Page 180 of Fighting Chance

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

Ellington throws his hands in the air. “Fuck this, I’m headingto another bar.”

Before he can even stand, Irving is getting up, his chair falling back. “I’m coming too.”

Ellington pulls a face that makes Irving pause and raise his hands in surrender. “I swear it won’t happen again.”

Johnson leans forward, hooked and interested. “What won’t happen again?”

Ellington turns slightly pale as he points an accusatory finger at Irving. “Don’t say a fucking word.”

Valenti sits there, wide-eyed.

“Shit, even you don’t know?” I ask him.

Johnson rubs his hands together. “Ooh, if your little bestie over here doesn’t know it’s got to be good.”

Irving makes a show of smacking his lips closed, pressing hard. But Johnson stares him down, and every second that passes, Irving’s cheeks flush redder, a stark contrast to his mop of blond hair.

He looks like he’s going to explode.

Ellington steps forward. “Irving, I swear to god?—”

“We kissed!” he blurts out, his chest heaving with the revelation.

Johnson throws his head back, laughing, as my and Valenti’s jaws unhinge in unison.

Ellington pinches the bridge of his nose in clear frustration. “Fucking Irving.”

“I’m sorry,” Irving mutters. “Did you not see his face? The dude is scary. He does the whole Darth Vadar stare like he’s my dad and will ground me.”

“You’re a grown-ass dude.”

“Who you kissed.”

Ellington snaps his head in Johnson’s direction. “First of all, I know for a fact you’ve been with men so shut your trap. And secondly”—he points an accusatory finger around the table—“there’s nothing wrong with kissing men.”

“Nah, nothing at all,” I say, finally working away the shock from my beer-muddled mind. “It’s just?—”

“It’s Irving,” Valenti finishes.

“I know,”Ellington sighs.

“Hey! I’m a great kisser.”

Jack Lewis, with his impeccable timing, swaggers up to the table, already rolling his eyes. “Why the fuck is Irving declaring his sexual prowess again? Who challenged him?”

“Apparently Ellington,” Valenti mutters into his beer bottle. He suddenly chokes on his sip of beer as Ellington clips him on the back of the head, and the table bursts into a round of laughter.

“What the fuck did I miss?” Lewis asks, taking a seat.

“Ellington and Irving kissed,” Johnson pipes up.

Lewis bursts into a coughing fit before getting himself under control, grinning. “I can totally see it.”

“You can’t see shit,” Ellington argues. “It was during a threesome. Both our eyes were closed and we didn’t realize.”