed his name in my mind, he appeared complete before my eyes. Now I hoped to God it wasn't Tristopher.

Tris received a mason jar with a swirly straw; the crushed ice filling the jar was glowing lemony yellow, looking slightly radioactive. He picked it up, his arm flexing slightly. I was in heaven right there and then. Wearing a white ribbed tank top tucked into dark grey pleated pants, he rocked a unique and ever so slightly vintage style. His bare arms were the bane of my existence, sculpted muscles rippling from his forearms to his round, bare shoulders, and when he turned to me on his way to the crowd, his expressive, wide-set eyes met mine. In an instant, I memorized every last detail about him. The medium-length hair parting in the middle and repeatedly falling over his eyebrows and eyes, his strong jawline and pronounced cheekbones giving him the chiseled look, and the tiny pout to his full lips. Every single detail took my breath away.

"And now, my fireflies, give us a ‘Yes, Queen' for the mistress of this den, the true American royalty, our Matron, Lady Vivien Woodcock," a male voice boomed from the speakers as if announcing a boxing champion .

Tris spun away from me, losing himself in the crowd closer to the stage at the far end of the bar. Lights beamed in the direction of the stage, where a school piano pressed against the wall. A tuxedo-wearing girl sat before it, her back turned to the crowd, and the immense and captivating presence of Lady Vivien emerged from the shadows. She climbed the stage, then brought the house down with a rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'." To my infinite surprise, Lady Vivien did not lip-sync but sang and danced her soul out in the three minutes that followed. Accompanied only by the piano, this one song alone was worth my escape from Verdumont and the price I would eventually have to pay.

And when the fireflies cheered for an encore, Lady Vivien raised her hands dramatically and spoke into the microphone. "Welcome, fireflies, to Neon Nights. This evening, the world ends. This evening is the last evening we are on this Earth. And what do we do when we face the long night? We sing, my darlings, and we dance, and we ‘don't go gentle into that good night.'"

If there was something I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams, it was a drag queen quoting Dylan Thomas while announcing that the world was going to end. Additionally, the cheers from the bar that followed those words were ten times more than I would have expected.

What bohemian heaven have I entered? I wondered. But my time for asking questions and wondering about my past choices was at an end. The world was apparently ending, and all we had left to do was dance.

Tristan

Mama Viv's hands rested on my shoulders, her long acrylic nails resting on my bare skin. She pressed a kiss to my cheek after I had praised her performance.

"Tell me now, where is Roman? I haven't seen him all day," Mama Viv said. She must have known about the youth center, and she must have known Roman would join the protests.

"He's not feeling like partying," I said. "It didn't go well."

Mama Viv waved her hand as if to tell me she understood every last intricate detail. "Shall I send him cupcakes? I happen to have a few left."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Bah! What do you want from me?" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "I may have overestimated the demand by three boxes."

A laugh erupted from me before I could stifle it. Mama Viv was on a mission, sending cupcakes to Roman, and she would have trampled me had I stood in her way. For that reason, as well as this tiny sliver of curiosity, I turned away from her and gazed over the crowd. He wasn't on the dance floor. In fact, the guy with the bluest eyes ever had barely moved from his shadowy nook by the bar.

I closed my lips around the straw as my gaze locked on his figure. Taller than me by a few inches, he was ridiculously blond and as handsome as if he'd stepped out of a fairy tale. As I sucked a sip of my cocktail, something gave me butterflies. It's probably just sugar in my drink , I decided, but it had happened at the same moment when those blue eyes noticed me looking.

Playfully, I let my eyebrows quirk in greeting, and I received a very determined nod in return. Ah, so the game begins . But this wasn't my first time out at a party. With a hint of a smile, I turned away from him and searched for another target, someone to keep me occupied but not someone so far away that I couldn't see the handsome stranger when I wanted to.

In the far right corner of the bar, directly opposite the blond beauty, were a couple of my friends I hadn't seen in a few weeks. I danced lightly to the Tina Turner tunes, even if I wasn't that fond of them, until I reached Luke. He wore a summer tan under the locks of floppy light hair, and his smile beamed brightly when he spotted me.

"Look who's back from the honeymoon," I all but squealed.

Rafael, officially Luke's husband at long last, spun with an even wider smile. His coppery skin was a shade darker before their two-week trip to the Dominican Republic. "We returned last night," he said, hugging me shortly before letting Luke take his turn.

"And just in time for all this fun," Luke said.

"How was the Dominican Republic?" I asked, practically having to yell over Tina's "Simply the Best." "If you got to see any of it."

Rafael threw his head back and laughed. Luke wore a touch of red on his cheeks. "We saw plenty where we were allowed to explore," he said, but Rafael's continued laughter was the true answer. They hadn't left the room, those lucky fuckers.

