Page 1 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)
Prologue
Gabriel
I can do this.
I can do this.
I can do this.
Only after my rideshare driver begins to glance back at me through the rearview mirror with enough frequency that I begin to worry about how much time he's spending not looking at the road do I realize I'm mumbling my constant - hyping myself up - stream of “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this” out loud. I groan at myself, hopefully silently, and clamp my bottom lip tightly between my teeth. If it can't move, it can't mumble. Besides, I shouldn’t have to convince myself that this is something I’m capable of in the first place. I’m a strong, confident, sexy, brilliant man. I can absolutely do this.
Definitely.
Probably.
I think.
Lots of people have sexual encounters that are nothing more than bar hookups and one-night stands.
I mean, I’ve had them in the past. I just didn’t realize that’s what they were at the time.
It’s not my fault that I assumed those encounters were going to turn into something more, even though the men I was with didn’t want the same thing.
Would it have helped if I’d asked for a bit more communication and clarification before sexy time?
Yeah, okay, probably, but it doesn’t matter anymore because, as of tonight, I'm going to be a one-night stand kind of guy too. I'm not going to invest weeks of my precious time talking to a guy online before even agreeing to get coffee. They don’t need to know about my childhood dreams and favorite color in order to get off, and well, I don’t need to know theirs either.
I'm not going to let myself get lost in eyes the color of bluebirds or sinful dark chocolate over long, drawn-out dinners filled with laughter. I'm not going to start thinking about hyphenating our last names or contemplating which season would be best for our wedding because his coloring lends itself best to fall, but I worry we’ll get rained out. I’m not going to spend my evenings looking up romantic six-week European cruises and trying to decide how to ask for that much time off from the coffee shop without getting fired.
I’m not going to think about moving to a place where we can get a few more dogs and maybe a couple of goats.
I don't know why every time I envision myself in a mushy, loved-up future, there are goats.
I honestly think that I would be terrified if I ever met a goat in real life, and I certainly don't want to live on a farm in order to have said goats! I enjoy the great outdoors as much as the next guy, but I’m definitely more of a “manicured park lawns” or “romantic barefoot walks on the beach” than a “hiking until I risk needing a helicopter to save me” or “dirty barnyard pets” kind of guy.
Even if I put aside the weird, intrusive goats that inhabit my daydreams of the future, I can’t keep doing the rest of it either.
I can’t keep doing the exact same thing every time I meet a man because every single time, it ends the same way, no matter how charming he is or what a catch I am.
I can’t keep hoping and trying and fantasizing and planning because every single time, I end up with my head on my best friend Blue’s shoulder, hurt and crying and inhaling gallons of ice cream quickly enough you'd think I was training to be a contestant on an ice cream-eating reality TV show. That’s not going to be me anymore.
Nope. Never again. I am absolutely, positively, one hundred percent done with all of that.
I'm not the guy who starts organizing my honeymoon and looking up tiny French villages for couples to retire in at the first bat of long eyelashes or brush of warm lips across my own, and I’m certainly not the guy who pines over forever, happy-ever-after endings anymore.
I'm going to be the guy who picks someone up at a bar, has wild and amazing sex, and doesn't even ask for their phone number. After all, Blue did it for years, and he had an incredible time living that way. I can’t even count the number of mornings he stumbled out into our kitchen to fight with our pathetically cheap excuse for a coffee maker with his skin covered in love bites and fingertip bruises and a dopey sex-drunk smile plastered on his face.
He spent years simply enjoying life without expectation, and do you know what it got him?
Years of fun and sex and freedom followed by suddenly and accidentally falling head over heels for the sweetest man I've ever met.
You know what my years of serial dating while looking for the man of my dreams have gotten me?
Nothing other than mornings spent begging Blue for details about his steamy encounters - which, for the record, hardly ever worked - and a side order of deep-seated fear coupled with an unhealthy fixation on the fact that everyone seems so quick to toss me aside.
