On the way to the club, a long black limo pulled up to a stop light where Treston was waiting to cross the street. Treston had decided to walk to work. It wasn't as hot as it had been earlier that week and he still had plenty of time to spare. While he stood there and waited for the light to change, he thought about how Lyon's first night doing the ping-pong ball act would turn out. Treston would be on stage with Lyon that night to help him out; they'd agreed to do a rare dual act so Lyon could get the hang of it, so to speak. But Treston had to admit he had his reservations. He'd been working with Lyon all week, showing him how to insert the ping-pong ball shooter into his ass so he could reach back and pull the trigger to create the illusion. And every single time the tip of the ping-pong ball shooter touched Lyon's anus, he screamed out in pain. When it was actually in him, as hard as he tried to smile, a look of pure discomfort would have been the only way to describe his expression.
The stoplight seemed to take forever to change. When Treston glanced at his watch to check on the time, the back window of the limo went down and a familiar voice said, "How about a lift to work?"
Treston glanced to the left and saw Chad Pratt's head poking through the open window. He'd started to grow a beard and there were cute little flecks of silver mingled with sandy blond stubble. For a second, he found it hard to exhale. "No, thank you, Jesus. I'm not that far away. I don't mind walking."
Chad laughed. The light changed and neither one of them made an attempt to move forward. "I see you've heard about my new movie. I'm growing a beard to get into character. I always become the character when I play a part. What do you think of it?"
Treston tilted his head one way, and then the other. He pressed his index finger to his chin and said, "I love the beard, but I'm not sure about the Jesus part. Because the day you play Jesus we're all in for trouble. Judas, yes. But not Jesus."
"Don't be mean," Chad said. "C'mon. Get in. I'll take you to work. You can sit on my lap and we'll do bad things."
"No, thank you." There was something about this man that made him smile and feel alive again. Treston felt drawn to him, as if an invisible force were pulling him into the limo. But he'd felt that way before about all the bad boys he'd fallen in love with and he wasn't going to let that happen again.
"Then I'll just have to come and see the show tonight," Chad said. "I've been missing you."
Treston set the backpack down on the pavement and clenched his fists. He walked up to the back door of the limo and glared at Chad. "Don't you dare show up tonight. This is my last night at the club and they're throwing a party for me. I'm moving out of my apartment on Sunday morning and I'm getting married to the man I love on Sunday afternoon. Cooper's coming to the party tonight and I don't want you there ruining things for me."
Chad stopped smiling. "So you're really going to do this. When Chickey told me I wasn't sure you'd actually do it."
"Yes, I'm really going to do it. I'm in love. And I would appreciate it if you didn't talk to Chickey about me."
"I've been keeping tabs," Chad said. "It's all harmless and Chickey's an old friend."
"Some people would call it stalking," Treston said.
Chad didn't actually frown, but he did send Treston one of the most intense looks anyone had sent him in years. He tilted his head and asked, "Are you happy?"
Treston hesitated for a moment. With Chad it was hard to tell if he was acting. This was the last thing Treston had expected him to say. He said, "I finally figured out how to not only change my life, but my circumstances. And most guys like me never figure that out. Cooper's one of the good guys."
Chad did not hesitate to reply. "I didn't ask you that. I'm sure this Chad is more like Jesus than Jesus himself. I asked you if you were happy."
Treston rolled his eyes. When Chad looked at him this way, he felt like gulping. It frightened him even more when he realized he wanted to get into the limo with him and hold him in his arms. But he wasn't falling for it anymore. No shifty, lying cheater would ever leave him naked at Lake Mead again. "Yes, I'm happy."
Chad winked at him and said, "That's all I wanted to know." Then he put the window up and told the driver to leave.
Although Treston's regular Saturday night performance began at eleven o'clock and ran until eleven thirty, that night Chickey was trying out a new act where a young guy went out on stage and juggled six balls while wearing nothing but a sock over his dick and two fringed pasties over his nipples. Treston thought it was actually a very interesting act and he would have been intimidated if that hadn't been his last night at the club. The guy was damn good and Treston knew it. Instead of coming out on stage at the beginning of his act in a flamboyant fantasy cop or fireman costume like the other strippers did, this guy just loped out on stage in regular street clothes and he looked like any other straight young male tourist on the streets of Las Vegas. The fact that he didn't know how to dance at all only made it better. He had one of those naturally stocky bodies with just the right amount of hair everywhere. That night he moved his cute legs in every direction, except to the beat of the music-an old-fashioned retro stripper song women used to dance to. When he went out on stage, wearing flip-flops, baggy shorts, and a blue and white polo shirt, the men watching the show actually started to roar. And when he stripped down and started juggling the balls wearing the sock and pasties, they pounded the tables so hard one actually tipped over.