2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Avery

" O kay, but he was definitely hot, right?" I leaned back in the diner booth, the sweat pasting my clothes to my skin. Even though I was still overheated, I was pretty sure the patrons of Randy's wouldn't appreciate me stripping right now.

"The DJ?" Chloe wrinkled her nose. My bestie twirled the end of her ponytail, her pale blonde strands somehow in place, despite the amount we'd danced our asses off. "No, no, babe. He's like bottom-of-the-barrel gross. We're talking thick gold chain kinda douchebag."

I shrugged. "I'd still let him fuck me."

"Considering you slept with Marisa, I'm pretty sure the bar can go no lower." Chloe's black nails flashed as she gestured at me, her animated way of talking one I resonated with deeply. She was decked out to the nines in her clubwear—tight vinyl top, black lace shorts, thigh highs, and large black shitkickers. Some days I'd be rocking that along with her, but today was a masc day.

I wrinkled my nose. "Yeah, I thought she had a religion kink or something. I didn't expect her to legit bust out the holy water and try to exorcise me midcoitus. Besides, who carries pocket-sized holy water?"

Greg snorted. "No, she was just trying to convert you."

"By having lesbian sex?" I asked, my brows drawing together. "One plus one plus two plus one equals I'm confused as fuck."

"She was also confused as fuck, if that helps at all," Chloe said. "But don't you dare put out for DJ Snake Eyes or whatever he's calling himself. I will disown you."

"You're not the boss of me," I said, amusement alight in my chest. The combination of dancing the night away and this wind-down conversation at Randy's afterward was everything I needed to combat a shitty day. Clients not wanting to pay their bills at my practice was headache enough, but it had been the day of a thousand cuts from tripping and spilling my coffee over my shirt to my golden child older brother sending me a disappointed text that I'd missed another Sunday dinner.

Unlike the rest of them, who'd settled into staunchly heteronormative lifestyles, I just…didn't fit.

Story of my damn life.

Bisexual, bigender, and bilingual, I was never easily categorized.

swung over to our booth. "Do you guys know what you want to order yet?" They were no-nonsense and outgoing, one of my favorite servers here. Today they wore a vest with little anarchy patches sewn onto it.

"If you've got anyone down to fuck on the menu, I'll place an order." I waggled my brows. Zo rolled their eyes, even though a grin crept to their lips.

"Unfortunately for you, we're a diner, not a bordello."

"Ignore Slutticula over here." Chloe jabbed me in the side. "I just want a burger."

"Pancakes for me," I said. "Might as well carb up, since I'm going home alone."

"Aiming for simple with a roast beef sandwich to soak up the booze," Adam said. He worked on the Freedom Trail, a costumed historical guide gig, but once in a while, he came out to unwind on the dance floor with the rest of us.

"French onion soup for me and a muffin for Xavier," Greg ordered. His boyfriend was mostly passed out in his seat beside us, not one of the regulars at Gravediggers. The alternative night at Athens Club, the best gay club in Boston, was one I lived for every week. Just the chance to get my dance on, to flirt with strangers, to feel euphoria beaming down on my skin with the pulsing lights and the heavy thumping bass—yeah, it was my number one form of stress relief.

As much as I joked about being a big old slut, I didn't get laid as much as I would if I were in a steady relationship. But with the commute to my practice, my overload of work responsibilities, and my family breathing down my neck, I barely had time for myself, let alone a partner.

"I'll get that out for you guys shortly," they said, swinging their gaze my way. "I'll go grab some extra water, since you're so thirsty, Avery."

"Much obliged." I winked.

Chloe leaned in so close her nose almost collided with my ear. "That's still a hard no on the DJ."

My lips quirked as I gave Chloe's head a gentle bump with mine. She was my best damn friend, someone who matched me in snark and word vomiting, which was rare.

A guy walked past our table, one I recognized as a frequent flyer here. If I remembered correctly, he sat over in the corner with the other writers crouched behind their laptops. He was cute as fuck, with full lips, curious eyes, and a thick, dark beard that matched his tousled hair. Tattoos peeked out from under his hoodie, and he had a bit of a scattered look about him.

"Now's about as good a time as any," Chloe said, her voice taking on an ominous tone I was not a fan of.

My attention switched to her at once. "For what?"

She worried her lower lip between her teeth, a surefire sign I wasn't going to like what she had to say. "I can't move in with you."

My heart sank. That would've been ideal, Chloe and I living together, considering I needed to leave my apartment pronto. The landlord refused to fix anything, and the standoff between us was getting ridiculous. I'd left a retaliative line of rubber ducks outside his apartment door daily for about a month, and I was pretty sure he was refusing to get my sink repaired out of spite.

But he hadn't fixed anything in a timely manner beforehand either, so at least I got some amusement over the Eternal Duck Brigade—trademarked.

Though my tiny plastic comrades had been taking hits recently. My landlord had put the last batch through the food processor, which spoke to him and his anger issues more than anything.

"I'll be able to find a room share or something." I ran my fingers through my strands to unstick a few sweat-dried pieces. "No need to look so doom and gloom about it."

Chloe winced like she had more bad shit to lob my way.

My shoulders tensed. "Okay, hit me with it."

She let out a long breath in a hiss. "The reason is that I got offered a partnership at a law firm in San Francisco. I'll be moving in six months."

My chest didn't drop—it plummeted. Chloe was my ride-or-die and not just in the club scene. Bitch was over my place half of the nights of the week, making nachos from ingredients in my fridge or painting our nails because I got lonely and needed people to survive. My throat bobbed with my hard swallow, and the word vomit that normally rose to my lips evacuated.

"Fuck."

