Page 76 of Walking Wounded

Hal sighs – his chest presses into Luke’s back – but he says, “Yeah, fine, I can keep a secret.”

“Good, ‘cause I don’t want you making a liar out of me.”

Hal snorts, right in Luke’s ear, and then his hand pulls away. Luke misses it immediately.

The hall opens up into the main part of the club, and it doesn’t look like the same place Luke visited in the daytime. Colored lights rotate overhead, beaming across the crowd like searchlights. The darkness and the high ceilings lend the room an expansive, hollow feeling, and despite the cold outside, the crush of humanity turns the club tropical; Luke can already feel sweat gathering at the small of his back and behind his knees. The bar, illuminated from underneath its glass top, shoots for futuristic, something that was hip in New York in the nineties. In fact, the whole place leans retro, just like Tara’s Goth/grunge makeup.

“Cute,” he says, mostly to himself, but Hal leans in to hear.

“What?”

“Come buy me a drink.” He hooks a finger in Hal’s belt loop and tows him forward.

When they get to the bar, and Hal is occupied ordering their drinks, Luke takes the chance for another stolen look at Hal. They are both wearing tight jeans, but Hal’s are justobscene. They look spray-painted on, dark wash, highlighting his adherence to leg day at the gym. His shirt – a dark blue button-up left open at the throat – is likewise too tight, and over it he wears a black motorcycle jacket Luke’s never seen before, but of which he definitely approves.

“Here.” Hal slides over a Jack and Coke and turns to put his back to the bar, ostensibly scanning the crowd, but angling his body toward Luke. Luke wonders if he knows that his posture screams that he’s here with someone, that he’s not trolling.

“Thanks.” Luke mimics his stance, with that slight angle.

Two sips into his drink, Luke remembers just how much he hates nightclubs. Mom likes to say he was born eighty-years-old, a theory never disproved by his avoidance of large, loud social gatherings. He likes to drink, and he likes music, and sometimes…sometimes….he likes to dance. But he likes a glass of Scotch to go with a good book. Likes to cut his angry scream-o rock with Otis Redding. Likes a slow dance, no music, just two lonely hearts swaying together to their own beat.

God, he’s a mess.

Something bumps his elbow – Hal’s elbow. He’s sliding in closer, cutting down that gap between them. He tips his head in as he says, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you hated clubs.”

Luke forces himself to make a face, because that’s what he ought to do, forces himself not to reveal the way proximity is making his pulse jump. “I do.”

“So…?”

“Tara invited us, which is teenage girl speak for herwantingus to come.”

“You two are friends, then?”

“Friendly. I think maybe she just recognized someone else who didn’t fit in around her perfect family.” He glances over and sees Hal’s brows go up. “She wants to go to dance school.”

“So why doesn’t she? Matt offered to pay for it.”

“What? No, she said he…”

But Hal shakes his head. “Matt would send that kid to school in China if she wanted it. She wanted to stay in DC. That’s why the whole family spends so much time here. They have a house back in Virginia, too, you know. Most senators get apartments and leave their families in the home state. Matt brings his with him, and a lot of that is the girls going to school here.”

Luke is dumbfounded, and doesn’t get a chance to respond because the subject in question slips between them and leans up against the bar, Dex in tow.

“You made it!” Tara shouts over the music, gleam in her eye suggested that several drinks have been consumed. “Hal, this is my boyfriend Dex. Babe.” She slides her arm through Dex’s. “You remember Luke, and this is his boyfriend, Hal.”

Luke tries not to choke on his drink.

But Hal, to his credit, says, “Uh…hi, nice to meet you,” and shakes Dex’s hand. Luke can’t tell if he’s blushing, beneath the swinging blue and purple lights, but his crooked smile suggests he probably is.

“Same,” Dex says. “You guys have a good time, I gotta check in with the DJ.” He kisses Tara’s cheek, squeezes her ass, and slips off into the crowd, Tara staring after him a moment with a dreamy look on her face.

“Wow,” Luke says. “PDA. In front of the old folks.” He gestures between himself and Hal. “Comfy, are we?”

Tara swats his arm. “Oh myGod, you arelame.”

“And yet you invited us.”

She grins, teeth glowing in the dark.

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