Nights like this at Bottom’s Up were all starting to blend into one for Kris Novak. He sighed and looked out over Hidden Creek’s one and only gay bar and tried to maintain his usual perky, flirty demeanor.

Fridays were generally the busiest day of the week, even more so than Saturdays. Guys, and some girls, would get off work and come to blow off steam to start their weekends. There were a number of faces Kris had never seen before tonight, as well. He thought he’d caught one of the guys say something about a wedding. There were definitely people from nearby towns as well, probably looking for a change of scenery.

Tourists. Kris absolutely didn’t mind out-of-towners. In fact, he yearned for new people and different experiences. But it was a fine line between welcoming newcomers and putting up with those who just came to gawp and laugh at the suburban gay scene. Whether it was gay guys from Houston or straight visitors just passing through, Kris would rather not be the butt of anyone’s joke.

He had to say the crowd tonight were generally behaving themselves and having a great time shaking their asses to Britney and Shakira. Which was a good thing, as Kris was close to feeling the pressure behind the bar as he ran around like a tornado fixing drinks and dishing out winks and smiles.

“You’re a pretty one, aren’t you,” a big guy commented as he handed over a ten.

Kris flicked his eyes over the dude. Muscular, tattooed, sparkling smile. Just how he liked them. He wasn’t seriously flirting, though, just having a bit of fun. Kris had gotten good at reading these things. So he kissed the air, plucked the ten from the dude’s thick fingers and spun around to skip to the cash register.

Within seconds he was already serving the next customer, and the next. It was coming up to eleven and the bar was in full party-mode.

So, of course, that was when his one and only colleague had to leave.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben said as he wrapped up his last couple of orders. He threw Kris a genuinely apologetic look. “I’ve been here since opening twelve hours ago. I’ll be sick if I have to stay any longer.”

Kris scoffed and looked up at his friend. Kris looked up at most other men, but he’d decided to get over his petit stature long ago. ‘Great things come in small packages,’ his mom had always told him.

“Go, shoo,” Kris said, flicking a dishcloth at the other guy’s ass. “She’s got this under control,” he said, referring to himself. He mimed flicking his short hair over his shoulder and winked at the guys nearest them waiting to be served. “You think she can’t handle this lot? They’re just a bunch of kitty-cats.” One of the guys blushed. Kris wondered if he might be able to get a phone number there.

“Thanks, darling,” Ben said. He hugged Kris and kissed his cheek. “Good luck.”

Kris didn’t say it, but he would probably need it. Not for the first time, his manager, PJ, had fucked up the staff scheduling, leaving Kris by himself out front until close. So not only did he have to man the fort all alone, he had to do so while struggling with the new point of sales system PJ had implemented. Kris swore the man was obsessed with updating unnecessarily every six months.

Not that Kris had been working at the bar much longer than six months. He’d only turned twenty-one just before Christmas and therefore become old enough to serve alcohol. It had seemed like a fun idea to meet more guys, not just from Hidden Creek. But working under PJ was the opposite of fun in reality.

Kris did like most of the customers, however. He stood up straighter as someone he didn’t recognize managed to snag one of the bar stools and sit down. Kris knew pretty much all of the regulars by sight, if not by name, by now. He’d tried it on with most of the guys, usually to no avail. They all thought he was adorable, like a puppy. A novelty twink. Not a man with real, burning needs.

He didn’t know this small girl, though, as she glanced nervously about. Or…did he? Her short pixie haircut had thrown him, but as she played with a beer coaster, Kris thought he might remember her being a sophomore when he was a senior at Hidden Creek High. She’d had brown wavy hair past her shoulders then. Now it was short and dyed black.

If Kris was right, that meant she was eighteen and absolutely too young to be in a bar, drinking alcohol at least. But he hated being a party pooper. He also hated making women feel like they weren’t wanted. Yes, technically this was a gay bar. But that didn’t mean all manner of queer people and allies weren’t welcome, too.

He bounced over and batted his false lashes at the girl. “Hey, there,” he said in a friendly manner. “You’re too cute. Do you mind if I see your ID?”