Blue never planned to fall in love and never expected to end up with a long-term partner.
In fact, he was an adamant believer that true love isn’t even real.
Based on his romantic history, I can’t blame him for that, even though I wholeheartedly disagree.
Sappy Sunday afternoon movie, long, drawn-out romance book, and happy-ever-after love is absolutely real.
Even if it’s never been real for me. If anything, seeing Blue and Ethan together has only reinforced my belief that it’s out there… somewhere. Maybe not for me, but it is.
If I wasn't so happy for them both, I'd find it disgusting. I am happy for them though. So happy. And only like ten percent jealous. Okay sixty. Still. Blue was a one-night stand kind of guy for years, and he never ended up sitting on my couch, mainlining ice cream like his life depended on it. He never psyched himself up thinking “This guy is the one for sure,” only to have his dreams shattered and his heart broken time and again. He went out and picked up dudes and had a great time doing it. So that’s what I'm going to do from here on out. I’m not going to spend my time trying to find love. In fact, I’m not going to date at all.
Hookups, that’s where it’s at. I’m going to go out and enjoy groping strangers and forget that the very idea of true love even exists.
I’m not going to let myself fall into old patterns.
I’m not going to swoon every time a guy opens a door for me or tells me they like my unique sense of style.
Nothing is going to get me to change my mind.
I do not need a Prince Charming to lead a happy, fulfilled life.
I have a job I love, my performance art, and friends who would burn down the world for me, even if I do worry sometimes that one of these days, they’ll finally leave me too.
Nope. No Prince Charming required. Tonight is the start of something new.
I’m going to go to the bar, enjoy some sex, and head home to curl up with…
well…never mind who I’ll curl up with because it definitely isn’t my dog and a stuffed otter from the aquarium that I curl up with at night; that wouldn’t be something a twenty-nine-year-old man does. Anyway…as I previously mentioned…
I can do this.
When my rideshare pulls up to the curb outside the club, I take a deep breath and make sure my lip is still clamped firmly between my teeth so I can’t start mumbling out loud again, adjust my vibrant metallic-blue, poofy-sleeved top to ensure it’s almost hanging off one shoulder, in a classy way, of course, and make my way inside.
This isn’t a club I've been to before, so I’m not entirely sure what to expect.
From what I read online, it's nothing like any of the clubs I usually go to. The clubs my friends and I typically frequent on our Friday Night Friends Dates are filled with drag queens or karaoke or dance floors throbbing with deep bass. The…other…clubs I visit on occasion without my friends…well, those are definitely not like this bar either. I only half believe that my “Gabriel quickly finds a rushed bar hookup and is magically a changed man” plan will be successful because even though I’m pretty good at picking up anyone I want, I don’t actually think that this is the right kind of place to search for my first intentional no-strings-attached encounter.
Why is this the choice I made then? I suppose it’s possible I’m more than a little nervous about jumping straight into the deep end on my own during my first hookup-only scouting trip.
If I strike out tonight, I can always try again.
The online reviews say that this place is fun and upbeat and usually pretty busy, even without a mosh pit of shirtless, writhing bodies and sticky dance floors.
Somehow, it seems like a less intimidating place to start, no matter how comfortable I normally am with sticky floors and half-naked strangers.
While there were a ton of photos online, I’m surprised when I walk through the doors.
The place is some bluesy, jazz-style bar with a grand piano at one end, polished brass high-top standing tables, and plush navy velvet booths along the back wall.
The AC is cranked up high enough that there isn’t a drop of sweat in sight, despite the fact that the place is packed, and folks stand politely two and three deep at the bar, waiting for bartenders in black button-ups with rose-gold sleeve garters to mix up their complex drink orders.
They all hold sleek glassware with rims dusted in salt and sugar and crushed-up flower petals, and while there is still a dance floor, instead of bodies barely covered by mesh and sequins and…
nothing, there is satin and silk and linen.
