Page 29 of Come As You Are
We had no rules against staff dating each other or the customers. As long as it was consensual and didn’t interfere with their work while at the club, neither Antonio nor I had given it much thought. We trusted our people to be adults, and Antonio believed it was inevitable that some of the staff would hook up with each other given the pheromones that saturated the club, the flirting, and the alcohol. He said he’d rather know about the relationships than be blindsided if things blew up between the people.
So, it wasn’t the relationship between them that disquieted me. It was watching Sebastian take care of Vee and the gentle way in which he touched the younger man. I’d seen a fleeting glance of it that day in my office when we both comforted Vee, and a part of me was happy to see that the care and concern Sebastian had shown then was continuing. Their physicality with each other, the ease with which Vee rocked into Bast’s body, and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Vee or offered a quick kiss, both warmed me and made me wish for someone with whom I could share similar moments.
There was also a part of me that acknowledged I was a bit jealous. I’d known Sebastian had a thing for me since he was hired, but he’d always been more interested in hookups than relationships. Even though I was willing to admit I wasattracted to him, casual wasn’t something I could do, and to watch this playboy become a tender and conscientious lover was as thrilling as it was disconcerting. I might have been more confused by this development—and my reaction to it—than Mal’s transformation.
Unfortunately, other things at Illyria remained the same. Our alcohol inventory continued to disappear despite adding a keypad lock and limiting who could access the storeroom, and our bottom line continued to hover just above the break-even point. I was no further along in figuring out what was going on, and was growing increasingly concerned that it was someone close to me, someone who was going to break my heart when I discovered who it was.
Mal, Sebastian, Toby, Festus, Maria, Andrew. Their names scrolled through my mind several times a day, and I couldn’t believe a single one of them would jeopardize Illyria’s future or hurt me. They’d been Antonio’s friends, and they were the only family I had left. I desperately wanted it to be someone else, but the longer this went on, the more I had to admit that only someone who knew intimately how Illyria ran could be doing this.
As we neared time to open, I emerged from my office and descended to the club to check in with Sebastian. He’d passed the first round of pageant auditions at the Grotto, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to speak to him about his observations.
Vee was the only person hanging out at the bar. Already dressed for performing in his shorts and cowboy boots and hat, he was teasing Sebastian by leaning against the bar rail, ass out provocatively. His skin gleamed from the oil and glitter he used when he danced, and he sipped from a bottle of water. I watched his throat work as he swallowed, and felt that telltale tension grow between my legs.
I’d thought Vee was beautiful from the day he walked into Illyria, but he was even more so now that he had a safe place to live and someone to take care of him. More than the ease with which Vee carried himself was the way in which he met everyone’s eyes when he spoke, confidence etched into every line of his body and tone in his voice. Nowhere was that more apparent than when he was talking to Sebastian.
It surprised me that the smiles, the light in their eyes, and the touches that passed between them were mutual, but Sebastian was every bit as smitten with Vee as Vee was with him. The affection that emanated from Sebastian had turned his once arrogant features into something softer and infinitely more attractive.
Their tenderness, their beauty, their absolute ease in their masculinity grounded me in a way I’d rarely felt. I loved to watch them move, longed to see them dance again, and, I realized, was finding more and more reasons to watch them and talk to them with each passing day. They possessed a groundedness that came from living within a body that aligned to their sense of self that I had never experienced for myself. Even now, there were aspects of my physicality that disrupted my ability to feel truly at home in my body, but around them, I found a comfort in my form that was new and welcome. I longed for someone with whom I could share that.Not an anonymous “someone,”I corrected myself.Them.
Yes, I’d been attracted to Vee since he walked in the door, but his presence had changed something in Sebastian that now drew me to him as well. I admitted to myself that I was enamored with them, but not just because of their physical beauty. The flame that had sparked to life as I watched them dance had been nurtured by the moment of connection in my office, and was now fanned as I watched these two men grow closer every day. Isimply felt incomplete when I wasn’t near them, and longed for their presence.
