“Thanks, snookums,” Blane joked.

“You ordering drinks for him now?” I asked. I continued to look into my glass, wishing it would refill on my demand. “You’re living together, you’re ordering for each other—what’s next? Are you going to start fucking on center stage?” Diego owned a club called Cirque du Diable where he employed Blane. The place was actually fascinating, with its old-school circus theme. Once it opened, it would probably sell out every night.

“Who says we haven’t?” Diego responded casually, causing me to lift my gaze to him.

“Dude, don’t go spreading rumors,” Blane chastised, clearly insulted.

“Got the miserable ass to look at me, didn’t I?”

“There is something seriously wrong with you,” I admitted.

“Come on, what’s got your dick turning inside out?” Diego asked, thanking the bartender for his drink.

“Nothing.” I shut down, not wanting to talk.

“It’s that hot piece of ass from the art gallery, isn’t it.” Diego leaned over to talk to Blane and said, “You should have seen the massive cock block Kace threw down at the gallery. Dude straight up built a dam around this girl’s pussy.”

“Watch it,” I practically snarled.

“See.” Diego laughed and pointed at me. “I can’t even talk about her without being threatened. So what is it? Why are you so fucked up over this girl?”

“I’m not,” I stated casually, downing the rest of my drink. I pushed the empty glass toward the bartender and motioned for another. The man was hesitant at first, but I glared at him, letting him know I would tell him when I was done.

“Kind of seems like you are,” Blane said with his beer bottle halfway to his mouth.

“Why the fuck are you guys here?” I asked, growing irritated.

“We were trolling for pussy and thought you might want to join us,” Diego replied. “It’s a humid night. The girls are loose and ready.”

“What is wrong with you?” I shook my head.

“Just trying to lighten you up.” Diego nudged me. “Come on, man. Have some fun for a change.”

“I don’t know what fun is,” I admitted.

I really didn’t want to be having this conversation, especially with Blane sitting next to me. We’d known each other growing up, but we hadn’t been involved in each other’s lives. He didn’t know anything about me, and I only knew a little bit about him. Diego had a general understanding of my past, but he was just as clueless, and I wasn’t about to divulge my life story to these two idiots.

“Just tell me about the girl. Do you like her?” Diego asked, almost sounding desperate. He was trying; I had to give him that.

Feeling like I owed Diego something, I nodded. “I thought I liked her. It’s just too complicated. She wants things I can’t possibly offer her.”

“What? A relationship? Dude, you can give her one of those. You just have to loosen up a bit.”

“Yeah, might do you some good,” Blane added.

“It’s not that,” I said.

“Then what is it?” Diego asked.

“She wants the truth, the truth about me, and I can’t give that to her. She wants to dig too deep to a place I don’t even go.”

“So you are going to allow your past to dictate your future?”

“I don’t have a future,” I responded, pushing back from the bar and itching for the bartender to finish pouring my drink. He was taking way too long.

“Dude, what happened?” Blane asked, curiosity lacing his voice.

“None of your fucking business,” I responded menacingly as the bartender came by with my drink.

“Drop it,” Diego mumbled to Blane, who nodded. “So, I heard you were moving out.”

Rolling my eyes, I huffed out a heavy breath and rubbed my right eye with the palm of my hand. “Jett call you?”

“No, Goldie did.”

“Goldie?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah, she said you and Jett had had a dispute and you were going to move out. She was really concerned about you. Should she be?”

For a brief moment, my heart warmed at the thought of Goldie being concerned about me. It was nice knowing that even in this dark and fucked up life of mine, there was someone out there who actually cared for my wellbeing... besides Jett, that is.

“I’ll be fine,” I answered. “Looked at a couple of places. I have options.”

“Do you really?” Blane asked. “Because all the housing out there is pure shit.”

“So true,” Diego agreed. “Sometime you wonder, is it better to live on the streets or in one of the pieces of crap around the city?”

“They weren’t too terrible.” I tried to convince them, but I couldn’t even convince myself.

“Not buying it,” Diego said.

“You’re right, they were shitty,” I said with a smirk. “Didn’t know it was a requirement in the Quarter for apartments to come with cockroaches and blood stains on the walls. There are some really classy establishments around here.” There were some pretty nice places actually, but there was no way I would be able to afford them.

“Fuck, I hate cockroaches,” Blane shivered.

Diego leaned closer to me and nodded at Blane. “Thor over there is a little pussy when it comes to bugs. Do you know what the asshole does when he sees one in his room? He puts a Tupperware bowl over it until I either take care of it or the damn thing suffocates. I didn’t know this was how he handled things until one day I’m looking for a damn bin to put my leftovers in, and when I ask him why there are none in the kitchen, I find six bowls on his bedroom floor. Fucking idiot.”

“What do you expect me to do? Stomp on them? Oh fuck no,” Blane defended.

“That’s kind of a puss-bag thing to say,” I said to Blane, almost giddy over the fact that such a giant man could be so scared of a bug.

Blane was the biggest of us all. He could have passed as a professional bodybuilder with his ripped biceps and strong shoulders. Dude was pumped. He also did a fine job attracting the opposite sex with his blonde hair and Australian accent. Diego was thinner than Blane and me, but he was just as cut. His caramel skin and blue eyes made him a rarity, and he used that to his advantage when it came to bagging women. Both men had demons just like me. Both didn’t talk about them, so it surprised me they pressured me so much. Assholes.

“Fuck you. They could crawl into my orifices,” Blane shouted, defending himself against his bug phobia.

“Such a dipshit.” Diego laughed and took a sip of his drink. “So, do you want to come live with us?”

“Whoa, that came out of nowhere,” I responded, taken back by the offer.

Diego shrugged. “I have the extra room. You can live in the room Goldie stayed in.”

“Might want to have that place disinfected first,” Blane suggested. “After the one night we had to hear Goldie and Jett go at it, I bet you there are little Jetts all over the walls.”

Diego cringed. “Dude, seriously. That is nasty.”

“Wow, between the cockroaches and Jett’s jizz all over the walls, you’re really making it seem like a step up from the places I saw today,” I sarcastically replied.

“Don’t listen to him,” Diego said, excusing Blane. “He’s just mad that I won’t let him lead an act for the show we’re preparing for the club, so he’s taking it out on me.”

“You butt hurt?” I asked Blane, starting to feel a little lighter thanks to the booze running through my veins.

“No. Diego is just so self-absorbed, he doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.”

“My club, my show,” Diego stated.

“He’s got a point.” I thumbed at Diego. “Plus he used to be in a gang. Don’t fuck with him.”

“Dude!” Diego chastised me while hitting me in the arm. Oops. My tongue got loose when I was drunk, and sometimes secrets slipped out.

“What?” I shrugged.

“That’s not public information.”

“A gang? Really? You don’t seem like the gang type,” Blane said, trying to push Diego’s buttons, and at the way Diego was fuming next to me, it was working.

“Don’t judge what you see on the outside,” I responded. “The boy has some mad knife skills.”