“Go check out the other side of the baaar.”

“There’s never anyone good on that side of the bar. You should know that by now.” Kyle eyed River and snorted, waving off their attempts to convince him to do it.

River pushed a hand back through their long, blond hair, patting the curls back into place. They were in full drag tonight—a long shimmery blue dress, green eye makeup, gorgeous highlighter and lip gloss and all.

Kyle occasionally wished he wanted to be that pretty. People understood drag queens better than guys like him, though as River always told him, they didn’t really understand. Some queens used it to feel better about themselves, or to make fun of women. That left a bad taste in Kyle’s mouth. Others used it to experiment or validate themselves while transitioning to female. Others just liked playing dress-up, and didn’t care about the gendered aspect of it as much as everyone around them.

For River, they’d always described themselves as not fully male, but much less a woman than a man. Something in between, kind of a bit of both but not either. Kyle never pressed them to put words on it, but when others occasionally did, they’d say they were nonbinary or genderfluid. Drag had helped them figure that out, and as gorgeous as they looked in full femme mode, they sometimes presented as androgynous, too.

In drag, Kyle called River “they” or sometimes “she,” since River didn’t care what pronoun people used in general. They said they didn’t really like any of them anyway. They only used “he” in everyday life because most people defaulted to it. It amused Kyle to watch people’s confused reactions, but he also felt protective of his best friend. He would fuck up anyone who took offense to them, no matter what they were wearing.

River was dancing at the bar with a now-empty shot glass in their hand, grinning at him. “Isn’t there? Nic was over there a couple weeks ago.”

Below the belt. Kyle glared and rolled his eyes, finishing his beer and pushing the glass across the counter.

River leaned in and told him, “You can find someone else to dance with, baby. Or hook up with. I know you. I can find you someone cute you won’t turn down.”

“I’m easy, am I?” Kyle laughed. “Thanks.”

River winked. “Anytime. You can’t say I don’t know you.”

They really did. Normally, Kyle would be cruising everyone in the place for something to wash away the taste of the last hookup. Tonight, though… Kyle wasn’t sure he was interested, and he didn’t know what that was about.

Instead, he hung out closer to Evie and the usual crowd, occasionally glancing for the door. Evie had said Nic told her he was busy this weekend, decorating his new apartment.

Fair enough, but it did seem a bit like avoidance. But then again, he wasn’t required to come out to this every week. None of them were. It wasn’t a scheduled thing, just a spontaneous thing.

God, he had to stop thinking about Nic.

“—someone’s going to end up doing body shots.” Evie was laughing. “And it’ll be after I go home.”

“Awww. But you’re such a good mom. You barely let the babysitter babysit.” Joe beamed at her. “I don’t know how you do it.”

Kyle shook his head. “Because she likes adulting better than the rest of us. Makes us all look bad. Getting back to the body shots…”

River was flirting with the bartender, but even they looked back over their shoulder. “Are we doing that now? Can we do that?”

“Not in public, baby,” Ash teased, giving them an exaggerated wink.

“Good. I need to get my good tits on for that,” River winked back.

Kyle almost doubled over with laughter at the look on Ash’s face. Ash was mostly used to River by now, but he was the easiest to embarrass.

None of the rest of them—Ash and Joe, who’d been here last week, or Ben or the others who hadn’t been—knew about Nic. Nobody but Evie and River had noticed them slipping out together, thank God, or he would have had the whole group pestering him to get with him or get over him. And he was not thinking about Nic again. Jesus.

“Is that a promise?” Ash managed after a minute of everyone laughing.

River sidled up and slipped a shot glass in their cleavage. “If you want it to be.”

“Careful.” Kyle grinned at Ash. “You can’t unsee anything.”

River flipped him off and he winked, then took another look around the place.

Still nobody interesting out there. A few cute little twinks on the floor, but he wanted a nerdier guy. No, that wasn’t right. He always avoided getting stuck on one type, and his last… hookup… had been nerdy. Sweet, well-dressed, but nerdy. Some big muscled military guy was more what he should be looking for.

But none of them were really out there. A few showy gym dudes who clearly spent more time there than at home, but they weren’t catching his eye, either.

Ash was staggering to his feet, grabbing River’s shoulder and the bar to stand upright. A quarter of the shot had gone down his shirt, and now River was leaning in to lick it from his neck, to uproarious laughter from the rest of the group.

“Your turn,” River teased Kyle. “Unless you have anyone… anything… better to do.”

The others giggled, but Kyle waved them off. “No, no, I don’t want to make your new boyfriend jealous.”

Ash gasped. “Oh, God. Don’t tell Ben.”

“Don’t tell me what?” Ben swooped in from across the room and grabbed Ash’s ass.

Ash jumped. “That was a quick leak.”

“I hurried. The stalls are busy tonight. Didn’t want to risk slipping it in anywhere. And what did I miss?”

“He was slipping something of mine down his throat.” River beamed, less than innocently, at Ben.

Kyle had to sit down on a bar stool, he was laughing so hard.

Ben eyed them solemnly and yanked Ash close to him, his arm around his waist. “I don’t want to have to hit a lady, so tell me: that sounds hot. Why the hell didn’t you wait for me?”

“Good thing I’m far from one,” River told him. “You can take the next shot if you like.”

“Oh, shots? I can do shots,” Ben started. His jaw dropped as River slipped the other one into their cleavage. “Oh, shit.”

Ash was giggling half-hysterically, and even the patrons around them were grinning.

“No take-backsies.” River pressed a finger to their pink lips. “I won’t tell.”

“Everyone else will, though,” Evie helpfully piped up. “For weeks. On the other hand, if you chicken out…”

“You need a guided tutorial on how these work?” River winked, jiggling the breast forms at him.

Ben bent over in one swift move, slurping the top of the shot, gripping the rim of the glass between his lips, and throwing his head back to down the rest of it.

When he straightened up, everyone stared at him.

“Uhhh,” Ash drawled, sliding an arm slowly around his boyfriend’s waist as he stared at him. “How are you… an expert?”

“Two things you could look up in the dictionary: bi and spring break.”

“Holy shit.” Kyle laughed even harder. “We need to hear about this.”

It didn’t take much more alcohol to convince Ben to tell all—a week in a party hotel, two nights following a random invitation to a yacht with his very open boyfriend at the time.

Kyle wished he’d had the money for spring break at that age. That threw him out of the mood to look for guys, if he’d even been convincing himself to get in that mood in the first place.

Fine. He clearly wasn’t getting any tonight, and his head wasn’t in the right place. That happened sometimes. Wrong time of the night, wrong crowd out that night, Jupiter out of alignment, whatever. It had absolutely nothing to do with Nic. Really, it didn’t.

He’d just go home, then. And if Kyle imagined undressing Nic on the walk between the front door and the bed, he didn’t have to tell a soul.

Kyle wasn’t thinking a goddamn thing about Nic.