Stories Beneath Our Skin

by Veronica Sloane

"No one would believe he's thirty-two." Ace shook his head.

  "He is? Man, he really doesn't look it," Liam marveled.

  "Good skin and a baby face. Some guys have all the luck and decent genes."

  "Why? How old are you?"

  "How old do I look?"

  "Dunno. Older than me. Younger than Deb."

  "Don't let her hear you say that." Ace laughed into his glass. "But you're right. I'm thirty-one. She's thirty-four."

  Nine years difference between them. Liam mulled the number over through a mouthful of Coke. It was stupid even to think about it, but he couldn't help himself. Ace hadn't shown a lick of interest in men in general or Liam in particular. Yet the possibility was there now, lingering between them in a tension that was most likely one sided. Nine years was probably a lot. You could become a different person in nine years. Get a doctorate, get married, buy a house. You could grow up, have your own business, and start calling twenty-two-year-olds "kid". Apparently. Liam stared at his Coke, willing it to ferment into something harder.

  "It's the Captain!" A girl emerged from the crowd, throwing herself at Ace's back, arms winding around him. For a split second, Ace looked like he might toss her right back off, but his expression softened.

  "How goes it?" he asked, turning in her arms on the barstool.

  "It goes." She shrugged, still clinging tightly to him. "I was just leaving, then saw you. I thought you might want to say hi. Me and Pete and James met up for a drink."

  "Pete and James are here?"

  "Sure thing. Come on, say hi for a minute." She tugged at him.

  "Deb is here too." Ace wiggled out from the girl's grip to cross the dance floor. He touched Deb's Buddha'd arm and shouted something unintelligible over the music. She froze then slid away from Goose to follow Ace into a darkened corner. In her absence, Goose went on dancing on his own, curls flying wild around his head.

  Abandoned, Liam turned his attention to Frankie. She zoomed up and down the bar, filling drinks and summoning cheeky comments as she went. She was tall for a woman, her shoulders and hands unusually large, but graceful and quick. When she spotted Ace and Deb's empty stools, she did a quick scan of the room. A frown tugged at the edges of her mouth and a customer had to ask her twice for a refill. Eventually she made her way back to Liam's side of the bar and plopped another neon red cherry into his Coke. He sucked it off the stem happily. He'd forgotten how much he liked the overdyed sweetness of them.

  "They run off on you?" she asked casually.

  "Nah. Ran into some friends, I guess. Pete and James someone?"

  "Shit." Frankie blew upwards, sending her bangs flying. "They'll need refills when they get back."

  "Something wrong?"

  "Not exactly." She reached for the soda gun, topping him off with absent-minded grace. "Just bad memories shared and all that. Maybe some good ones too, for all I know."

  "I think I'm missing something. Who are these people?"

  "Not for me to say." Frankie gave him a sympathetic smile. "You know how it goes. Bartender is like a therapist, except the tips don't get chewed up by insurance."

  Before Liam could press her, Ace returned grim and holding an empty glass. Frankie filled him back up and gave Liam another cherry like it was a consolation prize, before zipping away to make a martini at the other end of the bar.

  "You okay?" Liam asked after Ace downed half the glass in a swallow.

  "Yeah, sure." Ice crunched between Ace's teeth. "Frankie looking after you?"

  "I've been to a bar before," he said dryly.

  "Can get a little rowdy in here, is all." Ace rubbed at his forehead.

  "So can I ask you something?"

  "Depends on what it is."

  "Is Frankie trans?" Liam hunched around his drink. "I mean, it doesn't matter if she is or anything. I just noticed and--"

  "Frankie is a classy fucking lady." Fishing in the glass, Ace sought out another ice cube and popped it in his mouth, crunching on it ruthlessly. "Whatever she was born as isn't any of your business."

  "Wasn't trying to be rude." He tried not to feel stung. "Just curious. She passes well."

  "Not well enough, apparently."

  "I know what to look for." Liam bit his lip, watched Ace polish off the rest of his drink. Given how Frankie poured, Ace had to be at least close to drunk now. Maybe he'd forget the conversation even happened. Liam had taken worse opportunities to come out of the closet. "Go to enough LGBTQ meetings, you figure stuff out."

  "Of course you do," Ace groaned. "Frankie! Top me off!"

  Liam had no idea how to take that.

  "That's not a top off, that's a refill." She came back down the bar, clucking her tongue. "You better hope Liam here is stronger than he looks 'cause he's gonna be carrying your Napoleon-sized ass home."

  "Actually, Napoleon was above average height," Liam offered, the cool stability of facts comforting in the moment. Ace didn't seem upset. He didn't seem to be anything, except thirsty. Even the Napoleon comment had left him unphased. "The short thing was a political campaign."

  "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 ha
d 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 aro
und 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.

  "Nuh uh. No freebies, kiddo. You ain't talking then neither am I." Ace waved a hand. "Tell me about college."

  "If you're gay, why did you go into the army?" He asked instead of answering. "I mean, I could see maybe now, but back then?"

  "Maybe you woke up one morning at twelve years old and knew who you were, but it takes us lesser men time to figure this shit out. Anyway, I probably would have done it anyway. Figured it wouldn't matter if it was just weekends. Could fuck who I wanted on the weekdays, right?" Ace snorted. "I was moron. I think we can be clear on that."

  "I was fifteen." Liam rubbed a thumb over the steering wheel. "Not twelve."

  "Still. Years younger than me. Guess you had a pretty boyfriend too, right? Some matching set couple of the year. Funny how a decade can change things. They probably would've made a kid like you prom king."

  "Not even close." He laughed bitterly. "But thanks for thinking that was possible. I wasn't actually out at high school, and even if I was... no one was looking. Only one guy took an interest, and he wasn't prom date material."

  "No? Who'd you take to prom then?"

  "I didn't go."

  "Why not?"

  "You go to yours?"

  "Yeah. Sort of." Ace snorted. "Got there, got in, and walked right back out. Wasn't my scene at the time. Wound up smoking out back with some other ditchers, then getting McDonald's. Good thing I didn't have a date. What'd you do instead?"

  "Nothing fun. Watched movies."

  "And this boyfriend of yours?"

  "Gone by then." Liam tightened his hands on the steering wheel. "Which was fine. I left for college a month or two after that."