Sara’s Dilemma
A Suspense Romance Novel
Sara working out of town, dealing with a failing marriage and buried in a work project, finds the time to slip away for some drinks. She finds herself in a local gay bar and meets Erik.
Erica Michaels
Copyright © 2020 by Erica Michaels Writes
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Sunday Funday
Going to the Condo
Back to the Grind
Innocent Texting
Sara Versus Raymond
Work or Play?
Erik and Sara at the Reservoir
The End
Sunday Funday
Happy hour at a gay bar on Sunday evening, huh? Sara thinks to herself as she leaves the bank. She’s eyed the bar across the street for weeks now. When she first started coming to Phoenix to meet with her programming company’s newest client, she didn’t give the building much attention. It’s non-descript “Saloon” sign with red-white-and-blue half circles hanging from the white balcony above never quite caught her attention. But the patrons did.
At first, leaving the bank at 10pm after having gotten there at 7am, she operated in a half-daze of sleep-deprivation, going right to the hotel. But around day four or five, she started to notice the scantily-dressed men who would hang outside the saloon. Their dress didn’t seem real at first, and Sara thought maybe they were thought figures in some strange self-deprived dreamscape. Leather booty shorts, mesh shirts covering very little of their muscled chests, crop tops that seemed a little too tight for what she’s expect a straight man to wear… It’s a gay bar, Sara had realized, and as far as she knows, it’s the only bar between her workplace and hotel.
Sara has been driving to Phoenix from Flagstaff every week for the past few months, staying in a hotel for the week while working with her employer’s newest corporate client. Of course, living out of a suitcase has bogged her down, but this afternoon, as the desert sun makes the shadows long and red, she begins to feel a certain kind of levity. She’s not at home, trying and failing to make conversation with her husband or teenage son, always stuck on their computers. She’s not pretending her marriage is alright, lying to her son by saying she’s only sleeping in the guest room to avoid keeping his dad awake.
Instead, her time is her own. Or rather, her client’s, but at least she can forget about the marriage, instead flying through the autopilot of the sometimes-frustrating clockwork of meetings and writing code. She’s begun to even like the drive down from Flagstaff, feeling the flat desert sand almost like a friend she’s visited biweekly for three months.
Why not stop at a gay bar? she thinks, glancing at her watch. 4pm, hours earlier than I normally get out of work, and I don’t even need to be back until tomorrow morning.
Glancing around to see if any of her coworkers are lingering at the entrance of the bank, she crosses the street, heels clicking on the asphalt, and opens the door to the saloon.
Inside, a set of tables stretches before her, mostly empty, with two bars on either side of the room. One of the bartender’s glances at her when she walks in but looks away quickly. She sees a few patrons sitting at a table, scruffy and with more facial hair than some of the men she normally sees outside. On the far side of the room, a rainbow Pride flag hangs from the wall and a small stage sits between two speakers. The stage lights are down though, and it doesn’t look like anyone is going to be performing tonight.
After passing through the bar inside, Sara finds the door leading to the patio, where there’s at least a bit more of a crowd, maybe a dozen people. The tables look like they are painted to look like grey marble, but no doubt is plastic, matching the white plastic chairs that seem to fly backwards whenever someone perhaps a little too tipsy and wobbles past them. The music is blaring, some sort of club song remixed. Sara doesn’t know much about music, but she imagines hearing the song on some beach, and it definitely seems to match the fruity cocktails she sees flying from the hands of these effeminate men, bright blue and pink, little umbrellas and twisty straws that pass from mouth to mouth, between laughs and twisted wrists covering mouths curved in a sinful sort of smile.
She sees one man wearing a Bud Light tank with denim shorts and white shoes dancing between the tables, flying back and forth with an exaggerated tilt of his hips, waving a pink fan in his hand as he dances to each group of people. Some respond to him with big grins, holding out their hands as they brush fingers. Sara notices a little smile creep over her face as she watches him, mesmerized. Soon, though, he reaches his group of friends again, who greet him with guffaws and kisses on the cheek.
Sara glances down, self-conscious, wondering how many straight women walk through these doors, and suddenly wondering if she should have stopped at her hotel room to change before coming. She’s sure not many women in ironed white blouses tucked into grey pencil skirts waltz onto this patio on a Sunday afternoon. In fact, she only sees a handful of women here and they don’t seem to be lesbians. One drinks leisurely from a clear drink, topped with lime, her blonde hair hanging in a loose pony tail and framing her slender face. Another laughs along with the male friends around her. Sara sighs, wondering if she’s made a mistake in coming here.
To distract herself from being self-conscious, she wanders over to the bar, situated in the center of the patio. She admires the tree in the center of the bar, helping create the canopy of shade, not that they need it much on a 70-degree fall day. Thankfully, fall in Phoenix is much more bearable than the summer.
The bartender catches her eye, and careens over.
Kind of cute, she thinks, admiring the man’s curly brown hair and bright white shirt, just tight enough to reveal the bulge of bicep beneath. Must barely be old enough to work here though.
“What are you having?” he asks, the inflection of his voice varying a little too much for what Sara would expect from a straighter man.
