I shouldn’t run after a boy like Dillon Manning, but the way he fucked me… well, it made me want to come back for more. And so here I am, pulling up to a party of all things. Just so I might get a chance to feel him inside of me again.

Dillon opens the car door for me, and I get out onto the manicured brick walkway that leads up to Nikki Rippon’s house. I like Nikki just fine, and Fox is truly good people. Total white hat, one of the good guys. I have the utmost respect for both of them.

But I fucking hate parties. Dillon is truly the only one who could drag my ass out here. I grumble nervously. I’ve never been invited to one of these things on my own—and I doubt I ever would have come if it weren’t for Dillon.

The lights inside their grand house are bright, and I see throngs of people inside.

“Um, can we just go out for drinks?” I cringe and look at Dillon.

Dillon takes my arm and leads me up the steps. “It’ll be fun,” Dillon promises. “You’ll see. Nikki and Fox know how to throw a party. The food is always great. There’s always an open bar. He’s invited half the state. It’s Fox’s birthday. Nikki’s pulled out all the stops.”

That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. I’m not a party person. Never have been. Which goes a long way toward explaining why I’m thirty-years-old and have ever only had one real boyfriend before Dillon.

I guess Dillon is my boyfriend? Maybe?

I give him a look, but he doesn’t notice it.

I can’t figure out exactly what we’re doing. We hang out together. The sex is amazing. But he keeps me at arm’s length half the time, playing me like a yo-yo on a string.

It’s frustrating, because I…. Well, I haven’t felt this way about anyone, ever. Every time I get close enough to say how I feel, to talk about our relationship, he pulls back and shuts me down.

“I guess,” I observe, feeling the resignation in my tone. “Just stay close. I don’t know many people are here yet, and I hate feeling like the wallflower.”

Dillon slips his arms around my waist, pulling me close as we walk inside. His scent, enhanced with just a hint of aftershave, lifts to my nostrils; fuck I’ve never met a man that smells as good as he does.

“There’s no chance of you being the wallflower,” he says, his cool gray eyes fixing on mine. “Look at you. You’re the hottest guy in five counties. You’ll get to know people. You know Nikki. You know Fox. You know Gil and Kendall. You know plenty of people and they all love you as much as I do.”

Dillon uses that word ‘love’ so casually in conversation, like you might describe a pair of shoes or a piece of pie. ‘I love your outfit!’ or ‘I love Hawaiian pizza.’ He never says the word when it risks anything deeper than the superficial. He never closes the emotional space between us to make room for ‘I love you.’

He’s got some serious walls, but I’m patient. I just need to find my way over or under—or a key to the bolted doors that’ll get me through. If he wants to let me in, he’ll figure out how to help me. If he doesn’t, then I’ll respect that too.

At this point though? I’m not ready to give up on him.

I don’t know if Dillon is quite ready for what I want from him. I don’t know if he ever will be. I look at my sister Kathi and her wife, Griff, and I see in them what I want for myself: a happy, committed partnership without walls or locked doors or unpacked baggage. They’ve been together fifteen years and they’re as in love with one another now as they were when they first got together. Nothing in life’s journey perfect, but watching those two, I know it’s better when you’ve got a well-matched partner to do the journey with.

Dillon hasn’t figured that out yet. He’s still playing at being a grown-up, spending half his time acting half his age, while all his friends—his best friends, Gil included—move forward, settling down, building futures for themselves with someone who loves them.

I guess he’s just not ready. And that’s okay.

Maybe I’ll be around when he is. And maybe I won’t.

* * *

Dillon wasn’t kidding when he said Nikki Rippon pulled out all the stops for his husband’s birthday party. Nikki’s husband, Fox Lee, is older than the rest of us. He’s also the county District Attorney, a pillar of the community, and probably the most unapologetically comfortable-in-his-own-skin gay man I’ve met.

When we get to the party, the first thing begging my attention is Nikki and Fox in the center of the living room, surrounded by a crowd of friends. Nikki’s resplendent in a shimmering silk tank top and red leather short-shorts, with a feather boa wrapped around his elegant neck, draped over his shoulders. He’s slightly built with long shapely legs made all the longer and more sublime by staggeringly high-heeled ruby encrusted slippers straight out of The Wizard of Oz.