Chloe tugged on the end of her ponytail, not meeting my eyes. "Shit, Aves, I feel so guilty about it. The clinching factor was that my folks need a little more help around the house after Dad's fall. Being closer to home means I'm there if they need me, and partnership offers don't land in your lap often."

"You're abandoning us?" Greg said, taking some of the pressure off me.

Bomb of the century, there. I couldn't fathom Boston without Chloe due to how much she'd rooted into my life. Not that she'd grown up here—no, she was a San Francisco transplant who came after college—but when we'd met at Gravediggers, we'd become instant friends.

Instant friends who were getting torn apart because someone was leaving me to move across the country.

"You could always—" Chloe said.

"If you say visit you, I'll slit your throat," I said with a glare. "Everyone always pulls that shit when they make a major move, and it rarely happens. Instead, the relationships fall into torpor until you forget to send each other cards at Christmas."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Okay, drama llama. No one sends Christmas cards anymore, and there's this thing called the Internet that makes communication easy nowadays."

She was right, but I wasn't ready to admit it yet. "Mmm, pretty sure the only mode is handwritten letters by candlelight."

"Then that's what I'll do." She squeezed my hand. "I've got some time before the move, and we're going to take advantage of every second we can."

My chest tightened at the gesture and the softness in her voice. We might sling sarcasm at each other all day long, but honestly, she was one of the best people in my life. Fuck, I was going to miss her.

"Maybe if you're lucky, I'll send you some of my duck brigade," I muttered, my post-club buzz ruined.

"How many of those fuckers do you still have?" Adam asked, pausing to take a sip of his coffee.

"I figured I was ordering a hundred, but it was a thousand in bulk." I shrugged. "So lots."

Chloe tugged at my hand again, leaning against my side. Her warmth soaked in through some of the cold the news had doused me in, and my initial shock melted a little. My sadness lingered, but she wasn't as impulsive as she appeared. If Chloe had made this decision, she'd thought about it in depth.

Still, that meant the plan to move into a new place together in a month was borked.

My current lease was in contention due to my fuckface of a landlord's refusal to do anything, so I didn't care about breaking it. He didn't have a leg to stand on, but he continued being a curmudgeon.

Hence ducks.

"In less depressing news, Xavier and I joined a local D&D game. The info's over on the board." Greg wrapped an arm around his slumbering boyfriend.

"Oh, really?" Adam perked up.

I was still stewing, even though I offered a grin. Not only had working with clients for years given me the ability to fake a friendly face even if my heart wasn't in it, but I was a middle child in a family of five. Between my needy younger siblings and my older sibs who hogged the limelight, I'd gotten used to being the one who didn't cause any problems.

Which also meant I got overlooked a lot, but ce qui sera, sera .

"I feel like you need to hit me or something," Chloe said, wrinkling her nose.

I cast her a firm look. "No, I'm not resorting to violence, even if that's what your masochistic ass likes."

She sniffed. "Well, then I'll find someone else to beat my ass."

"I'm sure that won't be difficult for you," I said, unable to help the sarcasm. "And, Greg, let me know how the D&D game goes. I might be curious in six months when I've got an abundance of free time."

"Catty, ouch." Chloe flicked me in the side.

"I'll miss you." I tipped my head against hers, my chest squeezing tight. " Mon petite gosse ."

"See, you say something nice and then ruin it," she said, her wry grin causing her brown eyes to crinkle at the edges.

"You know that's my secret talent." Truth be told, I only mouthed off like this with the few who'd tolerate it. With most others, I babbled a million miles an hour, but I was a lot more sunshine.

Zo approached, their tray laden with our orders.

They plunked the glass of water down in front of me. "Think this is enough?"

"Dunno. What if I spill some?" I flirted, mimicking a pour over my shirt.

Zo fixed me with another look. "Well, you'll be cold and sad, I guess. I'm not letting you strip down in the middle of Randy's."

"What sort of bordello is this?" Chloe said with a mock gasp as Zo performed their magic by distributing the plates in record time. My pancakes were perfect circles, a pat of butter melting in the middle.

"You can take it up with the boss," Zo called back as they strolled away.

"Has anyone actually met your boss?" I asked. Zo shook their head, letting out a bark of a laugh.

"She's clearly a trenchcoat full of otters," Xavier's voice came out sleepy and muffled.

"You're among the living," Chloe cheered. "Just in time for food."

"I got you a blueberry muffin, sweetheart." Greg passed a toasted and buttered muffin over to Xavier, who was blinking the sleep out of his eyes. My heart squeezed tight, the way it sometimes did around the two of them. Couples in love tended to do that to me, prick me with jealousy whenever I felt a little vulnerable. And given Chloe's bomb drop, I was definitely unmoored.

Such a massive change made the idea of finding "the one" or at least someone willing to see past the five million masks I wore even more alluring.

Too bad I was light-years away from any success on that front.

"I'm going to hit the bathroom before diving into this." The urge to take a breather rose in a big way. Luckily, the bathrooms at Randy's were gender-neutral, so no matter if it was a masc or femme day, I never needed to worry.

"Aren't you doing things backward? Eat the food, then shit it out?" Chloe stabbed a fry with her fork.

"You're one to talk, Miss Forking her Finger Foods." I pushed up from the seat and strolled toward the bathrooms. On the corkboard to my right hung the D&D flyer Greg had mentioned.

Beside it was a different sheet of paper.

Room for Rent in downtown Boston. Not a mystical portal to an alternate dimension but willing to test out any theories.

Not on goats though.

No goat sacrifice.

A laugh ripped from my throat. Well, fuck. I ripped one of the numbers off the bottom of the flyer and continued to the bathroom.

It couldn't hurt to call, could it?