He must have said the right thing because he got a heated look in return. “And what do you do, Archer?” Lachlan’s eyes slid up and down Archer’s frame.

“I’m a dancer.” Still sounded ridiculous to say out loud, but accountant was worse.

His eyebrows jerked up. “Oh, yeah? Broadway?”

That was always the first thing everyone asked. “Not yet.”

“Off, then? Anything I might have seen you in?”

And the second thing. “Not unless you caught Guys and Dolls at the Beavercreek Community Theatre in Dayton five years ago.”

Lachlan bunched his brow. “Uh…”

“I mean, I just moved from Ohio and I’m, um, still looking to, you know, break my way in.”

Lachlan took him in again, only this time his gaze was analytical. “Aren’t you a little old to be ‘chasing your dreams’?” He gave a derisive chuckle but read the clench in Archer’s jaw. “Don’t get me wrong! You’re crazy hot, but how old are you? Twenty-six, twenty-seven?”

Archer cleared his throat. “Twenty-seven.” For another month anyway.

Lachlan grimaced. “No offense, but, like, you showed up here, have zero connections, and you’re almost thirty. What did you think was going to happen?”

The cheap beer gurgled up Archer’s throat, fighting with the welling disappointment and leaving no room for words.

“Anyway.” Lachlan laughed, although nothing was funny. “Bet you could make a killing if you started stripping.”

Archer stretched the corners of his mouth out to nowhere, and then he lurched to his feet without looking at Lachlan. Twenty-seven is too old. “I just have to…” He dashed through the bar and into a bathroom stall before the tears spilled over.

Twenty-seven is too old. He heard it in his own voice now, instead of his mom’s.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Is this what his stupid dream had come to? Crying in a bathroom with a picture of Nathan Lane over the toilet, all because a hot guy told him he should be a stripper? “Goddamn it, Archer,” he muttered to himself, furiously wiping the tears away. His head thunked back against the closed stall door under Mr. Lane’s steady gaze, unsure if he was more mad at himself for bolting, crying, or being a total failure in general. He decided it was a three-way tie, then stayed there for a good twenty minutes, figuring Lachlan wouldn’t wait around for more than five, but just to be sure.

And he was right. When he made it back to the table, Lachlan was already chatting up a new guy across the bar, younger and hotter. Archer diverted his gaze to Lynn and Sasha’s smiles as they bounced around and forced himself to stay for one more beer, three more songs, then he stood.

“I gotta go,” he yelled at Lynn over the music.