A burst of laughter and noise greeted them as soon as Falcon pushed open the bar door and stepped inside the darkened bar. He had no idea who he was looking for, but he looked around anyway.

“There they are. Let’s meet them.”

Well, at least they weren’t dragging out the inevitable. Falcon looked over the table of beefy men, two of whom were jostling each other, and gulped. “Sure.”

“Don’t be nervous. They’ll love you,” Blane assured him, putting his arm around Falcon’s shoulders to lead him up to the table.

“Awww, look at the lovebirds!” one of the guys exclaimed when they were close by, to a round of laughter.

Roman was there—Falcon knew him, at least. He offered a quick, grateful smile for his presence. “Hey.”

“Hi again. Didn’t bring your cute friend for me?” Roman’s lips pulled down in a mock-sad face. “I’m not sure you can sit with us.”

“Tell me that was a Mean Girls reference.” Falcon had hardly noticed the slender guy in the suit, sitting quietly in the corner, until he spoke up.

“It… I plead the fifth. I don’t have that much choice of English-language movies sometimes,” Roman protested.

Blane laughed, his arm still around Falcon’s shoulder. “Guys, this is Falcon. You already know Roman.”

Falcon tried to keep up with the names of the rest of them: Nico and Deen were a couple, judging by the lack of personal space between them. But Josh kept casting wide-eyed looks at Deen in particular, which was a little confusing. Tyler was already several beers in and beaming at everyone like they were his new best friend. Finally, Dustin was the scrawnier guy, especially in comparison to the rest of them, but he suited the suit well.

“Right. Uh. I’ll definitely remember that,” Falcon laughed sheepishly as everyone scooted their chairs around to make room for the two of them.

“Beers all around?” Blane was off to the bar before Falcon could follow, leaving him alone with the guys.

“You’re an artist, right?” Josh leaned in across the table. “What’s with all the creatives lately?”

“Hey. I’m not the new guy anymore. Knock that off,” Deen told him and flipped him off.

Josh got flustered for a moment before laughing.

Something about Deen looked familiar, and it only clicked the moment Deen added, “I’m a musician.”

“Oh. Shit. Deen… Jayse?” Falcon tried, suddenly realizing why Josh had looked starstruck. “Sorry, I don’t listen to modern music, but…” Of course I know the name.

“Yeah.” Deen was carefully casual, like he was trying not to attract attention. That was probably exactly it, too.

So Falcon matched his tone to play it cool. “Nice to meet you. You and Nico…?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Nico nodded. “Hence why he’s the newest to the group, before you.”

“Uh oh,” Falcon laughed. Hearing that he and Blane weren’t the token gay couple made him relax immediately. He glanced around at them, trying to read them. His gaydar was definitely going off, but he didn’t want to outright ask.

“Did he not say? We’re all gay,” Roman laughed. “Or bi,” he added after a moment. “You know. Generally into dudes.”

Falcon laughed. “No, he didn’t.” Instantly his guard was lower. “Cool. Is that how you met?”

“More or less. We all met in school,” Blane said, sidling up behind Falcon to pass out beers before taking a seat next to him. “And now here we are.”

“Pretending to be adults,” Josh snorted.

“Well, some of us are dating like it,” Nico added with a smug smirk, which earned him a glare from Roman and rolled eyes from Josh.

“Look at him. Gets a boyfriend—after, what, six years of celibacy? And now he’s too good for us,” Roman groaned.

“Hey,” Nico protested, but Deen was laughing. “Et tu?”

“Sorry, babe.” Deen cleared his throat and tried for a reproachful gaze at Roman.

Falcon laughed, leaning into Blane when his boyfriend’s shoulder pressed against his. This definitely felt like acceptance already.

“We’ll have to hold a contest.” Dustin’s lips quirked mischievously. “Last one left single…”

“Gets a Grindr profile made for him? By us?” Blane grinned wickedly. “I’d love to watch that.”

Roman gasped. “Oh, dude. That’s not fair. Some of us have jobs.”

“Yeah,” Tyler grumbled. “Which require travel. All of us, in fact.”

Nico and Blane exchanged looks. “Excuses,” Nico said. “All I hear is excuses.”

“Maybe we don’t want boyfriends,” Roman added.

That earned him a skeptical look from every other person at the table, and Falcon stifled his laughter. Even he had the inkling Roman wasn’t as much a playboy as he made himself out to be.

“Anyway,” Josh said pointedly. “I need a few more beers in me before I’ll agree to any more bullshit dares.”

“I seem to remember you being the first on board every time a stupid dare comes up, actually,” Tyler said thoughtfully. “But yeah, let’s move on to the next round of mocking. Who wants to share life updates?”

Falcon bit back his smile and looked around the table.

Josh shrugged. “Sure, me first. Absolutely nothing. Except dumbass tourists, and a barn-raising for one of my neighbors.”

“A barn-raising? Like, frontier-style?” Dustin looked fascinated. “Little House on the Prairie?”

“Yeah. Nerd,” Josh added in a mumble. When Dustin reached for his arm, he jerked away and held his hands up like Dustin was threatening him, while the others chuckled. “I didn’t say anything!”

