Page 3 of Romeo vs Romeo

“Mama Viv,” I said reassuringly. “Why on earth are you worried?”

“Why? Why?!” Mama Viv pressed the back of her hand against her brow in a true Old Hollywood move as if suffering from a fainting spell. “I told a foreign royalty to sweep the floorsmore thoroughly, or the mop would leave dirty smears, Roman. What was I thinking?”

I cleared my throat. “You were thinking he was your clueless employee. Like everyone else thought at the time,” I said.

Mama Viv produced a big, colorful fan seemingly out of thin air and began to fan her face. Her wig was deep red, and her dress was an elaborate piece of her own design with a very low neckline, fit for a royal reception with classiness and a touch of good old-fashioned indecency.

It was another hour before the new couple arrived, and the crowd of friends, acquaintances, and strangers swelled in the bar. Mama Viv’s parties were known to all in the neighborhood and beyond. She was a tireless planner, and this place had worn so many different faces that it was hard to say what Neon Nights was all about. Sometimes, it was all about the ’80s music, sometimes about peculiar foods, and at times, it was a brunch café. The one thing it never, ever let itself be was boring.

The bright lights that were supposed to welcome Tristan and Cedric revealed the crowd much more than I was used to, but they rendered the outside completely dark, the many windows doubling as mirrors by chance.

An immense round of applause that thundered inside Neon Nights must have startled some of the unsuspecting guests, but Tristan and Cedric strolled in with confidence and big smiles.

Someone started a chant for them to kiss, kiss, kiss, and the boys looked at each other in that flirty way of early romance. Cedric swept Tris off his feet in an instant, tilting him back like a plank and slamming his lips against Tristan’s. Wolf whistles andwhoop, whoopsfilled the bar.

When Cedric pulled Tristan back to his feet, they were both a touch red, and their smiles were bigger.

The two boys walked through the space where the crowd had parted and stood right in front of Mama Viv for one moment ofuncertainty. Some harsh words had been said, and the time to fix it all had been short, but Mama Viv seemed like she was the nervous one. She had also once warned Cedric that she would personally hunt him down if he ever hurt Tristan. I wasn’t sure if there were caveats for fixing the mess he’d made when he had left.

But in a heartbeat that followed, Tristan melted into the hearty hug in Mama Viv’s arms. The queen of drag patted Tris’ head and spoke quietly just to him. After a moment, the two were nodding and parting. Cedric, who had indeed been a kitchen helper and any kind of helper one might need, approached Mama Viv just as I pushed myself nearer to them all.

Mama Viv did a fine curtsey, but Cedric simply came forward and hugged her as tightly as Tristan had. “I’m so glad he’s got you,” I heard Cedric say to Mama Viv.

Tristan occupied my attention when he approached me. We hugged it out like brothers, and then I shook hands with the prince, feeling slightly different now that I knew that the guy’s family ruled a country.

“It’s good to have you back,” I said. “Both of you.”

The guys smirked and agreed that it was good to be here.

“The palace bored you to death?” I teased Tristan, then turned to Cedric. “I’m sure Mama Viv will find you some work if you need it. Or even if you don’t need it.”

“Oh, shut up, darling,” Mama Viv huffed. “That’s enough talking. It’s time for you boys to dance.”

At the snap of her fingers, the lights went out, fog machines filled the space with mist, and laser beams cut through. The party officially started.

In the whirlwind of dancing and celebrating whatever each person wanted to celebrate, I retreated to the bar. Tristan and Cedric danced together, absolutely dominating the dance floor.I had never been much of a dancer, and I could keep up with others if I had to but not with those two.

Instead of dancing, I ordered myself a little margarita and watched Bradley mix it. Bradley was a single dad at twenty-four, the same age as me, and he worked tirelessly to support his kid. It was the kind of life I couldn’t imagine for myself. I was barely staying afloat as it was, let alone having someone so helpless and fragile as a four-year-old girl depending on me. Bradley was also gay, which made things extra saucy, and explaining the entire history of how it all happened required more words than Bradley was happy to use. A quiet guy with a purpose, he was Mama Viv’s right hand.

That was the thing about Neon Nights; it gathered the exiles, the runaways, the usurpers of the status quo. It was like there was a magnet attached to that shabby door in the front, pulling us toward the heart of Hudson Burrow. The greater neighborhood had a long and complicated history that lived in the hearts of all queer New Yorkers, but Hudson Burrow was a biosphere within it all. It was rough, but it was warm; it was poor, but it had people that made it richer than the Billionaires’ Row. It had a living, beating heart.

Mama Viv offered work to everyone who needed it, and if she couldn’t employ everyone, she had connections. The same was the case with accommodation. She had personally accepted Cedric, then a runaway with a past he didn’t speak of, to work here and live here, never asking questions but doing the deeds.

If I were taken with the moment’s passion and soaked with tequila, I would have said she was my hero, but I was sober enough to keep my cynical edge sharp. Even so, the edge blunted when it neared the matron of the bar. There was a person I couldn’t look at and think what her secret motives were. There simply were none. She had lived through the rough patches her entire life, missing opportunities, losing chances, and gettingknocked down by the times she lived in. And she had gotten up whenever she had fallen, dusted herself off, and got down to work.

I sipped my margarita and looked around the bar. We were all refugees of some kind. Some ran from families, some ran from tragedies, and some, like Cedric, had run from an arranged marriage. Others ran toward something—a better life, better friends, more money, a reputation, or a quiet, cozy lifestyle. It didn’t matter what anyone’s reasons were for being here. We all had them. And most people didn’t hide what theirs were.

Which led me to the guy standing in the shadows by the window closest to the door. A long wooden bar ran under the windows all the way around Neon Nights, but this guy always stood there near the exit, alone, unapproachable, seething with something that wasn’t exactly anger. I could see it in his eyes, like sparks of a snapped electric wire. I could see it, but I didn’t get it.

Everett

I wished he would look away for good.

His attention only made me dig my trench deeper and scrunch my face more sourly.

The guy sipped something pink and fruity from a big, girly glass, his sharp, pissed-off gaze falling on me like frothy waves licking up a sandy beach. Here, and then there, and here again, and then back. It made me look back. It made me stare.

I knew the guy, of course. Some two weeks ago, when I had last visited this damp, run-down den, that sheared playboy had drunkenly come up to me for a chat. It had scared the livinghell out of me and almost turned into a fistfight. Close enough, anyway. I’d grabbed his T-shirt in one fist and pulled him close enough to feel the heat of his body against mine.

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