"We need to catch up when it's quieter," I said, catching the rhythm of the song despite my best attempts to stay cool. It must have been a whole minute, minute and a half even, since I'd last checked out the hot guy at the bar. "I can barely hear my own thoughts."

Rafael shouted his agreement, but Luke's attention drifted from me to something behind me. That was my moment, then. I could also glance back and search for that hottie without appearing suspicious. But as I did that, I found only empty shadows where he had stood before.

My vision of the rest of Neon Nights was obscured by a towering presence coming into my view. He carried his tall glass in one hand, a wristwatch strapped tightly just above his hand, and white sleeves of his formal white shirt rolled to his elbows. My gaze followed his torso. All the buttons of his shirt were done to the very top. How do you breathe? I wondered.

Something shifted behind me, and I heard some snickering. Rafael, no doubt. He soon faded from my mind as my gaze went over the exquisite features of this heavenly face. Long and slender like the rest of him, his face was smooth and chiseled, and his almond-shaped eyes were so blue that they looked to me almost like sapphires or the sea on a clear day in the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe. I hadn't been there to see for myself.

The DJ dropped the beat, and the disco ball sent shards of light over the handsome stranger's face. In the moment of relative silence, he cracked a smile. "Hello."

Something poked the middle of my back, like a stick herding a reluctant mule to move on. I took a step, then waved my arm behind my back. Rafael was in for a few choice words when I had a moment to spare. Still, I halted a couple of feet away from the guy I'd had my eyes on all night. "Hey." A smile grew on my lips despite my best effort to remain cool.

As the music returned to its deafening volume, the hottie with a sparkling drink in his hand stepped closer to me, moving easily despite the cluster of shifting bodies that surrounded us. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"You're very forward," I replied, basically shouting.

He lifted his chin a little as if to ponder my words. Then he leaned in. "Would you like me to try to be more subtle?" There was a touch of an accent I couldn't distinguish, but it made my heart do backflips.

I thought about it for a moment. "No," I said. "I don't think I'd like that."

His smile carried relief and curiosity in equal parts. He gestured at the bar, and we waded through the sea of people. I threw one glance over my shoulder at Luke and Rafael, who were smirking and observing me as I retreated into the mass of dancing bodies. When I looked at the handsome stranger leading the way, I forgot about everything else. His shoulders were broad, the slightly rumpled shirt snugging his torso tightly, and his waist was narrow. The triangular torso was as close to my ultimate weakness as the disarming smile the stranger wore.

We reached the bar, and I watched him wave one elegant wave at Bradley, who served two girls to our left. When Bradley spotted us, he leaned over the bar.

My sexy stranger spoke with that mysterious accent. " May I have an elderflower spritz minus the peach schnapps? And my friend will have another round of your finest yellowcake uranium." He didn't even look in my direction when he said the words that dragged a snort-chuckle out of me.

I lifted my nearly empty mason jar of vodka lemon slushie, and Bradley nodded.

The stranger turned around enough to face me while waiting for our drinks. "I saw you delivering cupcakes today."

"Do you always skip the cat and mouse game?" I asked.

His perfect black eyebrows arched in thought. "I don't know. I don't play this game often." He admitted this with absolute confidence, as though plain truth was the fastest, surest way to seduction. His interest was unmistakable in those blue eyes, but I found a glimmer of mischief there. "Do you?"

"Now I sound like a hoe." I laughed out loud, and the charmer joined me.

"You are Tristan, correct?" He wore that continuous smile on his full, defined lips.

I nodded. I didn't ask how he knew. He had obviously been paying attention all day. "And who are you? I've never seen you in the den before."

"Cedric," he said simply, thrusting his hand forward.

"That's a fantastic name," I admitted. His was a soft hand with a firm grip, unlike mine. We held hands for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. I enjoyed the warmth of his touch more than I should have. It wasn't like I was starved for the attention of other men, but the attention of this particular man felt like a much more significant reward.

Bradley set my mason jar and a glass of elderflower spritz for Cedric on the counter. Cedric paid with a large bill and waved it off when Bradley looked for change.

My eyes narrowed. Was that part of the game? Impressing me with his generosity, checking if I'd fall for it? "I like your style," he said before I could think too hard.

"I picked it myself," I said, the heat rising to my face. He was direct, leaving no room for nonsense and doublespeak. "I like your accent."

Cedric's eyebrows wiggled playfully. "I picked it myself."

"Where is it from?" I asked, finding myself a foot nearer Cedric than I had been a moment before. Invisible ropes tied around my wrists and ankles and pulled me in. Fighting them was futile. I better surrender.

