Free What It Takes by Jude Sierra Page A

sees the most neon orange T-shirt he’s ever encountered with the words DICK DOCK emblazoned on it. “What is that about?”
    Milo glances up and twitches and looks away. “I have no clue.”
    “I’ll ask someone. Maybe. Get a drink in me and we’ll see.” Andrew winks, and Milo offers him a shy smile. They’re both doing a marvelous job avoiding any undercurrents from their conversation. Definitely. Thinking about it doesn’t count as not avoiding, does it?
    The club is moderately busy. Andrew can only imagine what it must be like at peak season. As it is, it’s crowded, hot and full of men in all states of attire. There’s a five-second period when he suffers the extreme self-consciousness that comes from wanting to look at something and thinking he shouldn’t. He has the sense that he’s been dropped into a really bizarre episode of Queer as Folk .
    Unless it’s Milo-related, Andrew’s never been the martyr type. Fleeting seconds of doubt skitter into the dense air, and then he looks. He follows Milo to the bar and looks. He makes eye contact with some men. Not with others. He looks again. The whole goddamned place is a fucking feast for his eyes. It’s the land of honey. The floor is literally vibrating with the force of the music, through Andrew’s boots and body and coming out in a primal, unconscious movement that he thinks might soon end in a disastrous attempt at dancing.
    At the bar, Andrew lets Milo order him a drink. Everything is sticky and glittering and fabulous, except for maybe Milo. He’s beautiful, yes. He’s beautiful everywhere. In the strobe lighting his hair could be any color, a dark, empty palate, and his skin is a series of shadows, beautifully stretched over perfect bone structure. But he’s obviously uncomfortable.
    Andrew leans to shout into his ear. “You wanna leave?”
    Milo is sweating a little: Andrew can’t see it, but it is a scent he knows by memory: visceral, scorching memory. Heat rises through Andrew’s face.
    “No, no.” Milo shakes his head. “Getting my bearings. I’m feel a little zero-to-sixty right now.”
    I bet , Andrew thinks, not as kindly as he should, maybe. Milo hands him his shot glass and they clink them. “To dick docks,” Milo says, making Andrew almost choke on his shot.
    “What?” he finally says, wiping tequila residue from his lips and shuddering through his laughter.
    “I don’t know, it felt like it needed a toast.” Milo giggles. It’s a thing , for Andrew, seeing Milo like this. Robust, publicly stoic and possessor of classic good looks, he looks both completely out of place and totally natural, laughing boyishly, nose scrunched and eyes squinting.
    “Another?” Milo holds up his empty shot glass with its desiccated lime wedge.
    “No, let’s give it a second.”
    Milo leans back against the bar and watches the crowd; he seems to be thawing to the environment by degrees. His leg bounces in time to the bass-heavy club mix.
    “You gonna dance?” Andrew shouts, shoulder-bumping him.
    “No. You know what that looks like. Disaster.”
    “Ohh, honey you definitely have it in you,” Andrew says, low and flirting and joking. Only he’s not, a little bit. Sometimes, there’s a tiny thread of honesty to his interactions with Milo that he can easily convince himself doesn’t mean what he pretends it means.
    “You sure know how to make a man feel good,” Milo plays back and then laughs when Andrew does. “At what point in our lives will it not be weird to call ourselves men instead of boys?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe you need someone to make a man of you,” Andrew lobs easily, eyes still on Milo’s. It’s this crazy discordant note, the way they are carrying their usual banter, only now it feels thicker because. Because . Because of the car and that hug, because of the shots and the press of beautiful, queer, sensual men around them. Milo doesn’t say anything, just looks, looks at Andrew, and he could swear his skin