Work on Friday wasn't as bad as it could have been for someone functioning on four hours of sleep. Frank was exhausted, certainly, but the pleasurable, loopy kind of tired. If you spend the night attending the concert of a lifetime, then no matter how many times you fall asleep standing the next day, you just can't bitch about it. That was how Frank felt; in spite of his sleep deprivation, he was having a great day basking in the afterglow of his time with Gerard.
"You'll never get anything off of a dish scrubbing like that," Uncle Henry grumbled. There was a stubborn tomato skin clinging to the white plate in Frank's hand. It was Frank's fault that it had been allowed to dry to the ceramic surface, but he was pretty confident in his ability to fix it. Whatever anyone was doing, though, Uncle Henry always pressed another method of getting it done, and you bet he always insisted his way was better.
"If it's stuck like that, you have to scrub in a circular motion," the middle-aged man corrected, demonstrating his method with a chubby hand. "That's it… Frank, you know your parents are coming, right?"
"Yeah, how did you know?" answered Frank drowsily.
"They called me almost a week ago. Wanted help finding a hotel where they can spend time in the city. Mary was supposed to tell you."
Frank grunted. He would have appreciated the heads-up. Mary could be so loud and controlling, but of course when she had a week to mention to Frank that his parents had called, she was a mute. It was honestly bizarre, but Frank wasn't up to riddling things out that day. He just shrugged it off as bad luck.
The night Frank's heart would not stop racing, Gerard set out into the sharp October cold with a destination other than home. He arrived at the little nameless club around nine and walked upstairs to get behind the bar – not his favorite side but the side that made him money nonetheless. Jill was there, glaring at him. He bowed his head and pulled a meek smile with wide eyes. Gerard preferred looking a little tougher and more in control, but to be in control this time he would have to make the shy face that always melted his boss.
"You were supposed to be here at eight tonight," Jill reprimanded.
"I thought we agreed I had vacation time," teased Gerard.
"Yeah, you're supposed to tell me first," Jill teased back. "So was she any good?"
"Huh?" Gerard jumped.
"The girl you were off seducing. I mean, when a guy like you shows up an hour late with no explanation, I can only assume you were using your master charm to get someone into bed."
Gerard was actually pretty skillful with women sometimes. He had a suave act he could manage, and if he maintained it when meeting a girl, he usually experienced good results. The life he had in the present was nothing like his life in high school, where everyone already knew everyone else and made their judgments, and where it was only a matter of time before you disappointed the people who actually liked you for a minute. In a huge city and a club with so many different faces filing in and out of it each night, Gerard was constantly presented with a sea of new people who had no preconceived judgments of him. A guy who pretended to be cool could have a pretty good sex life as long has he didn't give away too much information about himself. It was when people knew things about you that the judgment started. Sometimes the act didn't work, but tonight Jill's guess was on the money. Well, sort of.
The fact remained that Frank was not a girl. It was true that mere hours ago Gerard had known exactly what he wanted, but hours ago he had not been jerked off by a guy. His mind was on overload, mainly reviewing his actions for something he had done wrong other than show up late for work. He wondered if Frank even knew what job he had kept him from. Gerard bartended at Jill's club, but he wasn't sure he had ever told Frank that. After all, they had only known each other again for a month. When they had known each other before, Frank had only been thirteen. Four years wasn't a problem now, but an 18-year-old and a 13-year-old was. Gerard didn't actually know the rule on whether their behavior was still okay if they had known each other then. Also, as for the night's interaction itself, Gerard couldn't help but fret over details; he wondered whether he was supposed to have returned the favor…
"Hey! Excuse me!" a shrill voice called from the other end of the bar, piercing Gerard's stream of consciousness.
"Mm, uh, yes? Sorry. What would you like?" Gerard pulled himself back to the work at hand.
"No need to be sorry." The girl pulled a coy smile. Her face was pale and smooth, marked only by a silver stud in her nose. "I'll have rum and coke. My name's Korina, by the way."
Gerard got to fixing her drink. "Nice to meet you, Korina."
She took her drink with a delicate hand and leaned forward onto the bar. "I don't get to know your name?"
