[ chapter 17 ]

By the time we arrived at the club it was already filled with people who were dancing to the beat of some pop song that sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I knew it from or even who was singing it. It didn’t really matter anyway, the beat was good and I nodded my head to the music as Cayden and I made our way to the bar through the crowd of people.

Getting into the club really hadn’t been a problem. The bouncer had let us in without asking either of us for our IDs. I guess I really did look old today, but I didn’t mind. I probably would’ve felt guilty about slipping the guy a twenty to get into some place I wasn’t supposed to be, doing something I wasn’t allowed to be doing.

“To getting drunk off our asses.” Cayden said and held a glass of beer out to me.

I accepted it with a smile and muttered an ‘amen’ before I clunk my glass against his and took a sip of the cold drink. The alcohol burned my throat slightly, because I really wasn’t used to drinking. Cayden saw me pull a face and he grinned amusedly, but didn’t say anything about it, though I could see in his eyes that he really wanted to and that he was doing his best to hold it back.

We both turned around to lean our backs against the bar as we looked out over the crowd of bodies that were moving to a club re-mix of Shakira’s whenever wherever. It was a song to really let hips move against one another and everyone seemed to be taking advantage of it, one girl in particular. She was probably a belly dancer or something, because I’d never seen anyone move like that and I stared a good couple of seconds before I nudged Cayden with my elbow, only to find he was already watching her too. We shared a look that told me he was thinking the same thing I was thinking; that the moves she was making weren’t human unless she was a contortionist or something equally weird.

The club was actually really nice, which neither of us had really expected when we’d ask the cabdriver to take us to a club with music that wasn’t hiphop, constant trance or screamo music. The driver had looked like the kind of guy that would drive you halfway through town just to make more money out of you before ditching you at some shitty club, but he’d proven us wrong (on the ditching us at a shitty club part, because I was sure that he’d indeed driven us halfway across town) and it made me wish we’d left him a bigger tip. It was really the kind of club that was laid back with a few lounge chairs, some good pop/rock/easy-to-dance-to music and a good overall vibe. It wasn’t too classy, nor too trashy and it seemed like the kind of place where you could get drunk without getting into a fight with anyone when you accidentally stepped on their toes.

We downed our first beer in complete silence. I wasn’t exactly sure what Cayden was thinking of, but if what was going through my own head was any indication, than he was probably thinking about the night’s earlier events too. Yeah, sure, I said that I didn’t care about what others thought, but it wasn’t exactly true, I only wished it was. Of course I cared, they were me brothers and friends, they were the people that were supposed to understand. Fuck what random strangers would think when I came out, but their thoughts did matter and right now, their thoughts on it hurt.

I wondered if all those people out on the dance floor knew how lucky they were to just be able to go out with the guy or girl they liked and not having to deal with all the crap everyone else was giving them about it. I know being straight isn’t always easy either, because you still have to deal with being in love with someone who might not like you back and with best friends telling you they’re gay, but most of the time being straight doesn’t cause you to feel like you’re losing your family and the career you worked so hard for all your life, although I know that it does happen sometimes when religion or money gets in the way. But it’s not as if anyone looks at a guy likes he’s diseased or something when he’s dancing with a girl, but they do look at you like that when you dance too closely to another guy or even just hold hands while walking out on the streets. I haven’t experienced that yet, but I know that it’s something that is simply inevitable when you’re gay. I mean, even my own brother can’t look at me normally, let alone some stranger who doesn’t know what kind of person I really am, aside of gay.

Those thoughts were kind of depressing, so I took the last gulp of my beer and stared in the glass disappointedly, because it seemed empty way too quickly. Thankfully I had Cayden, because before I could even turn around and order a new one he’d already grabbed my empty glass from my hand and placed a new one inside of it. What more could you wish for in a guy? I gave him a thankful smile and took a long drink, finishing about one-fourth of the glass in one go before I noticed he was still looking at me.

“What?” I asked raising an eyebrow questionably while I wondered if any of the foam of the beer was still resting on my upper lip and I wiped the back of my hand over it, just in case it was.

He laughed. “Nothing. I was just wondering how many beers it would take for you to get drunk.” He said as he leaned closer to me, making our shoulders and upper arms touch, to make himself audible over the loud music.

I shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to keep count.” I said with a slight smirk, because I honestly had no idea. It wasn’t as if I’d kept count of the amount of alcohol I had consumed the last time I’d been drunk. All I knew is that it wasn’t as much as Taylor and Isaac had drank and they’d barely even been tipsy. The only excuse for that was being sixteen and inexperienced, and that hadn’t really changed now aside of my age.

He smiled back at me. “I will.” He ensured me with a twinkle in his eyes. “Just keep on drinking Hanson.”

I rolled my eyes slightly and brought the glass back to my lips to take another gulp and another and another, until we were both on our third glass. I was starting to feel lighter in the head and everything seemed to register more slowly and my body seemed to be buzzing, kind of, and it felt gooood, mostly because anything that happened earlier that day seemed to be temporarily erased from my mind and that already made me relax a great deal. I was actually kind of slumped against Cayden, our elbows, upper arms and shoulders touching, but it was fine because no one seemed to think it was strange. It was a club and everyone was standing closely together to be able to hear each other or simply because they’d drunk too much, so Cayden and I didn’t stand out at all.

Every now and then we’d say something to each other, mostly to comment about other people and each time we said something to each other he placed his hand on my shoulder and turned his body to me and brought his lips close to my ear so he didn’t have to shout so loud and each time it made a pleasant shiver pull through my body, especially when he laughed at something I said which made his warm breath tickle against my ear. I really wanted to kiss him or hold his hand or touch him in some other intimate way, but I was too afraid that once I did that, that somehow a big spotlight would be turned our way so everyone could see what we were doing. So instead, I just leaned against him and enjoyed the occasional feeling of his hand on my shoulder and the closeness of his face when he spoke. I knew I’d be alone with him later and that made it okay, because for now it seemed I had to share him.

Cayden and I both turned around when we felt a tap on our shoulders from the bartender, who then kindly informed us that the two shots in front of us were from the two girls, though I should probably say woman, at the other end of the bar. They were both blond and pretty well shaped in all the areas Isaac seemed to find important in women, and over half of the time that wasn’t their brain.

Cayden and I exchanged amused looks before we raised the glasses their way and downed the shots. It was a lot stronger than the beer had been and I coughed as the alcohol burned down my throat. Cayden laughed and clapped me on the back as a grin rested on his face. I wanted to comment on it, but I really had nothing useful to say so I just kept my mouth shut and very maturely pushed him away from me a bit, which only made him laugh harder. I sighed, feigning to be insulted and he put his hand on mine for a second and gave it a soft squeeze before he let go again to turn around to the two girls who were now standing behind us.

“We could use some company.” The tallest said and smiled a flirty smile, obviously pretty intoxicated.

“Yes, that was really smooth and subtle, just like we discussed.” Her friend said with a laugh and held her hand out to me and I shook it. “I’m Tiffany.” She said and smiled.

“Zac.” I told her and smiled back at her. They seemed amusing, at the least.

Her friend’s name was Heidi and everything about them screamed that they were perfect little rich kids or had boyfriends who spend way more money on them than they should, because they were quite obviously flirting with us and unknowingly wasting their time by doing it, because it wasn’t going to happen. That, however, didn’t mean that it wasn’t fun to talk to them or to see them pull all of their flirting skills out of the closet. I was simply glad I got the less crazy and drunk one, because Heidi was a little too over the top for me, well, even more so than Tiffany. I was still thoroughly enjoying myself and the alcohol was definitely helping with that, because it wasn’t normally anything like me to just flirt like this, but I really didn’t care right now. I was having a good time and Cayden seemed to enjoy himself too, so it was all good in my book.

“So, you guys dance or what?” Heidi asked as she looked at Cayden hopefully.

I turned my head to him to see his reaction and at the same time he seemed to turn his head to me with a somewhat helpless look on his face. As if he was expecting me to answer the question for him and maybe in a way that wasn’t so weird, because he was mine and it would be kind of weird to see him dance with someone else, but at the same time I really wanted to see him dance, even if it wasn’t with me, even if it meant that I was going to have to dance with someone else too. I wasn’t a big dancer, but then again, I was really tipsy.