The girl blanched, her skin looking even paler against her dark hair in the swirling disco lights of the shadowy bar. “Sure,” she shouted over the thumping music. She fished out a wallet from her jeans pocket and swallowed as she handed over her driving license.

It read Harrison Brown.

Kris caught himself before he frowned. He knew before he looked at it that the ID would be fake. He hadn’t anticipated it would be in a male name. The gender was classified as male on the ID as well. Kris quickly added the name to the short hair and the tight T-shirt over a flat chest and came to the obvious conclusion.

This wasn’t a girl.

He only took a second to consider his options. Then he smiled back up at Harrison and gave him back his license. Harrison looked surprised that Kris was fooled by the ID.

Kris leaned in toward the younger guy. The music was probably loud enough to drown out his words. But he didn’t want any of the other dudes hanging around to hear anything or even read his lips, just in case.

“I’m happy for you to stay,” he said with a wink. “But soft drinks only, yeah?” Harrison looked frightened for a second. But Kris nodded at him. “It’s cool,” he promised.

Harrison relaxed a fraction and smiled. “Thank you,” he said with sincere gratitude. “I – can I have a cranberry juice? Please?”

Kris winked again. “Excellent choice,” he said. No one would be able to see there wasn’t any vodka in that.

He sympathized with the young kid. It wasn’t that long ago Kris has also been desperate just to find a queer space where he didn’t feel so exposed. Somewhere he could just be himself. It was one of the reasons he’d been so eager to take this job, after all.

“Hey!”

A slightly hostile voice cut through the music as Kris poured Harrison his cranberry juice. Kris glanced over at a gym bunny type of guy with several identical buddies. All blond with glowing skin and big muscles, but not in the rugged way that Kris preferred. These were like perfect, hairless Ken dolls. The one who’d spoken raised a sculpted eyebrow at Kris.

“If you ladies are done flirting, we’d like some beers,” he drawled with a smirk.

Anger flashed through Kris, but he remained smiling. Customer service was the main aspect of his job, after all. He wouldn’t let this dick rile him. “Just a minute, handsome,” he said, even though it made him feel a bit sick. He placed the juice in front of Harrison. “Do you want to pay now or start a tab?” he asked, purposefully stalling so Ken Doll had to wait a little longer.

“Uh, tab, please,” Harrison said. Kris remembered when starting a tab had felt like a grown-up thing to do, too.

Kris rung up the juice, then finally turned to the Ken doll guys and worked very hard not to feel nervous. The crowd was starting to dwindle as it approached twelve o’clock, pairing off and leaving for the night. But there were still enough patrons that these guys wouldn’t cause a scene. At least, that was what Kris hoped.

Ken Doll flicked his eyes up and down Kris’s small frame with an unimpressed but also predatory gaze. Like a cat that would eat a particularly puny mouse if he had to. Rather than shrink away, Kris preened. He always wore next to nothing at work, so he only had on a pair of short denim shorts, a white mesh tank and his army boots. But with the makeup he had on, purple-tipped hair and leather choker, he didn’t feel quite so naked. Despite what guys like that might think, those ‘fem’ things felt like protection to him.

He batted his false eyelashes and leaned on the bar, shimmying his chest. “What can I get you fellas?”

“Beer,” Ken Doll said with a slight curl of his lip. “Five. In bottles. No pink fucking umbrellas or any sparkly shit like that.”

His buddies laughed, but Kris didn’t show any signs that they bothered him. He just twirled around to grab the plastic bottles and pop the lids off them one by one, pinging the caps away in a cathartic rhythm.

In truth, guys like this made him feel like he was back in high school, dealing with pea-brained jocks. But since he’d come out in junior year, he’d vowed never to get ruffled by them again. At least on the outside.

The guys seemed disappointed not to get a reaction, so they paid silently and slunk off to the upstairs of the bar. Kris breathed a sigh of relief.

The place wasn’t huge, but big enough to have a second level and space by the right of the counter for a pool table, air hockey and foosball. The dance floor had a set of curtains at the end on the wall to give the illusion of a stage. Not that PJ bothered to book any live acts, but the patrons liked taking photos in front of them.

Now the crowd was thinning slightly, Kris felt like he could breathe. He still had to serve customers as fast as he could, but now at least he could manage and not be totally overwhelmed. Nothing pissed off drunk people like having to wait for more booze. Or so he’d observed.

