Vince's house was small, but cozy. The kind of place I might live in if I wasn't royalty. It had everything a man could possibly want, a kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom with thick walls and a king size bed. It was located downtown, near all the clubs, making it safe to party and drink without worrying about how you were going to get home.

"Can I get you anything?" Vince asked.

"Vodka sour," I said. I wanted something sweet. I had to remind myself this was a fun night, I was with a good friend, and I didn't want Kurt to ruin it any more than he already had. It was tricky. Though he was out of sight, he wasn't out of mind. I knew whatever happened with Vince tonight wouldn't hold a candle to the evening I shared with Kurt. And I couldn't keep myself from comparing.

It's true I could have been more upfront with Kurt. It's true Kurt told me he couldn't just give somebody his body without giving them his heart, too. At the same time, I’d been honest with Kurt. Kurt knew what kind of guy I was. If he wanted to protect himself, he could have. After all, it was Kurt's job to look after me, not the other way around.

Vince handed me the drink and raised his in the air. "To Aldonia."

"To Aldonia."

We clinked our glasses together and I started sipping on mine. He downed his in one gulp.

"What do you say we skip the chit chat and head straight to the bedroom?"

I gave a slight nod. I asked myself if that was actually something I wanted to do. I looked at Vince. I knew he was hot. I knew he was a generous partner and had never disappointed me in the past.

I couldn't stop thinking of Kurt. How sad he looked at the club. How hurt he was when I walked away from him. He was only trying to protect me, but really that was because he didn't want anything bad to happen. It was because he cared about me.

And...I stifled the thought at first, but then allowed it to ease its way into my mind.

And I was pretty sure I cared about him, too.

"What's up? Is something wrong?"

"Huh?" I forgot Vince was there. He’d asked me a question and I didn't really give him a response.

"We don't need to go straight to the bedroom if you don't want to," he said.

I shook my head. "It's not that," I wasn't sure how to phrase what I was thinking. "Do you ever think about the people you sleep with?"

"Sure," he said. "All the time. What do you think I do when I can't find anyone to bring back to the apartment?"

"That's not what I mean," I said. "Do you ever wonder if maybe, for some of them, it's not just physical?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I do. It's why I only bring back people I meet at the club. When you go to The Apple Tree, it's an unspoken rule that the people there are looking for no strings attached sex."

His eyes became wistful and I knew the story was going to take a turn. "But one time, I met this woman. She was a barista. She was beautiful and smart, but mostly I liked her because she laughed at my jokes."

"She laughed at your jokes? That must be tough to find."

He glared at me. "Anyway, her name was Danica and we started seeing each other. And it was different. When I looked at her, I felt something in my stomach instead of my loins. I didn't just want to fuck her, I wanted to do everything with her. Eat breakfast, see movies, read books, sleep. Not just sex, but sleep. I wanted to wake up next to her."

He’d transported himself somewhere else. He wasn't so much telling the story for my benefit, but for his. "The thing was, she didn't like that I was going to the clubs. She put up with it for a little while, but eventually put her foot down and said she couldn't do that to herself. If I was going to keep going to the clubs and bringing random people back to my place, she couldn't see me anymore."

"So she made you choose between her and the clubs."

"Yeah. Except, I thought she was bluffing. That's how high an opinion I had of myself. So I called her bluff."

"She wasn't bluffing," I said.

"She was not. Stupidest decision I've ever made. No strings attached sex is great, wonderful even, but it's not everything. She was everything."

"You ever run into her again?"

He shook his head. "I went back to the coffee shop. She'd quit. The manager said she moved to Italy. I managed to convince the manager to give me Danica's forwarding address. I wrote to her. I wrote to her a lot, actually. But she never wrote back."

He shook his head. "Like I said, no strings attached sex is great, but I learned my lesson. If anything like that ever happens to me again, I'm done with clubbing, I'm done with random hook-ups. I'm a one-person guy from there on forward."

He pulled out his wallet and removed a small picture of the two of them, smiling together at a nice restaurant. "You know what's crazy? This is the only picture I have of us together. Sometimes life's going so well that you forget nothing lasts forever. You forget to take mementos. This is all I have to remember her by."

I looked at the picture and I saw it. It was just a simple picture, the two of them sitting across from each other, perhaps the waiter or waitress had taken the picture, but what stood out was the genuine look of happiness in Vince's eyes that I could never give him. Even now, just talking about her, he started to glow a bit.

"You think you'll ever meet another one like her?" I asked.

"Of course not. But I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone like her to begin with, so who knows? It's a small world. I have money saved up. In my more romantic moments I think of traveling to Italy and sweeping Danica off her feet. But I figured if that's what she wanted, she probably would have responded to one of my letters. At the very least, I'd like the opportunity to apologize."

I finished off my drink and pushed it towards him. "Thank you for the drink," I said. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do this tonight."

"Some other time maybe?"

"Honestly, Vince, I think you're great. But I've got my own Danica out there right now."

"The guy at the club?"

I nodded.

"I figured," he said. "Nobody could piss anyone off that much unless they were in love. Can I call you a ride?"

"Yeah," I said, "that'd be nice."

* * *

It had started to rain earlier. Vince waited outside with me under the apartment awning for the car to arrive. When it did, he gave me a hug and a hearty, "Good luck."

I got in the car.

"To the palace, please," I said. He drove off, away from Vince's apartment.

"You're Prince Beau," the driver said.

I didn't muster up the energy for a fake smile. "That's right."

"I always dreamed I'd meet you one day," he said. "Ever since I was a boy, I saw your picture and wished I could be a boy like you."

"Uh-huh," I said.

"I pointed to your pictures and told my parents, 'One day, I'm going to meet that kid.'"

He looked familiar. I couldn't quite place him. It was the sunglasses that were throwing me. He was wearing them at night. In retrospect, I should have taken that as a bad sign, but I just ignored it.

"Well," I said. "Congratulations. You've met me," I smiled. I didn't much feel like talking. There was something off about him. A feeling I had talking with him. He seemed so familiar to me. I must have seen him before. But if I had, he would have told me.

"It's a real honor," he said. His voice changed suddenly. "Actually," he said, "I'm not really a taxi driver."

"Huh?"

He lowered his sunglasses. It was the man from the sauna, Old Leather.

"You know, a guy like you should really be checking to make sure no one's following him when he leaves the club."

I tried opening the back doors, but they were both locked.

"Look," he said. "I'ma tell you right now. This is going to go a lot easier for the both of us if you just cooperate, 'kay?"

He pulled out the gun from the sauna.

"I've still got my little friend here. He's a good friend, but he has a nasty habit of making messes and I don't feel like getting blood out of the backseat."

I sat back in the seat.

"Are we going to cooperate?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll cooperate."

"Good. Now buckle up."

He accelerated the car and took off away from the city, towards the valleys of Aldonia.