Page 6 of The No Repeat Policy

I’m standing outside the Boone Taphouse again, dim porch lights washing me in yellowy light. Shadows claim everything beyond the light’s reach except the blinding flashes of headlights turning into the gravel parking lot.

Madison texted that she’d be here in under five. That was ten minutes ago. I shift my footing again, leaning against one of four sturdy wooden columns holding up the awning over the patio. It’s a large space, big enough to hold a decent crowd waiting to get into a show or a bunch of drunks waiting for an Uber.

“Where are you?”

I complain, taking another look at my phone and hoping for a text. And…no. I start to type out a message to her when her voice calls out down the rock path.

“Kolt!”

she yells.

Kolt? When did we agree on that one? Whatever, not important.

“Madison.”

I almost yell Maddi but restrain myself.

She steps up and, without a second thought, wraps her arms around me in a big hug. Uh… Awkwardly I hug her back. She’s definitely the we’ve-been-friends-for-years-even-though-we-just-met type.

“I’m glad you came.”

She smiles and starts toward the entry.

“Same. Thought you were going to stand me up there for a moment,”

I say, half-joking.

“I texted you.”

She scrunches her brow at me, letting the bouncer affix a thin white and reflective yellow band around her dark wrist.

I flash my ID and get the same band. “Your five minutes aren’t the same as my five minutes.”

“Semantics,”

she laughs. “Guess it’s true what they say about you IT boys.”

“What do they say about us ‘IT boys’?”

I have to yell for her to hear the question over the crowd. I can’t say I’ve heard anything about us regarding time. Not to mention there was something about the way she said it, it was almost suggestive.

“All about your numbers, black and white, ones—”

“Black and white?”

What? “You mean true and false?”

“So technical,”

she says, brushing it off.

“Okay,”

I laugh to myself and approach the bar behind her. She gets a cider, saying it’s how she likes to start the night out. I get a martini. Maybe that will tell her she doesn’t need to flirt with me tonight.

“So how long have you been at Ellis?”

I ask after we find a spot at the end of a long table with barstools lining both sides.

“Almost from the beginning.”

Madison takes a drink, her eyes sweeping over the crowd. They’re already line dancing. “I started a month after they opened shop, I think.”

“So you’ve been with them for a while then,” I say.

“A little over five years.”

“So, honest opinion.”

I lean over the table, giving her my best serious eyes. “Good place to work?”

“It’s not a bad place to work,” she says.

“Uh…not exactly the answer I was hoping for.”

I lean back, almost forgetting there’s no backing to a barstool.

“No, it is. It’s a good place, really,”

she picks back up. “Nowhere’s perfect though, right?”

I nod slowly.

“I don’t have many complaints.”

Madison takes another drink and puts the glass bottle on the table. “The ceilings creak a lot. Restaurants are a little far away. Mason needs to find better cologne.”

“Wait, better cologne?”

I take a mental step back. “Is it that bad?”

“I mean, it’s like Dollar Tree stuff.”

Madison shrugs. “Otherwise, Rach—”

“I’m sorry, what?”

I interrupt her. “Dollar Tree sells cologne?”

“What do they not sell?”

She looks at me incredulously.

“Cologne, I thought.”

I pooch my lips in confusion. Do they really? I’m going to have to look that up later.

“It’s not important. Don’t fixate on it,”

she says like she’s my therapist or something. “But yeah, otherwise, it’s good. Rachel can be intense sometimes, but usually she’s fun. The owners are great. Laid back but take control when they need to.”

“That is good to hear.”

I sip from my glass.

The twang of the music grates at my skin. The pounding of boots on the dance floor is a cheap mimicry of the bass I’m used to. “My favorite part so far is not having to wear a tie. My former employer was stuck way in the past on that shit.”

“Oh, originally it was a thing for the guys,”

Madison tells me. Interesting. “Rachel and Heather talked their dad and Gregory into relaxing it a few years ago.”

“Thank you, Rachel and Heather,”

I agree. “I hated wearing a tie. It’s like a goddamn noose around your neck.”