Without asking him to, Kris replenished Harrison’s cranberry juice when the first glass ran low, then another later on. He was clearly more at ease now, although he didn’t talk to other people or make any real eye contact with anyone aside from Kris. He was content to play on his phone and look about every now and again. As if he couldn’t quite believe his own daring for being there.

That was, until fifteen minutes before closing. The doors flung open and a trio of unfortunately familiar girls Kris’s own age came stumbling through. They were in heels and short skirts, covered in glitter and clearly toasted. Kris gave them three seconds before they tottered to the bar screeching ‘Yas qween!’ and ‘Werk it, gurl!’

Mandy, Trixie and Lola. All girls Kris also knew from school. The cheer squad, specifically. Kris had made many friends during his time as a Hidden Creek Honeybee cheerleader. These were not any of them.

They were exactly the kind of people who treated Bottom’s Up like an exhibit at the zoo. A place to come and giggle at all the crazy queers and grope the guys with six-packs whether they wanted it or not. Luckily, they had only been bothering Kris the past few weeks while they had been back from college. It didn’t mean he was any happier to see them now.

He wasn’t the only one to presumably recognize the girls.

Before Kris could say anything, Harrison bolted from his seat and practically sprinted for the door.

Without paying for his cranberry juices.

Kris sighed. That was unfortunate. Not least of all because that was the moment PJ had decided to grace him with his presence.

“Hey,” he cried as he strode down the length of the bar, scowling. “Did that girl just bolt without paying?”

Kris rolled his eyes and rang up the three juices on the register as Mandy and her friends grabbed the empty bar stool and snagged another two as well to fall onto. The bar was certainly emptying now as people headed home for the night, usually in pairs. Kris’s heart gave a little pang. It wasn’t that he needed a boyfriend. It would just be nice to go home with the same guy more than once. To have something that was more than just sex.

“That boy had an emergency,” Kris said as he sorted out the bill. And it was an emergency. He wasn’t sure how long Harrison had been experimenting with presenting as his true gender, but Kris was sure Harrison wouldn’t want Mandy and company blabbing to anyone about him being here. Who knew what his family or work situation was?

“His drinks are coming out of your check,” PJ grumbled as he started punching at one of the other tills to presumably start the cash pickup. He would remove most of the money to put into the safe, leaving Kris with fifty dollars in change to serve the last few patrons. Namely, Mandy and company.

PJ was several inches taller than Kris with brunet hair and a goatee. Rectangular glasses were the only really distinctive part of his appearance. The guy was painfully bland, looks-wise. Personality-wise, he seemed to be permanently grumpy. Like he got a parking ticket every single goddamned morning.

Kris found him tiresome. PJ always sucked the energy from the room. But Kris did his best to be friendly. “It was only a couple of dollars on juice,” he assured PJ with a smile. “I’m happy to cover for the guy until he comes back another day.”

“How old was he, anyway?” PJ asked as he pulled up whatever report he was looking for on the new POS system. “He looked like a fetus.”

“Twenty-one,” Kris said automatically. Then he turned to his giggling former classmates before PJ could pry any more. “What can I get you ladies?”

“Oh my god, Kris,” Mandy cackled, flicking back her strawberry-blonde hair. “You get gayer every time we see you!”

“You bet, baby,” Kris said with a wink, refusing to take it as an insult.

“You might as well be a woman if you’re gonna wear that much glitter,” Lola snorted, almost toppling off her stool. “Does anyone here actually fuck you, Kris? I thought gay guys wanted guys, you know?”

Trixie’s giggling became almost hysterical. “I’d fuck him,” she told the other two in a loud whisper behind her hand.

Kris sighed and plastered on his best I’m-done-with-this-bullshit smile. “What can I get you gorgeous ladies?” he asked again. “Three porn star martinis?”

The girls squealed. “You remembered!” Mandy cried, as if he was a puppy who had learned a new trick.

He was glad, however, that they liked cocktails rather than wine or beer. It meant he could spend some time making the three concoctions and grab a few seconds peace and quiet.

Or so he thought. PJ came up to him as he was shaking together the first drink, brandishing his phone. “We got another one,” PJ muttered.