Fox has his arm draped comfortably over Nikki’s shoulder, striking the perfect foil to Nikki’s flamboyance. Fox is conservatively dressed in slightly faded Levi’s, a pressed Oxford shirt clinging to his broad, muscled shoulders, and penny loafers. He looks like somebody’s hot dad who just beamed into the Moulin Rouge, took a look around and decided to have a drink and watch the freak show. He’s thoroughly amused with the scene, but he seems apart from it somehow.

I know that feeling, but I’ve had a lot less practice at it than Fox. I’m not nearly so comfortable.

“I’ll grab us a drink,” Dillon announces. “Be right back.”

There are at least a hundred people crowded into the house, huddled in groups, clinging to red plastic cups filled with social lubrication. They all look flush and happy, at ease. I survey the faces surrounding me; there’s no one I know. I feel a tiny trickle of sweat form between my shoulder blades, dribbling down. The music is loud and distracting, thumping with deep bass rhythm punctuated by the sporadic eruption of laughter from various directions throughout the big open space.

Across the room a brief commotion arises as a handful of college-age girls and boys blow in from outside, all dripping wet and mostly naked. They tear through the party-goers, parting the crowd, laughing loudly. They chase one another, coming in all shades from pale to tan, their tattooed and pierced bodies gleaming. As quick as they come, they’re gone, disappeared up the stairs and around the corner at the balcony landing. The swath they cut through the partiers closes. People return to their idles, forgetting the momentary distraction.

If there’s an afterlife, this is my version of Hell.

Dillon reappears, pressing a red cup into my hand.

“Drink that and loosen up,” he says. “It’s a party. You’re supposed to have fun.”

I nod, smiling weakly. “Right,” I say, lifting the cup to my lips, tasting ice-cold beer, feeling the fizz crackle on my tongue.

“Dillon!” someone calls from behind us.

We turn. It’s Carrie Jackson, the Assistant Chief of Police, with her wife who I haven’t met but have seen around. I don’t know her name.

Dillon beams, hugging them both, not bothering to introduce me.

“I was starting to think you were lost,” Carrie states. “Or working. Gil’s around here somewhere. He was asking about you.”

“He’ll find me,” Dillon replies. “Unless he’s already holed up somewhere snug with Kendall. Those two hardly come up for air anymore.”

She laughs, nodding in agreement. “Yeah,” she says. “But he’s happy. He’s not holed up tonight though. He’s free-ranging. Kendall’s catering the party so he’s up to his eyeballs in sushi, tofu meatballs, and birthday cake. If you haven’t checked out the spread, you should. It’s great!”

“I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast,” I say, taking another swig of beer. “You’re making me hungry, Carrie.”

She winks at me. “Plenty to eat. Plenty to drink. Thank God for Nikki.”

I smile, hoping that I’m wearing the right kind of smile for small talk. I’m hopeless at this. God.

“We will,” Dillon says. “But first, I want to see what Nikki’s put together outside. I hear he hired some performance artist from Richmond to do a light and sound show.”

Carrie’s wife smiles, nodding enthusiastically. “You’ve got to see it! It’s amazing. It’s big and loud and crazy cool!”

I find myself being corralled through the throng of people toward the rear of the sprawling house. A wall of sliding glass doors opens wide to the back of the house, revealing the concrete and stone pool deck, and the spacious lawn beyond. The lawn has been transformed into what can only be described as a scene out of some pop-up rave, or a New York City night club scene. There are fifty-foot tall screens dancing with random images, colors, flashing words, all cut together masterfully. The video production throbs in perfect synchrony with music produced from a center-stage array of turntables, keyboards, and laptop computers being played by a towering Amazon of a woman with caramel colored skin and a nest of butterscotch dreadlocks tumbling down her back. She stands inside a shimmering spotlight, eyes closed, making the show without seeing it herself, as if she’s deep inside a trance.

At her feet, a sea of dancer’s writhe, flowing with the beats, illuminated in a wash of technicolor lights that rise and fall like a tide.

“Jesus,” I hear myself half-whisper.

