Stories Beneath Our Skin (6 page)

"
Huh. Learn something new every day." Frankie poured Ace a third drink with the same heavy hand she'd done the last two with. "All I can tell you is that Ace here is heavier than he looks."

"
All muscle." Ace gathered his third drink close as if Frankie might snatch it back. "I can hold my liquor."

"
Sure you can." She rolled her eyes.

"
It's okay. I think I can manage him."

"
That," she reached out and patted Liam on the cheek, "is what they all say."

"
Frankie!" Goose swanned in. "Tragedy! My glass is empty."

"
It's okay, baby, I got you." She backed down the bar, mixing away.

"
She's my angel, Professor." Goose draped himself over Liam's back, vodka and hot sauce breath tingeing the air.

"
So you guys are an item then?"

"
She keeps turning me down." Goose groaned, pressing down heavier. Liam braced himself against the bar. Apparently Ace wasn't the only one heavier than he looked. "I know she digs me man, but she won't take the leap. Burned before or some shit. I don't care about any of it, I keep telling her, but she won't listen."

"
Maybe if you tried asking her with a straight face for once," Ace said. "She thinks you're all talk."

"
I am only ninety-seven percent talk. Six percent awesome and five percent ink. How many percents is that, Professor?"

"
Too many." Liam shrugged hard, dislodging Goose only a few inches to the right. "Maybe you should email her instead. Sometimes it's easier to say what you mean when you write it down."

"
You're brilliant!" Goose laid a wet smacking kiss on Liam's cheek. "I require a pen! And paper!"

"
How about your drink?" Frankie passed him a toxic-green-filled glass that fizzled as Goose buried his nose in it. "Figured you could use a little sweet to mellow out."

"
Frankie, I need a pen and paper." He told her after the first swallow left his teeth green.

"
Why? You gonna draw on my bar again?"

"
Nuh uh." Goose stage whispered. "Gonna write you a love letter."

"
That's sweet." Frankie laughed, digging into her pocket. She handed him a pen and a stack of cocktail napkins. "Have at it."

Once she was back down the bar again, Goose slipped into his own stool and clicked the pen open
. "Okay, Professor, lay it on me."

"
What?" Liam took a sip of his Coke. "It's your letter, man."

"
You can't leave me high and dry!" Goose fluttered his eyelashes. "Come on, help a guy out!"

"
Tip one," Ace said around another ice cube, "don't talk about her breasts."

"
Like you would know." Goose snorted. "I'm not even talking to you about this. When was the last time you went home with the same person two times in a row?"

"
Huh." Ace crunched down. "Two years ago? Yeah. Wow. That does not sound good out loud."

"
I keep telling you, you're pathetic. A pathetic man ho." Goose poked Liam with the tip of a pen. "So let me have it."

"
I haven't even had a one-night stand in three years. I don't think I'm your romance guru." Liam slid out of pen's reach. It had the uncomfortable side effect of bumping him against Ace, trading the smell of hot sauce for peppermint.

"
How are you still walking around?" Goose shook his head. "That's like epic level blue balls, my friend."

"
You should lead with why you like her," Liam offered. "Like her personality and then the way she makes you feel."

"
Yeah... okay, yeah I got you."

"
Don't say nice either," Ace muttered, poking ineffectually at the lump of ice in his whiskey, trying to jar another cube loose. "Nice is like death."

The letter was a team effort in the end. Liam eventually rewrote the entire thing when he saw Goose
's drunken handwriting scrawling across the napkins. Goose signed it with a blurry flourish.

"
Your real name is Neil?" Liam wrinkled his nose.

"
Yep." Goose popped the "P". "My daddy's father's name."

"
You are not a Neil." Liam capped the pen.

"
You're telling me! Got Goose in high school and even if it is sort of a shitty nickname, it's still a hell of a lot better than Neil."

"
What about you?" Liam asked Ace, who was beginning to look a little wobbly at the bottom of his glass.

"
What about me?"

"
Oh, he's not going to tell you his name. I've known him since we were thirteen, and I don't fucking know. Has his whole family sworn to secrecy, the paranoid freak." Goose snorted. "Deb claims she knows, but I think she's full of shit."

"
She had to know." One blond dreadlock had escaped the leather thong, falling to the side of Ace's high cheekbone. It looked oddly sweet there. "Didn't have a damn choice, but if she ever tells anyone, murder in the first degree."

"
Where is Deb anyway?" Liam turned around, aware for the first time that the bar had started to empty out. It must have been well after two.

"
Probably still making time with those army friends of yours." Goose stole Ace's straw, bending it into a knot. "They were taking up room on the dance floor last I looked."

"
Oh. Army, really?" Liam asked, wide-eyed. He'd have guessed ex-gang member before army. Then again, Ace did have a sort of ragged discipline about him. Either way, it was tough to picture him with a gun.

"
Fuck. Yeah." Ace rattled his empty glass hopefully in Frankie's direction.

"
King of Great Judgment here," Goose waved a hand at Ace, "signed up for the National Guard after high school."

"
It seemed like a good idea at the time," Ace huffed. "Weekend warrior, earn some cash, respect my new citizenship. Not like I had a better plan back then."

"
Right. He signed up April of 2001. So come September..."

"
Jesus." Liam looked Ace over again. It was a little like seeing him for the first time. He tried to imagine that compact body with a crew cut, shuffling through desert in fatigues. "Where? How long?"