Kris’s heart sank. As much as he didn’t really get along with PJ, he did feel sorry for him in this situation. The bar had been getting increasingly frequent threats on their social media from anonymous or dummy accounts. Real homophobic shit, but vague enough the police didn’t really have anything to go on. Still, it was a punch in the gut to read yet another message saying how the LGBT community was a ‘bunch of fucking perverts’ and how they were all going to ‘die of AIDS and roast in hell.’

PJ wasn’t even queer. He’d just opened a gay bar because there was a gap in the Hidden Creek market. He was pretty ambivalent on the whole prejudice and hate speech side of things. He just resented having his business threatened.

“Shit, sorry,” Kris mumbled back. He didn’t want customers to know they had any issues. There hadn’t been any direct threats of an attack or anything, after all.

PJ shrugged and put his phone away. “Just so you’re aware,” he said, already walking away with the cash pickup to put in the safe. “I’ll be out back until close, then I’m heading home. See you later.”

Any sympathy for his manager vanished. Kris gritted his teeth and focused on making the three cocktails. He was perfectly capable of getting through the rest of his shift alone. He just shouldn’t have to.

The bar emptied quite quickly after that, he was pleased to note. Mandy and her friends were the last to leave when he shut the music off. Thankfully, he saw them ordering a cab rather attempting to drive anywhere.

“Bye, qween!” they shrieked as they left, clinging onto each other for support. Kris hoped they made it home safely, even if they were obnoxious. He wondered where Harrison had gotten to and hoped even more that he was safe. Hidden Creek was a nice town with low crime rates, but still. He needed to be extra careful.

The cleaners would come around in the morning, so it was up to Kris to just lock the tills, wipe down the bar, shut all the lights off and make sure the building was secure for the night. Luckily, he didn’t have to go far at all to make his way home. But he still dragged his feet as he punched his code into the door’s security pad and made his way into the bar’s back hallway. He trudged up the stairs to his apartment on the third floor.

The one and only apartment had once been an office or something when the bar had been a warehouse. Kris wasn’t entirely sure. He just knew that PJ let him rent it for a really decent rate. Another reason he couldn’t quite bring himself to hate the guy.

Kris sighed loudly once he’d closed and locked the door, leaning back against it and rolling his neck until it clicked. What the hell was he doing with his life, really? Sure, he had his own place and a half-decent wage. But spending night after night watching other people having fun was only making him feel lonelier.

“Oh, hon, get a grip,” he said aloud. “You have friends.”

This was true. Only, he wanted someone who was more than just a friend. For all his flirtiness and bravado, he longed to be like those guys that always came in together. Like his new buddies, Hunter and Chase, or Gabe and Ryan. As much as Kris liked no-strings sex and fun hookups, he wished he didn’t have to come home to an empty apartment.

“I’m so rude, aren’t I, Tay Tay?” he scoffed. He walked over to the three-foot-wide fish tank by his bed and tapped the glass gently to get his fancy goldfish’s attention. “I’m not alone.” Taylor Swift swished her double-finned tail and swam to say hello. She wasn’t quite a puppy or a kitten, but she was Kris’s and he couldn’t help but love her cute personality traits.

Like what a little fatso she was. He laughed as he shook a number of pellets into the water for her and watched her zip around, chomping them all up.

“Good girl,” he said fondly.

By the time he stripped and took his makeup off, he couldn’t be bothered to eat. He just fell into the bed in the middle of the room. The space was basically one room with a bathroom the size of a closet attached and a hotplate on top of a small fridge. But it was all Kris’s and it was quiet.

Because the ceilings were so high in the bar, the view from his window was more like being on the fourth floor. He did enjoy looking out over the town during the day when it was busy or at night when it twinkled. It made him feel more connected to the town below.

He sighed and plugged his phone in to charge before snuggling under his bedsheets. His life was fine, for heaven’s sake. He knew he was only twenty-one and had all the time in the world. He should be less impatient for more. Tomorrow was another day. He didn’t know what it would bring.

Or who.

As sleep claimed him, he allowed himself to fantasize about a strong pair of arms holding him tight. Maybe one day not so far off that would be more than just a dream.