The scene isn’t something typical of Abingdon. Not by a long shot.

“I don’t know where Nikki gets this stuff,” Carrie observes, as enthralled as I am. “I don’t know where all these people come from either. But it sure is fascinating to watch. Clearly, I need to get out more.”

Her wife laughs, hugging her close. “No, you don’t! You need to stay right here, safe and sound with me!”

Dillon slips his hand into mine, pulling me forward, toward the black-light and laser show scene. “Let’s dance!” he urges me, swigging his beer, finishing it. I’ve barely touched mine.

“I need to drink more before I’m brave enough to tackle that,” I say. “Please?”

He cocks his head at me, grinning. “Then finish your beer,” he insists. “I want to dance.”

Jesus. The things I do to make this man happy.

I can dance, and so I do, but it’s not my favorite thing, at least not sober. It’s made all the more awkward because it’s clear I’m the only sober one in this crowd. A few minutes in, and Dillon’s got another drink in his hand, guzzling thirstily. It leaves him grinning, flush with sweat, dancing with me and everyone else.

Another few moments and he’s lost in the music and lights, dancing only with himself, meandering into the mass of bodies, oblivious to me, oblivious to them, just part of the sonic magic of the moment. He’s beautiful, lost in it, eyes closed, soaking in the atmosphere. Dillon doesn’t need me hanging onto him or trying to keep up. He’s surfing with himself, glowing, incandescent. I stand still while a world of bodies roils around me, just watching him.

He doesn’t need me. Maybe he never will.

I leave Dillon to his dreamy music, backing out of the rave crowd to head inside where the grown-ups have congregated, going in search of bodily sustenance and quiet. The buffet table is laid out with a spread of high-end nosh fit for a royal wedding. I help myself to a plate full of sushi rolls, a mound of shaved, smoked salmon, and an array of pickled, spicy cucumbers, ginger, and vegetables that send my palate into a realm of satisfied delight.

If there was only a quiet place to sit down and enjoy it, away from the maddening crowd, I could almost be contented.

I saw Kendall a few moments ago, disappearing behind a closed door, empty platters in hand. I make my way with my plate in that direction, hoping to find a little solace in the kitchen and maybe a familiar face. What I find instead is a beehive of activity with Kendall at the center. He’s directing a legion of cooks and waiters, arranging trays of appetizers, completely absorbed in his work.

“Nope! Nope! Nope!” an old woman shouts in my direction, pointing a crooked finger at me. “No civilians in the kitchen. Get your hiney outta here before I throw a boiled potato at you.”

Kendall glances up from his work, drizzling some mysterious sauce over a tray of sculptured sushi rolls.

“Shush, Lizzy Mae,” he says without blinking. “That’s Jack, Dillon’s boyfriend. He’s no civilian.”

I’m not? And I’m someone’s boyfriend? I don’t think I ever got the official word.

Lizzy Mae half scowls, appraising me. “Dillon has a boyfriend?” she asks. “Since when?”

Kendall smiles up at me over his sushi creation. “What’s it been? A month or two?”

I nod. Six weeks to be precise. We met on July fourth, right here at Nikki and Fox’s when a fireworks show got a little out of hand, starting a grass fire. The neighbors freaked out and called 911. Dillon responded to the fire call and EMS responded in case there were burn injuries. When we got here, the fire was already out thanks to Fox’s quick thinking and extra-long garden hose. Dillon and I met. It took a few back and forth phone calls and a little bit of flirting—but after that first date, we’ve been in each other’s lives since then.

I don’t know what he would call it, though.

“I’m… I’m… a little lost,” I say stammering, realizing I’m probably in the way.

“Everybody’s a little lost!” Lizzy Mae responds while pouring melted chocolate sauce over a bowls of pineapple slices. “Where do you want to go?”

“Um… I dunno… somewhere—”

“Quiet!” Kendall finishes my sentence for me. “You, me, and everybody else with any sense in the world.” He takes the bowl of pineapple from Lizzy May in two hands, coming toward me.

“Follow me,” he says.

A few seconds later, out in the hallway, he points toward a closed door along the corridor. “The library,” he says, smiling sympathetically. “Knock before you go in, just to make sure you’re not wandering in on something… awkward.”

