He assumes I’m not from New York. Which I guess is fair; maybe I’ve fully assimilated into LA culture at this point by necessity, if not by intention. Not that I ever felt like I really fit in.
“Crown Heights,” I say.
“No way. I thought for sure you were gonna say some Chicago suburb I’ve never heard of.”
I make a face at him. “Please. With that accent, it’s not like you grew up on the hard streets of the Upper West Side.”
“North Carolina,” he admits, “but I’ve been here for thirteen years. Plenty of time to drink every flavor of LaCroix from every bodega in the tristate area.”
He’s standing closer to me now, somehow, even though I don’t remember either of us moving. I bend my knee slightly, and it brushes his leg; our hips are near enough I’m hyperaware of it, our proximity like a heat that only intensifies in the space between us.
“I’ll keep spending half my paycheck on overpriced seltzer. Better than spending my whole paycheck on bourbon.”
“Valid,” he says. “Do you want to dance?”
I can tell I’m blushing from the way my cheeks suddenly feel sunburnt. It’s dark enough in this place, though, that he probably doesn’t notice. “Yes,” I say. “But…”
One of his brows goes up. “But? I’m bracing myself.”
I’m not entirely sure how to put this.
“But…aren’t you gay?” I say at last, and punctuate it with a sip of my lemon seltzer. It’s a fair question. I mean, he’s in here. A gay club. “I mean, not that I won’t dance with you if you are. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page here.”
Jamie Look-alike laughs and shakes his head. “No. I’m not gay.”
“Bi, then?”
“Nope.”
I feel like there’s some obvious puzzle piece here I’m supposed to see that I’m somehow missing. I frown. “All right…cool, I guess. But why are you here if you’re straight? Please tell me you aren’t one of those het guys who thinks they can convert lesbians.”
“Are you lesbian?”
“Well…no, but that’s beside the point.”
He’s laughing again, and I’m still trying to decide if that’s irritating or not when he says, “I’m trans. That’s why I’m here. I’m a heterosexual trans man.”
“Oh.” Now I feel like an asshole. “That makes sense. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Seriously.”
My whole face is burning; I try to hide it with a quick gulp of water. I feel like some kind of weird gatekeeper now, interrogating him for being here, trying to figure out if he’s straight or not, like there aren’t options under LGBTQ besides gay and bi.
But Jamie Look-alike just offers me his hand, brows lifting. “You look like you want to disappear right now. Maybe instead of a vanishing act, you give me that dance?”
“Yes. Please.”
He takes my water with surprising gentleness and sets it aside on the bar. And then he’s leading me into the crowd, into the humid, sweat-scented, bass-thumping surge of human bodies. On the floor, the lights glitter silver and pink; they warm Jamie’s pale-gold skin and gleam along his sharp cheekbones, melding like watercolors among the tattoos on his forearms, his chest. I have no idea what happened to Ophelia and Diego, but the moment I would have spared to worry was subsumed by the man’s hands finding my waist, drawing me in close.
We fit together a little too perfectly: his firm body against mine, my hands on his broad shoulders, and his face close enough to mine that, even in this light, I can make out the faintest smattering of peppery freckles scattered across his nose. Something in my stomach coils just a little bit tighter—and we begin to dance.
Two hours ago I would have said I was a shitty dancer without liquor. Self-conscious, awkward, too aware of all the places my feet are and aren’t supposed to go. Maybe it’s that I know my partner is sober too, that we’re both inebriated by nothing but the music and each other, but it’s easier now. The beat finds its way into my bones, and I shift a little closer to his heat. His hands slide down to my hips, and I reach for his wrists and redirect them so his palms are cupping my ass instead.
He smirks, the cut of his lips knife-sharp in the flickering strobe lights—a blade I’d all-too-willingly impale myself on.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“What?” he mouths back.
It’s loud, the bass line a steady thrum that all but vibrates in my core. I repeat myself, shouting a little to make sure he can hear:
“What’s your name?”
The guy says something back, but it’s impossible to hear over the music.
I scrunch my brows together and say, “What?”
He says it again, and at this point it would be embarrassing to ask him to say it a third time, so I just grin and nod as if I understood him. Doesn’t matter anyway; I seriously doubt I’ll see him again after tonight, as he doesn’t strike me as the long-term-relationship-with-a-dog-and-a-rotating-chore-list kind of dude. I shout back my own name when he asks (or, well, I assume that’s what he was asking), and he grins at me too. Whether he heard me is anyone’s bet.
Normally, I start making my excuses to find a new partner around the third song. But I keep dancing with Jamie—or whomever—into the fourth song, the fifth, sixth. When his touch skims my bare skin, I feel electrified, the soft gust of his breath against the curve of my ear sends a thrill spinning down my spine. And then I’m kissing him, my hands slipping into his messy brown hair and his sliding down my ribs, pulling me in closer. He tastes like lemon and something sweet. Something sugary.
When the kiss breaks, he stays there, near enough that our lips graze, the tip of his nose warm when it brushes mine. And this time I can actually hear him when he says, “Do you want to go somewhere that isn’t here?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
I shoot off a quick text to Ophelia as we wind our way through the crowd toward the doors—texting one-handed because my new friend has laced the fingers of my left hand together with his, guiding us between strange bodies without losing that link between us. He picks up a backpack at coat check, and I shake my head when he asks if I left anything there.
The night air is cool when we step out onto the sidewalk, refreshing on the nape of my neck after so long in the overheated club. The guy is still holding my hand, his palm soft and his grasp firm, steadying, around mine.
“I live in Bushwick,” he tells me. “Are you any closer?”