“Vodka tonic, please,” she says.
He pulls out a new glass with a few cubes of ice, pouring the vodka in without measuring it and spraying tonic water from the soda hose in at the same time. He tops it off with a squeeze of lime, a straw, and a pink umbrella.
“Four dollars — happy hour price,” he says.
Just as Sara starts rummaging in her purse, a hand from behind her offers up a plastic card.
“Allow me,” says a lower voice behind her.
She glances back, meeting eyes with a handsome man in his 30s, she’d guess.
As the bartender takes his credit card, the man says, “It’s my friend’s credit card,” and nods his head back.
Sara glances in the direction of the nod, where two other men are sitting, one in a tight vest with his legs crossed and another wearing designer jeans and a green V-neck.
“Come drink with us,” says the man beside her. He’s so close, she can smell the whiskey on his breath, and see how his amber eyes are glittering. She knows it’s not for her — she’s at a gay bar after all, but something in his expression makes her feel at ease, like inviting some stranger woman to drink with his gay friends is the most natural thing in the world.
“My name’s Jasper, by the way,” he says, signing the receipt the bartender has just passed him and slipping the credit card in his back pocket.
“Sara,” she responds, realizing she hadn’t said anything yet to this strange man.
She follows him back to the table with the other two men, who seem deep in conversation, but look back without surprise as they approach them. The one wear
ing a vest with no shirt underneath uncrosses his legs, patting them once. For a second, Sara wonders if he is inviting her to sit down on him, and she opens her mouth to protest, but then Jasper slips in front of her and sits down.
Oh, of course, she thinks.
“Not quite the crowd you’re used to, huh?”
Sara turns her head to evaluate the other man, the plainer looking one, well, plain by gay standards. He looks older than Jasper and Louis, maybe in his 40s, and his black hair curves elegantly over his forehead. He lifts one thick eyebrow, like he’s in the middle of some joke. To her right, Jasper and his lover have started giggling, and suddenly she wonders why she’d even accept one of these men to buy her a drink.
“Well, no,” she says quietly in response.
“Take a seat, sweetie, we won’t bite unless you ask us to,” says the man seated underneath Jasper.
Timidly, she sits down.
“I’m Erik,” says the plainer man, extending his hand.
Sara puts her hand in his, and Erik gazes at her intently. Well, he’s not plain at all, she thinks, realizing his emerald eyes are complex and swirling, like little concentric rings of a tree’s trunk radiating out from his pupil.
“Sara,” she says, hoping she hadn’t stared too long.
“And I’m Louis,” says the voice from underneath Jasper. His is the most effeminate of these men’s speech patterns, and Sara wonders if that’s why he wears the tightest clothing, or if those things happened more by coincidence.
“So, what brings you here?” Erik asks.
Sara would ordinarily expect this question to come with some sort of judgmental tone of voice, but Erik says it casually, without any criticism, and he looks genuinely curious.
Not sure why a gay man would be so friendly with a seemingly straight woman coming to his bar, Sara begins tentatively. “Well, I work across the street…”
“At the bank?” Erik asks.
She nods once. “Yes. Not long-term, but I’ve had programming project there for the past few months…It’s been so busy, I haven’t been able to enjoy the sunlight in weeks…so I thought it might be nice to stop by for a drink.”
“An interesting place to stop by,” Erik muses.
“Well it’s not that I’m…” Sara starts, then stops herself, thinking they probably already know she isn’t here to find some woman.
“It’s okay, we don’t mind tourists!” Louis announces, his head poking out from behind Jasper’s shoulder.
Sara covers her mouth to stifle a small laugh.
“I get it — you just needed some place to unwind, right?” Erik says.
Sara nods.
“This was the closest bar, and admittedly, the most fun,” Erik adds.
Sara nods again while swishing her drink with a curly straw, stabbing at the lime to get more of a sour citrus taste. I could just finish this and get going, she thinks, wondering if the whole idea had been a disaster.
“So, what do you do for work?” Sara asks, trying to steer the conversation away from the reason a straight woman would come to a gay bar.
“I’m a consultant,” Erik says simply.
“For a specific firm?” Sara asks.
“Yes,” Erik answers, but doesn’t give any more information.
Aren’t gay men supposed to be better at holding conversations? Sara thinks, glancing for a moment at Jasper and Louis. They are whispering to each other with small grins and a kind of ease Sara only wished she could have with another man. She used to be that way with her husband, interacting with each other in such a way that their intimacy was palpable, even if they weren’t touching. Now, though, she and her husband act more like strangers.
Jasper catches her gaze and slides off Louis’ lap, his face changing into something more neutral rather than affection for Louis.
“This man, he’s an adventuresome one, do you know that, Sara?” Jasper says, and the way he seems to proclaim it makes Sara think perhaps Jasper is getting a little drunk.
“Really?” Sara responds, trying to make her curiosity sound genuine. She is curious about the handsome man who must have paid for her drink, but she doesn’t quite understand what she’d get out of taking interest in a gay man’s adventures.
“Rides motorcycles all through the mountains — he’s taken me a couple times,” Jasper explains.