"It's French." Now that he said it, it was, although not quite. There was a softness to his words that I couldn't place. He added, "Sort of."

I grinned. It took effort not to lean in and be absorbed by his intense gaze. I could lose myself in the stream of his personality like a tiny twig in a massive river. But I also might stay afloat. "Do you dance, Cedric?"

"I would dance with you," he said, clearly compromising.

We abandoned our drinks to Bradley's care as I grabbed Cedric's hands and pulled him to the dance floor. The lasers cut through the artificial smoke near the stage as we held on to one another and spun. The night swirled around us, the world tilting and spinning and losing focus. When I released him, he caught the rhythm of the music independently. In a few minutes, we danced our hearts out, almost like we tried to show off.

I never saw anyone else. I never noticed the murky, shadowed figures around us. The lights crossed Cedric's smooth face, lit up his fair skin, and made his pearly teeth shine. If he had been a little uncertain at the start, there was no trace of any doubts now. His confidence existed so naturally that he matched my dance skill seemingly by the sheer force of his will.

Our bodies, our heat, and our youth dazzled me as we neared one another and pulled away, always in the movement, never stopping the long game that took us through the night. As though time itself slowed down, I saw things in flashes of blinding white floodlight glimmering, freezing individual moments rather than letting the clock go on. A careless touch, an undone button, a press of my body against his, deep, spicy scent of cologne and sweat, they all mixed into a cocktail of passion I hadn't experienced before. His rolled sleeves and bare forearms became the most intimate and erotic things in my mind. I lost interest in all the underdressed guys dancing on the floor, my gaze never leaving the man who made the undoing of a single top button of his shirt feel like an expensive and exclusive striptease.

And whenever his hand brushed against my arm, his fingers left a blazing trail. His gaze never left me when his eyes were open. His attention was glued to my face, or else his head was hanging back, and our bodies melted together .

Never had I felt as though I was someone's everything. Never until this moment had I felt like a guy I looked at looked back at me and only me.

And when Cedric took my hand and pulled me from the dance floor to get our drinks, the ice had long melted in my mason jar, but I didn't care. We went through the bar and out on the terrace, where a canopy of colorful lights made all his features soft and smooth. "That was surprisingly fun," Cedric said as soon as we were out.

I gazed at the second undone button, his creamy skin taut over his pecs, the interesting part disappearing under the tight fabric of his shirt. He inhaled, and I lifted my gaze to his eyes, burning ice if such a thing was possible. "Who are you, Cedric?" I asked.

"No one," he said, the edge of his glass tapping mine.

I closed my lips around the swirly straw and pulled a mouthful of my lemony vodka and melted ice. "You must be someone," I said after sipping with satisfaction.

Something flickered across his face so briefly that I wasn't even sure I saw it. A tightness of some sort, a concern. "I'm just passing by," he said lightly, even the ghost of worry gone from his smooth features. "And you, Tristan? Who are you? A cupcake delivery guy during the day and a menace on the dance floor at night?"

I threw my head back and laughed. "I'm neither."

"I'm intrigued," Cedric said. Something about him made me believe that he really was. People filed out from Neon Nights, chatting in small groups scattered around the terrace. Tables were occupied by those less interested in dancing. "You're from around here, correct?"

"Correct," I said. "I live just across the street." The thought of Roman lying in the bed all on his own, licking his wounds—emotional wounds rather than the scuffs he couldn't care less about—made my heart sink. Had he not been so stubborn earlier, I never would have crossed paths with Cedric. Whatever this thing between us was—and it was nothing measurable on any scale I knew—I wanted to see where it would go. He shattered my game of flirting and cut right to the dance. "And I help out when I can. Like the cupcakes."

Cedric smiled and nodded, pieces falling into place, as though I said the most interesting thing ever uttered. I liked this guy.

Chatter grew louder near us, and I glanced at a small group of strangers who'd dropped by for the party. Then, looking at Cedric, feeling my pulse quicken and the heat make my face glow, I took the leap. "Do you wanna go someplace quieter?"

"With you?" He grinned mischievously.

A snort and a nod replied so I didn't have to.

"I would love to," Cedric said.

In an instant, a world of possibilities opened up. I had seen him dance, felt his body up close to mine, sensed his deep and raw interest, and discovered an inkling of something else in him; now, I wanted more. I wanted to put my hand on his waist and get so close that there would be nothing other than the spicy scent mixed with sweat for me to inhale. I wanted to ask him questions until I knew who he was. And I wanted to see where the night took us. A glance from him had been enough to make me want to know the answer to that one question.

I snatched his hand, and we hurried back inside, dropped off our glasses, and made for the exit. Outside, the residual heat of a New York summer and a breath of fresh air welcomed us.