Exotic

~ tall, dark and handsome ~

I got to Crescendo ten minutes later than I'd promised Jamie. The man was polishing the bar like he meant it harm, while his bouncer for weekdays, Emanuel, watched with faint amusement from near the stage. Jamie looked up when I entered and cracked a grin. And then lost it when he saw my face.

"Seph," he said seriously. "What happened to your face?"

I ducked my head down, mentally cursing Aidan McCaffrey and his right hook to hell, "It's nothing. I fell down the stairs."

"Bull-fucking-shit."

I always felt bad lying to Jamie. Of all my employers, I liked him best. He was only twenty-nine, a self-made millionaire who had created and currently managed two of the most popular LGBT+ clubs in the state, Crescendo and DeCrescendo (he was, self-admittedly, not that creative). He was openly gay, the hardest-working person I'd ever met and kind of a socially awkward hermit, which I found endearing.

And it wasn't as if I lied to him enough already; about my age, my experience, the existence of my RSA.

"I know it looks like someone came after me with a hammer," I smiled through gritted teeth. "But you know how bad I am in heels. I ate shit down some stairs at the station and it was really embarrassing and I'd really rather not think about it."

Jamie digested my lie as easily as cement. "Did someone hurt you, Seph? I swear to god, I'll hunt them down."

Jamie was five-foot-seven, with a lean build and wiry blonde hair to match his bone density. Aidan McCaffrey would snap him in half, despite their vast age difference. Still, the sentiment was sweet.

"I bruise easy," I assured him. With one final glare of thinly veiled scepticism, he waved me over to the back room.

"You better have enough concealer to cover that up," he warned me. "People will riot if they think someone's been roughing you up."

I left him with a boy scout salute.

The dressing room was empty, save Zsa Zsa, who was sitting cross-legged on one of the makeup counter's, plucking his eyebrows carefully. On the weekends, Jamie filled the dressing room with performers, but Zsa Zsa and I were pretty regular. He was a dancer, and the body to prove it; lean and fit, but he was always conscious of his muscle mass. He still wanted to look good in a halter top.

And god, did he look good in a halter top. Silky dark skin and electric blue eyes, full lips, and shiny black hair. He was beautiful in or out of drag, and I envied him the latter.

Had I thought about having sex with Zsa Zsa Magifique before? Definitely. But he was twenty-five, and I was underage – not that he knew that – and he'd opened up, within our first year of friendship, that fellow drag queens weren't really his type.

"Shy, closeted, bodybuilder, preferably black, inexcusably bilingual," he'd told me five bottles of tequila into a Wednesday night. The first of many nights which had cemented our effortless friendship. He was an extrovert and seemed to legitimately like me. And despite the fact we didn't know each other's real names and he thought I was in university, he was one of the only people in my life who knew I was gay. I felt like that connected us in a way that differed from my school friends.

He looked up and gave me a flourish of a wave, before his jaw dropped. "Dear God, your face looks like shit."

"Thanks," I threw myself down into a chair, pulling off Caleb's cap and tossing it down on the table. "Don't ask me how it happened, just do your magic and make it disappear."

He made a face. "You've got your own concealer babe."

"You've got the expensive shit. After all I've been through..." I pouted at him. "Pretty, pretty please?"