Kendall disappears toward the dining room with his pineapples, which smell exotic and delicious. If I come out of hiding, it’ll only be for a taste of those.

A knock on the library door is answered by a clear, “Come in.”

I open the door, revealing a smallish room—by comparison to the rest of the house—lined with well-stocked bookshelves reaching from the floor to the ceiling, furnished with comfortable couches and big, overstuffed chairs. Closing the door behind me, the noise from the party quiets, replaced with the faint sounds of a cello playing lonesome, minor chords from unseen speakers overhead.

A man, tall and rather dashing in appearance, appears from around a corner alcove, an open book in his hand. I find myself standing awkwardly, hoping I haven’t intruded.

“Trying to escape?” he asks, an amused smile barely turning his full lips.

I nod. “Yep,” I say, “Mind if I make myself at home? It’s safer in here than out there.”

He waves his hand toward the chairs and couches. “Be my guest. I’m hiding too.”

He approaches, still clutching the book. He puts out his other hand to shake. “Paul,” he says. “Paul Crews. I’m a friend of Nikki’s. We went to school together.”

I juggle my plate to free a hand. “Jack Chance,” I say, shaking. “I barely know Nikki or Fox. I’m a friend of a friend. He’s dancing without me.”

Paul grins, nodding. “Settle down, eat. The food is great.”

Paul joins me, sipping some appealing brown fluid from an actual glass, conversing easily while I sate my hunger. He’s a historian, from Richmond, and easy to talk to. He asks me about my work, seeming genuinely interested when I tell him I was a Navy Corpsman, now an EMT here in Abingdon.

“You don’t look like the military type,” Paul admits. “Or maybe I just have a pre-conception of what I think military types look like.”

“Probably the latter,” I tell him. “But as a Corpsman, my job wasn’t what most people think of when they imagine the military. I rarely carried a gun.”

I learn that Paul is a collections curator at the Museum of the American Civil War in downtown Richmond. He tells me about a project he worked on recently: an exhibition and interpretation of medical tools and instruments used by battlefield surgeons during the war in the mid-19^th century. We talk about that war, as compared to the current wars, about how much has changed, and how little has changed.

Paul is interesting to converse with, and good-looking to boot. His manner is animated, enthusiastic, but humble too. He’s intelligent, but not too snobbish about it. I’m not used to spending one-on-one time with professorial types. I never went to college and I generally feel intimidated around the overly educated, but Paul disarms all that insecurity, mostly by turning the conversation back to me, inquiring on my work, my friends, my family—appearing sincerely interested in me for some reason.

If I didn’t know better, I might think he was flirting. Instead, I suspect he’s just got a good personality and the easy manners of a skilled people-person.

While we talk, as hours pass, others come and go from the library, lingering a few moments then leaving us with our talk. We discuss everything from politics to favorite novels. He prefers literary fiction, while I enjoy sci-fi. His favorite food, he recently discovered, is Thai with extra hot spices. I’m a big fan of Japanese cuisine. Before I know it, I’m laughing easily while Paul jokes about his boss at the museum, and the awkward moments he had right after he joined, and all the old-guard Civil War nerds realized he was gay.

“I mean let’s face it, they hired an art historian who did his master’s thesis on Sex in the Civil War, the last taboo topic in the field. I’m not sure any of them actually read my thesis, but if they had, they’d have realized not all the sex happening was with camp followers and sweethearts back home. There were plenty guys getting their game on in the trenches too.”

It’s hard to imagine a couple dudes up to their knees in mud wanting to either give or get a blow-job while the cannons raged overhead, but hell, I saw plenty of guys in Afghanistan and Syria put down their guns to grab a quickie when they could; it isn’t so hard to believe it happened.

Just as we’re laughing together at the thought of all that, the library door swings open; a flood of loud music pours into the room. I look up and see Dillon standing in the doorframe, his hand still on the knob. His eyes fall on me with inquiry, then turn to my companion with an expression of narrowed suspicion.

“I’ve been all over hell and back looking for you,” he says. I know just from his tone and bleary-eyed gaze, this is about to get entertaining.