It’s…nice. Different, but nice. Don’t get me wrong, I will always love a slightly too tight, sequined mesh top, but I could get used to mixing this type of elegant debauchery into the rotation once in a while.
There is a quiet corner next to the bar with a few empty standing tables that won’t likely stay that way for long if the place is already this busy at nine p.m. So I slip my way between bodies that are too distracted by laughter and flirty soft touches to notice me and snag a fifteen-dollar something or other that promises an odd combination of lime and something floral before staking my claim in the nearly empty corner to watch and wait for an opportunity.
I don’t want to like my fifteen-dollar beverage.
I can’t really afford to start liking fifteen-dollar beverages, but it’s exquisite, so I take my time and enjoy sipping the delicate fusion of flavors that really shouldn’t work as I take in the folks around me.
I’m normally the type of person who likes to be the center of attention.
I don’t need it to make myself feel good or anything.
I simply enjoy dancing and conversation and the press of other bodies against mine, but tonight I’m content in my corner.
I watch men and women and theys and thems as they huddle together with the friends they came with, while each sip of their drinks grows just a bit longer as they work up the courage to bravely shift away from their small groups to search for something more.
I watch as bodies press tightly together, dancing and swaying.
Smiling and laughing. I watch hesitant first touches and obvious long-term couples.
Everyone smiles and laughs and lets go. Their interactions are complex and easy, wild and rhythmic.
Everyone seems to just…fit. It’s the same way crowds always appear at clubs until you look a bit closer.
Only when you take the time to truly observe the small details do you see the woman with reddened eyes sitting pressed tightly between two of her friends in a corner booth as they huddle together, stroking her arm and back while telling her that “He’s not worth it” or “You’re worth someone better than her” or “You’ll find another job soon; that place was toxic anyway.
” Only after you tune out the music and conversation do you see the man who stands just a bit too far to the side of his friends as his eyes trail after other men while his friends’ eyes follow women.
Maybe they know, and he just feels uncomfortable here with them.
Maybe they don’t, and he’s afraid he’ll lose their companionship and support if they find out.
Only after you start to pay attention do you realize that there’s more to the crowd than there seems to be at first glance.
That beneath glittering makeup and deliberately styled clothes, everyone is the same.
Everyone is here, laughing and drinking and dancing, just hoping for a moment of connection.
Everyone, it seems, except one man.
He’s been nursing his third drink at the end of the bar closest to the piano for more than an hour now.
He arrived with two friends who have long since found their way to the dance floor to mingle and move with strangers.
He watches them with a soft smile, and it doesn’t feel like he resents them for leaving him alone.
It feels like watching them makes him happy somehow, even though something about his smile feels a bit sad too.
His eyes linger on people who walk past him from time to time.
He doesn’t seem to care what gender a person is…
as long as they have a nice ass…and I wonder if he’ll watch my ass too if I make sure that I’m close enough for him to notice me the next time I head to the bar for another fifteen-dollar refill.
He’s tall, taller than anyone else I’ve noticed tonight.
Tall and broad and muscled and imposing.
He's the kind of man who could no doubt toss me around a bit in bed without any effort at all, even though most of the time I prefer to be the one to take charge. His long blond hair is pulled up into a messy bun that he’s removed and readjusted nervously no less than a dozen times since I first noticed him settle at the bar.
He’s too far away for me to make out the color of his eyes, but I’m willing to bet they’re as pale and gorgeous as the rest of him.
He doesn’t really look like he’s here hoping to pick someone up, and this doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of bar where the bathroom stalls are filled with moans and the sound of skin striking skin.
Still…he’s interesting and gorgeous and far more intriguing than anyone I expected to find when I set out this evening.
Maybe Blue really did have the right idea all those years, because knowing that there’s no potential for anything more than a quicky tonight makes downing the rest of my drink and heading in his direction simple and easy.
After all, the worst thing that can happen is he turns me down and I go home alone to enjoy the company of my own hand.