“Don’t like being choked, huh?”

She grins big.

“I prefer to do the choking.”

I smile back. Prefer is an understatement, I don’t only prefer it, I love it. The look in their eyes while they squirm and moan. It’s amazing. I don’t get it on the receiving end though. Like, choke me? The fuck not. But it’s so hot when a dude likes being choked.

“I see.”

Her grin slants.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that. She’s just easy to talk to. I could see spending many a Friday evening here with her. Hell, I don’t even like this bar really, but it’s not been too bad. But not if she thinks I’m a mark.

I’m changing the topic right now.

“So is this really the only ba—”

I stop myself and correct. “I mean club around here? I searched and this was all I could find on Google. I’m not so good with directions, so I don’t really wander a lot.”

“Yep. The one and only.”

She raises her brow and huffs. Seems she’s no happier about it than I am. “Sorry, city boy. This isn’t Charlotte.”

“Oh, I know,”

I say. It’s anything but Charlotte. I think the tallest building might be six levels, if even that. “Always surprised by it though. I mean, it’s a college town.”

Appalachian State University is literally just down the road. The area is bursting with college students, yet somehow there’s still only one fucking club. Like how does that happen? What the fuck do they do here?

“Yeah, that’s why you’ll find all types here. Not just country folk.”

She lets her eyes lose me and drift around the room.

Maybe I’d just convinced myself only country people went to a country bar, minus myself of course. I swear I hadn’t noticed how many of the people standing around or lounging near the bar could just have easily entered one of the modern clubs in Charlotte and been right at home. Maybe this isn’t so bad.

The conversation keeps going. I learn she’s got a degree in English but started with Ellis Newman as an intern before she finished. She has a dog, some little black mop thing named Lucille. Oh, and she likes to drink. She’s on her second beer, her third drink, and she shows no signs of stopping. I’ve barely finished off my first martini.

“So what about her?”

Madison nods toward a crowd of people, apparently with one person in mind.

“Who?” I ask.

“Her,”

she says again, a slight glaze in her eyes. “On the right.”

That helps. There is a long-haired black girl standing at the edge of a huddle of girls and one dude. She’s pretty. Her hair is straight and has this sheen to it.

“What about her?”

I ask, trying to act like I don’t know what she’s getting at. Sure, it was a random question, but still. I know what she’s asking.

“You think she’s pretty?”

Madison finally says what she’s really asking. I think it’s a test.

“I mean yeah, she’s pretty,”

I admit. “But I don’t exactly swing that way.”

“You a racist or something?”

She jerks her head back.

“What? No! I just— I’m not into women,”

I spill it out there. Racist? Shit no!

“Thank God!”

she yells loud enough to garner us a few wondering eyes.

“Thank God?”

I repeat questioningly. What the fuck?

“Yes!”

She slaps her hand on the table, maybe a little harder than she expects. Maybe it’s time to stop drinking. “It all makes sense now! I’ve been flirting with you since Thursday, but you didn’t seem to get it, but then you still came tonight.”

I give her a half grin, satisfied she’s finally catching on.

She raises her hands above her head dramatically. “I was beginning to think I’d lost my charm.”

“No, no, you haven’t lost your charm,”

I assure her, patting the table. “And I knew you were flirting. It wasn’t subtle at all. I just didn’t feel like starting a convo out with ‘Hey, I’m gay’.”

“So not bi? Maybe a little?”

She squints hopefully.

“Sorry to disappoint,” I laugh.

“Fine. You’re good.”

Madison flicks her hands at me like it’s no big deal. “Just means I have a new mission.”

A new mission? She doesn’t waste any time. Immediately she’s sitting up taller, scoping out the crowd. Ah, that mission.

“Gotta find you a man,”

she says without stopping while I bow my head and sigh. This should be interesting. She eyes me for a second to size me up. “I’m getting top vibes, so we’re looking for a bottom.”

I suck my lips in. I mean she isn’t wrong, but is it that easy? I can’t say it is in my experience, but have at it, girlie.