The click of a door, and then I’m blinded by blues, reds, yellows, greens. Lasers and glow sticks flood the room, and there is nothing I can see but dancers—dancers on the floor, dancers in cages suspended from the ceiling, women dancing with women, women dancing with men, and everywhere, men dancing with men. Everyone is dressed in something spectacular—or barely dressed at all—and in my faux-leather leggings and Dee-designed tank top, I almost fit in.
“How are we supposed to get anywhere?” I shout over the music, and Leti’s grin turns devilish a second before he grabs my brother’s hand and yanks him into the crowd. They disappear into the glittering sea of bodies, and I’m left standing with four straight guys who are busy looking at me like I have all the answers they don’t.
Shawn’s arm dropped from my shoulder sometime before the door opened, which is why I’m free for Mike to pull to his side when he says, “I call Kit!”
We get sucked into the crowd, leaving Adam, Shawn, and Joel standing there staring at each other with lost expressions on their faces.
Mike and I don’t dance so much as maneuver. We weave with each other in and out of free spaces until I finally spot an open set of stairs leading down to a long, glitter-topped silver bar at the other side of the room. “There!” I say, pointing at the bar and getting my hand snatched out of the air. A guy with wide pupils spins me around faster than the disco balls suspended from the ceiling, making me so dizzy that I’m not sure which is still spinning—me, the room, or the floor beneath my feet. When I’m thoroughly light-headed, he hands me back off to Mike, who steadies my still-spinning body, helps me to the bar, and deposits me in a vacant standing-room-only spot in front of the bartender.
“That was scary,” he says while chuckling behind me, and I turn around and laugh along with him.
“I wonder how Leti and Kale are doing.”
Mike flags the bartender over my shoulder, and I order raspberritas for the both of us before he can object. He’s sipping on the sugar rim and making a face at me, when I see a group of hot girls pass behind him to find a free spot at the bar.
“I bet you could find a nice girlfriend here,” I shout over the music, and Mike’s warm brown eyes follow mine to the group clustered a few spots away. They’re all wearing tight dresses, lots of makeup, and pounds of sparkling glitter. They look the way most girls look when they’re trying to be pretty for themselves instead of for someone else—shiny and colorful and happy.
“Don’t girls come here so that they don’t get asked out?” Mike counters.
“Exactly! Which is why their defenses are down!” When he laughs like I’m joking, I pout. “Seriously Mike, you should ask one out.”
“Why?”
“You deserve someone.”
“So do you,” he counters. “But you don’t see me pushing you at anyone.”
“That’s because everyone here is gay!” I protest, but Mike’s response comes quick.
“Not everyone.”
My eyes narrow with suspicion, and I swing a finger back and forth between us. “You don’t mean . . . ”
“God, no,” he rushes to say, his hands out like he’s going to physically stop me from dropping to one knee and proposing to him or something. “You and me?” He starts laughing again—hard.
I prop a fist on my hip in mock offense. “Are you saying I’m not your type?” When he can’t stop laughing, I hold back a smile. “What’s your type then?”
“Someone . . . not-mean,” he says, and when I burst out laughing too, it only encourages him. “Someone not-loud, someone not-crazy.”
“I get it,” I interrupt. “Someone nice and calm and sane.”
Mike grins and nods his chin toward the girls I pointed out earlier. “A.K.A., definitely not those girls.”
When I turn my head to find them cackling like drunken hyenas and falling over each other, Mike and I laugh even harder. Those girls would be a sure thing, a trio of one-night stands he’d never have to call again, but I should’ve known Mike better than to think he’d go for glitter and glam and easy. Whoever captures his heart is going to be class and brains and worth waiting for.
By the time Shawn, Adam, and Joel finally track us down, Mike has finished a beer and a half, and I’m double-fisting raspberritas—mine, and what’s left of his.
“Are those raspberry margaritas?” Adam immediately asks, stealing one from my hand and taking a big swallow before I can answer.
“You fit right in here,” Mike teases him, and Adam flicks him off with a black-painted fingernail while still taking a long drink from my glass.
“What happened to your shirt?” I ask, my eyes traveling past Adam’s newly acquired glow necklace, past the Magic 8 Ball tattoo inked on his left pectoral, and down to a unicorn stenciled on his stomach. Mike wasn’t exactly wrong about him fitting in.
“Some dude offered to trade him a glow necklace for it,” Shawn explains, and Adam chuckles into the raspberrita at Shawn’s disapproving tone. He coughs and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and I stiffen when Shawn squeezes into the space half beside, half behind me to order a drink of his own. His front is pressed tight against my back, and his fingers find my side as he places his order.