I hate leaving things unsettled.
Clayton is my go-to guy. He’s always been. I’d text him and tell him when I’m having issues with a girl, or when things aren’t right in my life, or when I just want a friend. His absence is doing something to me. It’s changing me.
It’s forcing me to stand up on my own feet.
As if to exaggerate this very point I’m making, when I get back to the front of the lobby, I find Dmitri hanging out with Dessie and Chloe and their friends. There’s no way I’m joining them, not after what I endured at lunch today.
Great. I’m officially on my own.
“Girlfriend, you got some serious nerve.”
I turn and lift an eyebrow at the unfamiliar, deep voice. A very tall, very built and sculpted black god (or goddess?) with long platinum hair and drawn-on eyebrows stares down at me. He’s clad in a skintight black sleeveless shirt and pants that I imagine can’t be put on without some form of lubricant.
“Uh, sorry?”
“You, showing up here,” he says, smirking, “like there isn’t anything wrong, like nothing’s amiss, like you can just swallow up the canary and crawl back here, you little sexy pussy cat you.” His eyes run down my body, then come back up to meet my face, his lips pursing.
I seriously can’t tell if I’m being checked out or scolded right now. “Do I know you, bro?”
“I’m Avery. And you’re Brant, if I’m recognizing your pretty face from the pic on Candy’s phone. Not the dick pic. You can stop your gaping; I know I’m the sexiest thing you’ve seen all day. Shut up. Candy told me everything.”
He talks fast. “Candy? Oh, Candace. Right. Dancer. And … you’re a dancer,” I conclude, putting the relationship together. “You got some sick arms there, Avery. You … You look like you could lift a dude in the air and do twenty pirouettes without breaking a sweat.”
“Mmm-hmm. Ooh, I’d lift you, that’s for sure. Damn …” he sings, giving me another onceover. “No wonder she got all stupid over you.”
“She’s a great girl. I did her wrong.”
His eyes meet mine. Then, unexpectedly, he leans forward and his voice goes low and quiet. “Y’know, if you’re not doing anything after the show …”
I lift my eyebrows. “Huh?”
“C’mon, bubble boy, don’t be shy.” His quiet voice is like night and day to his colorful scolding one a second ago. “I can totally keep a secret … you lean, mean, tight n’ humpy machine, you.”
“I’m not following.”
His lips pinch again, an eyebrow lifting quizzically. “Pretty boy like you? Living in an apartment with two other mo-mos? Girl, everyone knows. C’mon, you can tell Mama Avery. Just tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Fill my spank bank. Mama’s lonely. C’mon.”
“Seriously, I—”
“Candy told everyone in jazz today. I just need to hear it from the horse’s pretty mouth so that all my straight-boy-gone-gay fantasies can come true.”
I’m starting to piece together a puzzle. Call me slow, or call me distracted by a big black muscle guy in makeup and a wig, but I think the implication he’s making is clear. “You think I’m gay now?”
He lifts his eyebrows expectantly.
“Candace is telling people that?” I ask him bluntly. “Because I live with a pair of gay guys? First off, that’s homophobic, to insinuate that a straight dude like me can’t coexist amicably with a pair of gay dudes. Fuck everyone for thinking that. And second off,” I merrily push on, keeping my cool despite my height literally coming up only to this Avery person’s chest, “Dmitri is bi, not gay, and I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m a firm and devout worshipper of the pussy god of lady luck. Dick’s not my thing.”
Avery frowns. “Well, well. Crush all a lady’s dreams, why don’t you.”
“Dream crusher by day, pussy destroyer by night.”
“Hmm.” He squints at me, a smile playing into his lips. “I think I like you anyway, Branty-boy.”
“I really didn’t mean to hurt Candace.”
“I can tell.” He gives me a shrug, then does half a pirouette and says, “Well, well. Carry on with your being sexy and all that. Just know, I got my eye on you.”
“Noted.” I give him a tentative nod.
“Such a shame,” I hear him mumble as he sashays into the crowd, disappearing as fast as he’d come.
I’m not sure how I feel about Candace spreading that rumor. On one hand, it doesn’t bother me because regardless of whether girls think I’m gay or not, it obviously doesn’t stop them from hitting on me. On the other hand, she’s probably just saving face, telling people I’m gay to spare her friends from knowing the truth: that she got bossed-and-tossed by the infamous man-whore Brant.