Shaking his head, Scott reached for his beer. “Nope. Not in a thousand lifetimes.”
Our first experience with a gay bar in college had been a disaster. We’d been the only guys under fifty, and they’d circled like birds of prey. The guy dressed in seventies chic had been the nicest but had the worst pickup lines ever.
What had made it even better was that Scott could be slightly literal, especially when he was buzzed, and he’d had no idea what the guy was talking about. Scott had just looked around, and then asked me if I’d stolen a sign.
He’d been a bit more buzzed than I’d realized.
“Okay, no more nightmare memories.” I resisted the urge to reach over and squeeze his shoulder, not wanting to give anyone the impression we were together. Nodding, I grabbed my beer instead.
“Thank you.” Scott looked around the room as he drank his beer and then set the glass down. “Maybe we should’ve gone somewhere else tonight.”
He was probably right. We were both aggressive and outgoing in sports, and even when it came to work, but clubs and dating were different. When you weren’t crowding around twinks on the dance floor, people assumed you were either straight and lost, or taken.
Scott always came across awkwardly when picking up somebody in this kind of situation, so he barely ever tried. I thought he needed to relax more and be himself, but he thought guys wouldn’t find the real him as attractive as the package looked.
It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t change his mind. Sure, a lot of guys went for the big, brawny, football-type tops, but most of the time those guys wanted smart and interesting to talk to as well. I thought it was cute when he’d get excited about some historical event that happened centuries ago or an article he’d read on the stock market.
He just didn’t let enough people see that side of himself.
I wasn’t boring and wasn’t completely useless in social situations, but that didn’t help me find guys I was attracted to. Finding cute, outgoing twinks wasn’t hard, but they took one look at me and decided I must be some kind of dominant top.
At that point, the only guys who would talk to me were looking for me to make all the decisions and take control. It was frustrating, because that wasn’t who I was or what I wanted.
But there was no way I was going to tell them that.
Big, broad guys who still looked like they played football in college weren’t supposed to want someone else to take charge in bed. I was supposed to throw a twink around and growl orders at him, not want him to stretch me out and give me sexy demands.
“Why don’t you go talk to that guy?” Scott’s eyes shifted toward the other end of the bar. “He’s been batting his eyelashes at you for the past few minutes. Not that you seemed to have noticed.”
I’d noticed, but I was hoping Scott wouldn’t.
The little brunet was cute, with big Bambi eyes and a stylishly floppy haircut, but every movement just screamed out he was looking for some kind of big sexy daddy. His eyes had followed every muscular guy in the place.
I should’ve been interested. But without being overly honest, there wasn’t a good explanation for why I wasn’t. Scott would’ve probably understood, but there were just some things we’d never talked about.
Hell, even after knowing him all through high school, I hadn’t realized he was gay until we started hanging out in college together.
So I wasn’t in any hurry to tell him a submissive guy would never do it for me.
Thankfully, I was saved from having to come up with an excuse when someone else went up and sat beside the guy at the bar. Scott seemed frustrated for me, which was nice, but not really necessary.
“Maybe next time.” Making excuses was becoming second nature. “I’m not in any hurry to jump back into anything serious, and he looks like the serious type.” That was the best I could come up with. It was almost true, so I didn’t feel too bad about the lie.
I’d been dating a guy for almost a year, and a few months ago, we’d broken up. Nothing crazy and dramatic, but he’d been really frustrated I wouldn’t open up more. Mike had been nice, but I’d kind of fallen into a relationship with him by accident, and I’d always known it wouldn’t work in the long run.
Evidently, if you had too many coffee dates with someone you ended up in a relationship.
I was going to be more careful about that in the future.
Part of the reason I’d been putting off dating was because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I couldn’t decide if I was going to keep living half in the closet, or if I was going to go for it and find someone I was really interested in.
I’d probably end up staying in the closet, but at least I was going to think about it for a while.
I wasn’t sure if that was the right analogy or not, but it was the best I could come up with. When the only thing you were honest and open about was the fact that you were gay, had you really come out? I knew some people would say yes and think I was stupid or prejudiced or judgmental or something. I wasn’t sure how to explain it, but it felt wrong to me. It wasn’t like I felt the need to shout it from the rooftops or anything dramatic.
But when I was hiding things from someone like Scott, it’d never felt like I was being my real self.
Looking back to the other side of the bar, I saw the sexy guy we’d first noticed still holding court. The mix of guys and girls around him kept shifting, so it didn’t look like he was with anyone in particular. But even if I’d been willing to go up and try to flirt with him, I wasn’t going to so much as smile in his direction until I knew if he was at least bi.