"
Tour in Afghanistan."

"
And you made Captain?"

"
No. Just sort of a nickname."

"
Because he bossed us halfway to hell and right back out again." Deb took her seat back, sweat soaking her hair from magenta to a dark purple. "We all sort of knew each other, from the same area growing up or whatever. He'd always been this quiet weirdo with the BBC accent. Damned if he didn't have a sixth sense for danger though, and he never steered us wrong. Even commanding officers got to respect it."

"
Just common sense. And it's not an English accent, you ass." Ace waved Frankie down. "Did what I had to do and got the hell out as soon as I could."

"
Sounds like you did a lot more than that," Liam said softly.

"
Yeah, well. You don't know, okay?" Ace gave him a sidelong look. "But thanks."

"
Almost closing time, kids." Frankie swept toward them. "Better get your last fun in."

"
Shots all around," Deb decreed. "For the birthday boy."

"
Shots, I can do." Frankie winked at Liam. "Maybe I better call you a cab. Three of 'em is a little much."

"
I'm good, actually." Deb reached over the bar and grabbed an olive, popping it into her mouth before Frankie could smack at her hand. "Pete's going to drive me home."

"
Ugh." Ace frowned. "You sure?"

"
Just because you don't like him doesn't mean I can't enjoy certain parts of him," Deb said primly, spitting a pit into her palm. "Prairie Fire all around, please."

Three shots of vodka and hot sauce later, Goose was back to leaning sloppily on Liam while Ace seemed to be concentrating intently on the puddle of condensation forming under his glass. Deb
staggered off with a weak wave goodnight on the arm of a burly guy with a shaved head and a black eye.

"
You should get out of my bar, before I have to charge rent." Frankie was already opening up the register. "Need any help getting to the car?"

"
I'm good." Ace got to his feet and proved steady enough as he made his own way to the door.

"
I am also very, very good." Goose blinked slowly and mostly managed to stand on his own, though locomotion was beyond him.

"
Didn't you have something else to do before we left?" Liam coaxed.

"
Dunno." Goose's eyes rolled a little to the side. "Um. No?"

"
Never mind." Liam braced himself and reached into Goose's pocket, tugging out the carefully folded napkin letter.

"
Hey, now, Professor. I know you're hard up, but you're not really my type." Goose wiggled his hips unhelpfully.

"
Don't get excited." He handed the napkin to Frankie. "I think you might want this."

"
He actually wrote one?" For the first time all night, her smile dropped away completely as she scanned the first few lines. "Oh."

"
I mean it, too. Every word." Goose nodded sagely then went right on nodding like a bobblehead doll.

"
Come on, hot shot. Let's get out of here before you ruin the moment."

It took a little doing, but he managed to pour Goose into the backseat while Ace negotiated with his seat belt for far too long. When it finally clicked into place, they were ready to go.

"Where to?"

"
Goose's place first. He's closer," Ace decreed.

They drifted through the night
-deserted streets, Ace's directions sometimes lagging behind the actual turns. Liam made a series of increasingly wide U-turns until they arrived at a box of a house with four cars parked at odd angles in front of it.

"
Oh, man, Mata is gonna kill me." Goose got out of the car on his own, but Liam shadowed him all the way to the door. "She hates when I bang around this late."

"
That your roommate?"

"
My mom," Goose groaned. "Not one giggle about me living with her, got it?"

"
Not one."

Once he was sure Goose had gotten inside, Liam retreated. He didn
't know the guy well enough to tuck him in, and he didn't seem in danger of puking on himself or anything. Ace had rolled down the window and looked a little more together when Liam got back in.

"
Why haven't you had sex in three years?" Ace asked as soon Liam turned the key in the ignition.

"
I'll take none of your business for three hundred please, Alex." He put his arm around the back of Ace's seat as he backed out.

"
You learned all sorts of new shit about me tonight. Give a little." Ace's lips were too close this way, a soft suggestion of a kiss in the dark.

"
Wasn't anyone I was interested in." Which strictly speaking, was true. Hard to get interested when you were so determined not to look. Even at LGTBQ events, he stuck with his female friends and escaped when it got too social.

"
Oh, that's bullshit. Really? Three years and no one turned your head even a little?"

"
It's not just looks." Liam started back to the main road. "Where do you live?"

"
Turn right at the end of the road. Five miles down that way and then a right at the light." Ace frowned. "Do you just hate people? You don't seem the type. Like you're not pissed off enough. Or maybe you are. Hard to tell with all the long faces."

"
I'm pissed off." He watched the yellow lines bleed past. "Furious some days. But no. I don't hate people."

"
Not enough other queer guys around campus then?" Ace leaned back. "Know that feeling."

"
Uh." Shit. Liam had to keep looking at the road or they'd wind up in a ditch. "Yeah. I guess."

"
Try dating in this suburban wasteland. It's a nightmare. Five guys out of the closet, and I've dated them all. Rest of 'em still hiding out from their wives, looking for a quick bang. Which I'm not actually against, but being the other woman leaves a few black marks on the soul after a while."

"
That why you haven't seen anyone in a few years?" Liam asked. He was flushed all over, despite the open windows cooling the car down. He wasn't sure what to make of Ace's sideways admission, if that was what it even was. Maybe Ace had assumed Liam already knew.