Page 1 of Dark Room Junkie

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Noé

With my elbows propped on the counter, I stood at the bar and stared at my phone.

“Sorry, No. Something came up.”

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head.Shit. There goes my bed for tonight.

I don’t know why I was internally grinning. Maybe it was because Sabrina had been long overdue on my hit list. At least tonight wasn’t too bad. The weather was good, and I could still head down to the lake if nothing else came up. It was still better than going home. Slightly annoyed, I glanced at Sabrina’s text message again.

She even uses that stupid abbreviation for my already short name.

I was about to put the phone away when a message from Steffan popped up. He knew that we finished our last set shortly before midnight, as we did every Friday, and was probably all worked up at home. Being bisexual had its advantages, but it felt like I had to put in more effort.

Although Steffan was a safe bet, there was something about him that made me hesitate every time. I switched on airplane mode before returning to the app.

“By the way, there’s a privacy setting for that,” a voice suddenly said next to me.

What the fuck?

I slowly turned my head, narrowing my eyes. “Why are you staring at my screen, man? That’s none of your business.”

The guy widened his eyes as if he had just realized what he had done. His jaw tensed, and he pushed up his glasses. “Oh damn, sorry. That ... slipped out. I didn’t mean to. It’s just a bad habit of mine.” He waved awkwardly to Claude, the bartender. “Can I have a beer?”

“What did you not mean?” I asked, my expression blank yet secretly amused because I didn’t dislike the guy. “Reading other people’s messages?”

“No, I mean intruding ... talking without thinking. I didn’t read anything, believe me. I’ve seen you play here often, so I guess I forgot that you don’t know me at all.”

I raised my eyebrows, wondering just how much the guy resembled Clark Kent with his glasses. Although not as muscular as Henry Cavill, he still had broad shoulders and looked quite decent with his dark brown hair and open black jacket. We were about the same height and appeared to be about the same age. He seemed quite normal standing there, waiting for his beer, and would have probably preferred to sink into the ground under my scrutinizing gaze.

In his defense, I had to admit that people here sometimes did talk to me as if I should know them. But I was just the bassist. Tom was the singer and was in the spotlight in at least half of all our songs since we were mostly instrumental with our jazz.

“All right, Superman,” I said, turning to him. “Enlighten me.”

“Superman?” Clark Kent asked in a confused tone. “No, I’m Alex.”

Claude smirked as he handed him the beer, which made me suspicious again. “Do you know this guy?” I asked outright.

“Yup, he’s here almost every Friday, but if I’m not mistaken,” Claude replied, turning to Alex, “you never stay until the band finishes playing. What happened?”

“Uh, yeah. The party I usually go to was canceled.”

“Then we’re in the same boat,” I grumbled, holding out my phone to him. “So, what do I need to do?”

“You have to go into the app,” he said in a very reserved tone. “To the settings. Select privacy. If you turn this on, no one will see if you’ve read their messages. But you also won’t see if they’ve read yours.”

“Ah, okay. Thanks.”

I left the new setting on and returned to the app to read Steffan’s message.

“Wanna have some fun tonight?”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully. At least I’d have a bed for tonight. But did I want it to be Steffan’s? The guy never left his apartment—he even worked out at home. The chance of running into him in a bar was like winning the lottery. But I had to admit, there was something off about him.

“Not a good message?” Alex asked, taking a sip of his beer as if he wanted to take cover behind the glass from potential curses.

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