It felt like he’d always wanted Jack Gardner.

And he didn’t know when wanting him bruised and bloody and shamed, on the floor or in the locker room or in the classroom, changed into—into the other thing, the hidden thing, the thing that kept him up at night. Maybe it really was prom, maybe it was earlier—but it seemed like it happened all at once, naturally, like water breaking through a dam to revert to its natural course. And then he couldn’t think of Gardner without imagining what it would feel like to have him under him and in him, to hold his hands down, to pull him into dark corners, to have him whisper, Please.

The curvaceous girl, Annie, held up another red, white, and blue shot. They cheered—a muddled “Slainte!”—and tossed them back. Gwilim rolled his eyes and set up the next round.

Theo had needed a few hours away from the club—he hoped that Danny’s wouldn’t now remind him of looking up at Gardner from the cold concrete of the toilet floors. So he came here, to The Thirsty, Wednesday night with the band and the kids who seemed so much younger than he felt. A palate cleanser, like parsley sorbet between rich courses of duck fat and cream.

He looked over at the guitar player, who flushed under his hot gaze, and he let himself remember the night when he first discovered this bar—another Wednesday—and the way those steel-string calloused fingers scraped the soft skin of his hips, the way his hot mouth opened and enveloped Theo, the way his voice was roughened as he sang “Fisherman’s Blues.”

Another relief, to have it fully confirmed, proven, that this was who he was, and this was what he needed.

Maybe tonight, when the bar closed down at midnight, maybe he’d take that nameless guitarist and—

Theo pulled back. As delightful as that sounded, it suddenly didn’t seem like it was enough.

Fuck Gardner, he thought. Fuck.

“Come on, can’t quit now!”

Shot number four. Annie gasped at the toxic combination, then reached up and pulled him into a sloppy kiss.

Laughing, he pulled away, leaning down to whisper, “I don’t like girls, sorry.”

“I don’t like boys, darlin’, but you just looked so sad.”

He looked down at her, surprised. She shrugged, and then he shrugged back.

The band started up in earnest, and by now all the students had memorized the set, all the words of the oft-repeated songs, and the room was filled with the not altogether in tune shout-singing of drunken voices. Annie started in on a bottle of Bulmers pear cider, and Theo leaned back against the bar and just—watched.

They all seemed so painfully young.