As I leaned against the bar—far enough away to not interfere with their banter, but close enough to feel the pull they exerted on me—I wondered if I had kept myself too distant from my employees. It was a stray thought, but one that gained traction as I stood at Illyria’s heart. Antonio’s death had unmoored me so completely, I’d withdrawn as a way to cope with the changes that were pressed upon me before the wake we’d held within these walls was over. In an instant, I’d gone from being his little sister and assistant manager to the owner, and though Antonio had taught me all he knew about running the club, I was completely lost. I made my future completely dependent upon continuing my brother’s legacy, to weighing my own success against the solvency and popularity of the club.
I realized I’d neglected almost everything else, closed myself off from friends, from potential lovers, and kept myself at a distance from my employees. I had ceded so much of the club’s business to Mal, trusting Antonio’s relationship with the man, and never thinking to build my own. As I glanced around the club, I realized the same was true for every person who had been here when Antonio died.
It was Vee’s laughter that brought me out of my thought spiral, in much the same way, I realized, his arrival at Illyria had brought me out of my self-imposed mourning.
I turned to find him staring at me intently.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“About what?” I asked and immediately regretted it as his broad smile dimmed.
“Vee’s got a new idea for an event at the club,” Sebastian growled at me, and I repressed a smile at his prickly protectiveness on Vee’s behalf.
I was about to ask for more details when Mal and Festus emerged from the hallway that led to the storeroom. Resurrected from my internal recriminations about how I’d neglected my employees, I still felt cautious.
“Not here,” I said, my brain frantically thinking of somewhere we wouldn’t be overheard. “My place.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I consciously knew I’d said them, and only the matching expressions of shock on Sebastian’s and Vee’s faces told me I had, indeed, invited them to my home. “You both work a full shift tonight?” I asked, and they nodded, still mute with surprise. Of course, they did. It was Saturday, one of the busiest nights of the week. Everyone worked on Saturday unless they worked the drag brunch the next day. “Then tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay,” Sebastian managed.
With my heart hammering, I asked them to write down their phone numbers so I could text them my address, and then turned and hurried back up to my office. As soon as my door was shut, I rested my back against it and slid to the floor. What the fuck had I done?
I remained in myoffice for the rest of the night continuing to pore over the books on my computer. The deeper down the rabbit hole I fell, the clearer it became. Either I was completely inept, or someone was changing my numbers after I input them. For a long moment, I stared at the filing cabinet where I kept the club’s receipts before turning them over to the accountanteach quarter. The only people who had access to the financial spreadsheets were me, Mal, and our accountant.
Like almost everyone else at Illyria, Ray had been with the club since Antonio opened it. Had I been foolish to believe that those loyal to Antonio would also be loyal to me? Had I misplaced my trust? Or had Antonio been just as blind as me?
While I tried to formulate a plan, I got up from my desk and wandered to the window. Vee was on his platform, body writhing to the beat I could feel pulsing through the floor. He smiled every time he gazed across the club, and even though I knew what had brought that expression to his face, I looked at Sebastian anyway. My lead bartender mixed drinks and flirted with the customers the same as before, but the interest in his eyes, the hunger, was all for Vee.
Again, I was struck by how beautiful Sebastian looked as he gazed across the dance floor, and I wished I could see them dance together again. Lost in the memory of that night, I missed the exact moment the energy in the club shifted, but shift it did. The change in Sebastian’s expression alerted me first as his features hardened and his gaze became piercing as it focused across the club where I knew Vee was dancing.
When I switched my attention back to Vee, I saw a customer had grabbed him and was trying to drag him off the platform.
Things happened so quickly, they almost didn’t compute. Festus waded through the crowd, while Sebastian climbed over the bar top and stormed across the dance floor. They reached the customer at the same moment he pulled Vee off balance. Even behind the soundproof glass, I heard Vee’s scream of pain and fear as he fell to the floor on top of the asshole who’d grabbed him. Without further hesitation, I was out of my office and running down the stairs, concern for Vee pumping adrenaline into my blood.
By the time I reached them, Festus had pulled the customer away, and Sebastian sat on the floor with Vee’s head cradled in his lap. I knelt beside him, trying to see if Vee needed an ambulance or other medical assistance. His face was pale, but he was conscious and alert, and already telling Sebastian he was fine.
“Can we move him?” I asked.