I shrugged my shoulders just the slightest bit to tell him that it was his choice and that I was fine with whatever it was he decided and apparently we were dancing, because he nodded his approval to the bouncy blonde in front of him. That’s why before I full well knew it I was already dragged half way down the dance floor by my own bouncy blonde. If you’d told me at the beginning of the night that this was what I would end up doing, I would’ve told you that you needed to get your head checked, but apparently I needed to get mine checked instead.

I was dancing. With a girl. Who was practically all over me. Her hands were way too close to my butt and her hips were a little too close and too grinding for comfort and her boobs were pressing against my chest and it strongly reminded me of why I didn’t like girls, but I was still enjoying it and I was still dancing back against her, because my eyes were on Cayden and his were on mine and in my head it was him I was dancing with. In my mind it were his hips that were grinding into mine and his hands that were resting inside the back pockets of my jeans, because that’s where her hands had gone. And in my head his lips were pressed against mine and it made me lick my lips and when I saw him lick his own lips I knew that he was thinking the exact same thing. My heart beat sped up and all I really wanted to do was press him against a wall and kiss him like no one was watching, but instead I was startled by a pair of lips against my own neck that definitely weren’t Cayden’s.

I pulled away from her like she was diseased or something and looked at Cayden wide-eyed before I looked back at her to see her confused and slightly hurt expression. As an explanation I told her that I already had a girlfriend, which wasn’t entirely untrue and she informed me that she didn’t care and that the girl wasn’t going to find out, which I thought was going to be extremely difficult since the “girl” in question was standing no less than two feet away from us. Instead of telling her that, I told her that I wasn’t that kind of guy to cheat on someone, for which she slapped me in the face, quite hard, before she called me an asshole for leading her on and then pulled her friend away from Cayden too and shouted some more about what assholes we both were, even though Cayden hadn’t done anything, but apparently being my friend was a crime at the moment too.

I could do nothing else but look after them with my mouth hanging open in complete surprise and shock. I would never understand women. They wanted a guy that was loyal, but when he was loyal (even if it was to someone else) they slapped him in the face. I was utterly shocked, because there wasn’t a part of me that had seen that coming. Cayden, on the other hand, was extremely amused and couldn’t stop laughing for a good five minutes after she’d slapped me in the face. As a punishment for that I made him buy me another shot which he hardly considered a punishment, I’m sure, but I needed it. My ego was bruised.

“Dude, that was the funniest thing ever.” Cayden said and burst out in laughter again after he’d downed his own shot.

“Yeah, yeah.” I muttered though I couldn’t help but to smile, because it was indeed incredibly funny, when you looked past the fact that it had just happened to me and the alcohol made that a whole lot easier.

“See.” He said and pointed at my smile with a proud grin on his face, which made me smile even more, because he was so fucking cute. “God, Ike’s going to die when I tell him this.”

“Hey, wow! No one is telling this to anyone, because I’m never going to live it down otherwise.” I said looking at him in utter shock.

“But it’s sooo funny!” He objected, dragging the ‘so’ out way longer than necessary, but apparently he was trying to make a point with it. I gave him my best death glare in response, though I had a bit of trouble focusing on his face.

He huffed. “Fine. What do I get if I don’t tell him?” He asked with a challenging smirk.

I laughed. “Fucking bribery.” I muttered not loud enough for him to hear as I shook my head disappointedly. You somehow would’ve expected that being his boyfriend and me just asking him to keep this between us would be enough, but no, he wanted something in return. “A kiss?” I offered weakly.

He raised his eyebrow in response, wordlessly asking me if that was all I had to offer.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, a kiss in your neck and a slap in your face?” I asked mockingly.

He laughed loudly at that. “Deal.” He said and I had to look at him to make sure he wasn’t fooling me, but he didn’t seem to be. I’m sure there was some sort of logic as to why he had settled on this deal, but my hazy mind couldn’t be bothered to think of it and I wasn’t going to push it to do so either, because who cared. It was an easy deal, although I didn’t particularly wanted to hit him in the face, unless he kept teasing me about it until we were back at the hotel. As much as I adored him, I might actually want to slap him then.