“And me too,” adds Louis.
Are all three of them dating or something? Sara thinks, imagining how it might look with Jasper or Louis leaning onto Erik’s back as they ride into the mountains.
“Where do you like to ride?” Sara asks Erik.
He seems a little embarrassed that Jasper has now steered the conversation towards him but curves his lips into an easy smile when he responds, “Many places…I’ve explored Moab, Baja Mexico…even Alaska.”
“Alaska is a far way to travel,” Sara comments.
“Yes, but it’s well worth it. Seeing the mountains so far north, and the way the sunrise stretches out and glitters off the snow. Sometimes, I’ll ride into the night, pull over and sleep for a few hours in a tent, and then keep riding until I can almost reach the next horizon…no souls around, just the sound of wind through the valleys, just the grand peaks lifting up like ground in the sky.”
Something changes in Erik’s face when he starts to talk about the mountains and the sunset snow — his eyes start to glitter a little and his smile turns into something Sara would describe as wistful. She notices herself leaning in, listening intently, looking from his eyes down to the casual way his arm rests on the table, so close she could touch it…
“That’s our poet boy Erik,” Louis says, his words feeling almost like an interruption as Sara notices she’s leaning.
Erik seems to notice too, though, and leans back in his chair, his eyes getting more guarded. Hopefully he didn’t think that meant I was into him… Sara thinks, pulling her drink to her lips.
“That’s why we like him so much,” adds Jasper.
Gulping down the last bit of vodka-tonic, Sara asks, “How did you all meet?”
Erik glances from Jasper to Louis, bringing both arms up to his head in a stretch. Sara can’t help but notice his biceps peeking out of his shirt as he lifts his arms, a hint of curly hair at the edge of the muscle.
“Erik helped us buy our condo,” Louis says.
Erik’s arms fall fast from his head, and he looks at Louis, his expression unreadable.
“So, you’re a real estate consultant?” Sara asks, wondering why he hadn’t said he was in real estate in the first place.
“That was a long time ago,” Erik says.
“Almost a decade,” Jasper adds.
“Back when I was a broker,” Erik explains.
Sara nods slowly but doesn’t understand why Erik seems so tense. He was relaxed earlier, talking about riding his motorcycle through Alaska, and this simple question seemed to turn his face into stone.
“I have to pee,” Louis announced loudly, sighing dramatically and standing up. “Need anything while I’m gone?” He raises his eyebrows and looks to each person at the table, looking last at Jasper.
“Just you,” Jasper responds, eying Louis up and down with a hungry look on his face.
Louis rolls his eyes in response, grabs Jasper’s hand and sashays across the patio, Jasper in tow.
Sara watches them for a moment, her eyes then drifting to other bar patrons. They all seem…happy, getting discounted drinks, laughing easily. Her eyes drift back to Erik, he seems distant all the sudden, his mouth curving into a slight frown. He doesn’t seem as…gay…as the rest of these people, she thinks. When he notices she’s looking at him, though, his pained expression melts away and he looks back at her with a warmth to his eyes, similar to the warmth he first greeted her with.
“I’m sorry about my friends,” he says.
“Why sorry? They’re very nice,” she responds, taking a sip of the now-melted ice in her cup.
“Well, with the sitting on each oth
er, giggling…” he says, his face turned back into that almost-joke sort of expression. He looks at her with a shimmer to his eyes, lowering his voice in a stage whisper, “Eye-fucking each other.”
Sara laughs, genuinely, covering her mouth as she pushes her glass away.
“That glance before they left definitely did look like a…”
“An eye-fuck?” Erik finishes.
She laughs again, and nods. “Yes, all lustful and obvious.”
Erik takes a sip of the whiskey in front of him, his eyes crinkled from laughter, making his age seem like the most joyful experience in the world. “They always do that. Well, not always, but they’re a very lustful couple, Jasper and Louis, so loyal though — we’ve met here almost every Sunday for years. They’re the type of friends who will always be there for you.”
“It’s good to have friends like that,” Sara responds, her tone getting more contemplative. Where did all my friends go? she wonders, thinking about her husband and how distant he’s been, thinking about all the time she put into raising her son, all the connections that fell away after she became a working mother.
“We all need them,” Erik agrees. He’s leaned into the table now, his hand resting gently over the fake marble design. His palm is open, fingers slightly curled, almost like he’s offering his hand to her. He doesn’t ask if she has friends as loyal as Louis and Jasper, but it’s almost as if he senses her sadness, her need.
“I’ve been driving so much from Flagstaff to Phoenix, it’s hard to have time for friends, for those easy nights of just being with other people…nights kind of like these,” she says, revealing a little of herself without making her life sound so glum. She wraps one hand over the other on the table, looking down at them before looking back up at Erik. “That’s why it’s so nice that you and your friends invited me over.”
Erik nods, his eyes mesmerizing. Sara can’t stop looking at them, noticing the rings of green, the ways they are layered with different richness because of the green of his shirt. She feels something on her hand and looks down, seeing that Erik has extended his arm and is lightly brushing the outside of her hand with the tip of his index finger. Something stirs in her stomach.
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