Page 84 of Tumbling Hearts

“Aw, really? I’ve barely been here, and then with Maurice gone I won’t have the same excuse to sit down on you again.”

“You won’t want to be sitting on me if I wet myself now, will you?” Gene laughs, patting Ray’s thigh. “Now, get up. I won’t be long. I’ll be right back.”

“Alright, alright,” Ray chuckles as he finally gets off Gene’s lap.

And so, Gene gets up, giving Ray a friendly wave as he walks away to find the bathroom. He passes by the drink table, spotting a pitcher with the same red drink Ray must’ve had. It’s absolutely wild that Ray had the courage to sit on his lap, feed him his drink, and then touch his face so sensually in a room full of people. Gene didn’t turn him away, either—it just felt too damn good to have Ray like that. Yes, he knows he’s being reckless. But he’s been so stressed lately about Carol and too worried about Toshiko, that it was nice to let loose for a while.

As he opens the door to the men’s bathroom, a cloud of smoke escapes through the threshold. It makes Gene cough, walking through the miasma and passing other partygoers inside to find an open urinal. There’s only two and they’re both taken, but there’s a stall at the end that’s open. Though someone else is walking towards it, someone he knows: Nicky Emerson.

“Hey, Nicky!” Gene calls out with a smile. “Hang on, how badly do you gotta go?”

“Uh… Actually, I don’t have to go at all,” he laughs, itching the back of his head, messing up his shoulder-length brown hair. “You can go first.”

I get it. He just wanted to use the stall for other means. “Alright. But wait for me when I’m done, ’kay?”

“Sure thing, man.”

Gene doesn’t take long, going in and out of the stall to do his business. Nicky stays true, standing outside the stall and waiting for Gene to wrap up and wash his hands.

“So…” Nicky says, holding up a joint, “Did you want some too?”

“Of course, man,” Gene says as he grabs some paper towels, drying the water off his hands. “But, is that just a normal joint or…?”

Nicky smirks. “You know me too well. Yeah, it’s laced with smack. Been smoking more of these lately. I figured, wouldn’t it make the party more fun? Sure, there’s always drinking, but we’ve done that before. That’s what everyone else is doing. We’ve only ever smoked this stuff in our rooms—what if we experienced it another way? What if it made the feeling even better?”

Nicky sure knows the right things to say to sound enticing. But what would Ray think? Ray has never been around Gene when he’s smoked this stuff before. How would he react? Or… would he not care? He knows Gene smokes and even occasionally dabbles in coke. It’ll be alright. I don’t think Ray will mind. I can still have him and the dope.

“Yeah, I get it,” Gene says. “Sure, I’ll take some.”

And so, Gene goes back into the stall, with Nicky this time, and they light up the joint, taking in hit after hit.

He realizes after some time they’ve probably been huddled in this stall for a little too long. Thankfully, many of the people coming and going are drunk, so they don’t bother to notice or comment on it. Hell, he’d hate for people to assume they’re doing other things than just smoking dope. Maybe if I’d dragged Ray in here with me, yeah, but definitely not Nicky. Gene scrunches his nose for even imagining the idea. But that thought, it reminds him—Ray is still waiting for him out in the lobby.

His heart thuds against his ribcage.

Oh shit. I told him I wouldn’t be long. How long have I been here in the bathroom? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes?

He hopes to god that Ray isn’t mad at him. Worst case scenario, he could just say he had bowel troubles and that’s what took him so long. But he should definitely get back. He can’t keep Ray waiting.

“We should probably get outta here…” Gene says, voice raspy with smoke.

“Heheh… yeah…” Nicky smiles, the sort of smile with his eyes half-closed, high out of his fucking mind.

Gene exits the stall, washes his hands yet again, then heads towards the door that leads to the lobby.

But as he steps out⁠—

Glass shatters.

Someone yelps.

A man raises his voice.

“What the fuck, man?!”

Gene rushes into the lobby, shoving a few people out of his way—his heart racing even faster than it was moments before.

On the tile floor lies pieces of a shattered drink glass—brown liquid sprayed over it, on people’s shoes, their pants…