Dustin eyed him. “Sure you didn’t. Nothing new here, either. My boss congratulated me on something not long ago, but I shouldn’t talk about it yet.”

“Busting crime and saving the world?” Blane smiled proudly. “That’s our boy.”

Dustin looked embarrassed at the attention and waved it off, ducking his head and draining his nearly-finished beer instead.

“I guess me next,” Blane shrugged. “This is pretty new,” he beamed, shaking Falcon’s shoulder lightly.

“Cheers to that.” They all leaned in to clink beer bottles, and Falcon felt his cheeks flush with pleasure.

“Then there’s the usual work bullshit,” Blane added, almost as an afterthought. He looked pointedly at Roman. “And you?”

The usual work bullshit? Falcon eyed his boyfriend, but Blane wasn’t looking at him. Blane hadn’t mentioned anything in the last couple weeks out of the ordinary, but he had seemed a little weird the other night at the Italian place.

Roman frowned, but he didn’t push Blane. Instead, he announced, “I’m no longer the new guy. I should be on a pretty consistent route now.”

It seemed to be a night for celebration, because Nico and Deen announced they were moving in together part-time—as soon as Nico’s current schedule month came to an end. They were aiming for Nico to move to another role in the National Park Service by Christmas, so they could live together full-time for real.

“Well, compared to that, I got nothing,” Tyler shrugged broadly, and everyone laughed. “Uh, I shaved a couple seconds off my qualifying time in practice? Ain’t shit until it’s official though.”

“Athletics?” Falcon asked.

“Racecars.”

Falcon perked up. “Oh! Awesome.” He knew nothing about them, but it sounded badass.

Their beers were almost gone, so Blane rose to his feet.

“Nuh uh. My round,” Roman told him and got up, too.

“Fine. I’ll help carry them.”

“I can help,” Falcon offered, but Blane shook his head.

“I’ve got it.”

He watched them head off. Their expressions were more serious now as they leaned together at the bar. Blane was leaning in to talk to Roman when Nico’s voice interrupted Falcon’s reverie.

“So, I heard there was some kind of wedding?”

“Oh. Yeah. My sister’s.” Falcon dragged his gaze away from the two of them. “That was cool, as weddings go. I got a sweet boyfriend out of it, so…”

“Not a lot of weddings have that perk,” Josh laughed in his slow drawl.

Nico grinned. “There’s your problem. Go to more weddings.”

Josh spoke vehemently after a second of contemplation. “Uh… hmm, let’s see. No. I get enough goddamn honeymooners at the ranch.”

“Oh, you run one?”

Josh gave a long-suffering sigh. “The tourist trap kind, yep. If you’ve ever wanted the sanitized version of a farm experience, I’ve got just the place.”

Falcon laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. I could use references for horses. Their anatomy is… tricky.”

“Oh, yes,” Josh agreed. “Sure is.”

Blane and Roman were back with beers, and Falcon was almost able to let go of the little moments of weirdness.

Almost.

* * *

He wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t pay attention to where the taxi was going. The two of them were heading back to Blane’s place, since it was bigger. And Blane had had the same number of beers as Falcon.

Which meant they weren’t too drunk to talk about this. In fact, Falcon hoped the beer would loosen his tongue.

“So, you said earlier,” he said to attract Blane’s attention. “Work bullshit.”

Blane winced and looked at him, which definitely meant something was up. “I… Yeah. It’s not a big deal. I didn’t want you worrying.”

Falcon eyed him. “You know now I’ll be worrying more, right? You remember how long we managed to not get together because we didn’t talk about it?”

“Ah.” Blane sheepishly laughed. “Yeah.”

“I saw you talking to Roman about it. I won’t push if you don’t wanna say,” Falcon said slowly. “But I do want to support you.”

Blane took his hand and squeezed, rubbing it lightly in the darkness of the backseat of the taxi. Falcon’s eyes flickered to the front, but Blane didn’t seem worried, so he looked back at him. “Thank you. Sorry I didn’t say. I just don’t know much yet, you know?”

Falcon nodded silently and waited.

“The bosses are… agitating. They want us to go through retraining for human certifications, they wanna check vet records, that kind of stuff. Inspections.”

“What? Why? Was there an incident?” Falcon frowned. He couldn’t picture Gregory or any of the keepers he’d met mistreating an animal.

“No, that’s the thing. Someone anonymous complained or something, I think. We don’t know why the bosses are taking it seriously. I mean, we get animal rights protestors who think any confinement—even animals who can’t be released into the wild—is wrong. They know to ignore them.”

“So what’s different here?” Falcon murmured.

Blane’s expression was stormy. “I have an idea.”

But even though Falcon prompted him, Blane wouldn’t say. Falcon eventually let it drop, with just a promise from Blane to tell him what happened when everything shook out next week.

Tumbling into bed with Blane half an hour later, Falcon felt him tossing and turning for a few minutes before sleep finally claimed him. It was clearly worry, which wasn’t like him.

In turn, Falcon stayed awake for a few more minutes, worrying and thinking about everything Blane had said until sleep finally pulled him into its grasp.