Grinning down toward the glass for his next order, Gerard told Korina his name, and her smile grew.
"I saw you play here a few days ago, Gerard. Your band is really good. There are times I'd do just about anything for good music."
The nauseating way she emphasized Gerard's name and the way she kept creeping closer to him over the bar raised his alertness, but as she kept talking that same alertness helped him to see that she wasn't bad looking. He was able to prolong this observation because Korina stayed for a while. At eleven, she was still exchanging occasional words with Gerard. By midnight, she was meeting her friends in the band that had just finished their set. When Gerard saw the clock approach 2 a.m., she said goodbye to her friends, wandered back to the bar, and sat back down in front of him.
"You work hard, don't you?" she asked, running her fingers along the cold surface of the bar top.
"I guess," Gerard answered, glad to have her back as a distraction from his thoughts.
"Jesus, where did all the people go?"
"It is closing time, but you can stay for a while if you want. It gets pretty quiet at the end of the night." He didn't want too much time alone, and he still had to close up.
"I've always wondered what it would be like to be in a place like this all alone at night." Korina glanced over her shoulder at the last of the crowd walking out the door. Jill was probably still there, holed up in some back room, but most of the building was empty.
"But that's when the monsters come out," Gerard explained. Korina flashed him a playfully inquisitive look, so he leaned forward with his elbows on the bar in front of her. He pointed at the ceiling several yards away. "That loose plate in the up there always looks suspicious to me. Were I some creature of the night, that would be exactly the place I'd be dropping in through to snatch up my victims."
"Aren't you worried whatever is up there is going to get you one of these days?"
"Nah, I like to think whatever monster is up there and I are on good terms. Lord knows we've spent enough time together."
"We'll be safe then."
Korina then pressed her lips to Gerard's. He moved his hands to hold her, sliding them over soft skin and familiar curves. The familiarity was calming, but it was just her body that he seemed to know. After all, Korina was a girl he had just met. Gerard was certain that if she knew anything about him past the minimum information she was then aware of, she wouldn't have deemed him worthy of her attention and his hand wouldn't have been moving under her shirt. Only Frank offered him that kind of acceptance; he had been doing it for seven years. It was when Gerard struck on that thought that Korina's tongue in his mouth began to feel like a claw in his chest.
As the claw pulled at him, Gerard was filled with disdain for himself. Being with Frank was going to be more difficult than a relationship with a girl, but that didn't give Gerard the right to not suck it up and commit. He knew that, but he kept going back and forth on what he wanted like a child who wants to swim running out to meet the ocean tide and running back the instant the shock of the cold meets his skin.
Korina broke the kiss and flashed the coy grin she had used earlier. Her smile was cute... Not as cute as Frank's. It didn't matter whether Korina was female; that didn't make her better for the man she was seducing. Frank wasn't a man, he was a person, and goddammit, Gerard wanted that person. It dawned on the distraught bartender that familiarity was nice, and the sand was warm. The ocean, though, was beckoning, and in the sea there was so much more for him. Now was past the time, Gerard thought, to make a commitment. No more bullshit. Gerard pushed the words out of his mouth, and Korina went with them.
"You're a very nice girl, but I shouldn't," he said.
Korina asked, "Are you sure?" Disappointment laced her words.
"Yeah, go catch up with your friends."
Korina managed a half-hearted smile out of politeness as she walked out of the building. Slumping into the bar, Gerard collected himself before finishing cleaning up. He looked back to the loose plate in the ceiling and addressed whatever monster may have been hiding there.
"I… am gay," he declared matter-of-factly, punctuating his wiping of the bar top with glances up to the creature he decided was listening. "I am gay because, as much as I avoid admitting it, I've been attracted to many guys. And now there is a person in my reach who is one of best people I know, and if it means I get to be with him, I am gay. Now you know. You can consider yourself privileged."
Gerard waved his hands toward the loose panel, and it was done. He had admitted he was gay, and the world hadn't ended. No monster had descended from the ceiling and ended his life. He and that monster were friendly, after all. No one else even had to know, but he could say it to himself – and the creature in the rafters. As of that declaration, if anything was going to stop him and Frank from being together it would have to come from someone else.