Coda 05 -Paris a to Z

Prologue… Zach…
    T HE club was dark and seedy. The vinyl stools at the bar were torn, the tables grimy. The air seemed smoky despite the public smoking ban Denver had passed years ago, and I wondered if it had been trapped here all that time, lingering with the dust and the pheromones. It made the place feel dangerous.
    Just walking through the door made my pulse race and my cock hard.
This wasnt what Angelo would have picked. He liked places that were loud and full of energy. Places where he could dance and flirt and see what was in a mans eyes before they got too close. Places where the thick black eyeliner he wore at my request didnt set him apart.
The bar was a scene from my past. Id picked it not because I expected to see anyone I knew, but because I knew most of the men there had only one thing on their agenda. Angelo entered ahead of me, a lamb walking willingly into the meat market. I suspected he wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk back outside, but he was good at bravado. Although a dozen pairs of eyes turned to watch us, I was sure nobody else saw the split second of hesitation he had about entering. Nobody else thought twice about the fact that he walked straight to the bar and ordered two shots of tequila, which he slammed without even a breath in between. But after more than two years together, I knew him well. He was nervous.
“Never pictured you at a place like this,” he said, as he turned and scanned the other men in the bar.
“I used to come here,” I told him. “Before Jonathan left me.” My patronage of this bar and my activities with the men Id met here had been a large part of the reason Jon had moved out. In hindsight, I could admit to

    myself that was half the reason Id done it. I was too much of a coward to end things with him. It had been easier to line up the dominos, but let him be the one to knock them over.
Angelos sidelong glance at me was wary. “You used to come here with him?” I knew what he was really asking: did I used to do this with him.
“No,” I said, stepping close to his side so that I could put my arms around him. He didnt turn toward me, but he tilted his head away from me so I could put my lips against his ear. I had to brush his thick black hair out of the way first. It had grown out again, hanging in his eyes as it had when I first met him. “We never did anything together like this,” I said.
The truth was, it had never occurred to me back then. I hadnt known until much more recently how much of a voyeur I really was.
New Years Eve, nearly two years before, I had watched Cole and Angelo flirting with each other across Jared and Matts crowded living room. Part of me had known that other men would have been jealous, but I wasnt. Cole was no threat to me. I knew that what Angelo and I shared went far deeper than sex. He was an angel who only landed for me. Letting him fly a bit wouldnt change that.
Following that realization came the mental image of the two of them together, and I had felt myself grow hard at the thought.
I knew Jared assumed that Angelo had asked to go with Cole and I had given in, but that wasnt the case. I was the one who suggested it. Telling Angelo it was okay for him to fool around with Cole had been easy. It was waiting in the kitchen for him that had been hard. It wasnt that I regretted allowing it to happen, but I did regret not insisting that I at least be in the room. Wondering exactly what they were doing together had been simultaneously maddening and arousing. When I learned later that evening that there were still things that Angelo reserved for me alone, I felt vindicated. It was all the proof I ever needed that he was mine in every way that really mattered. Still, it was only a quick fuck. After that night, it was all but forgotten by me, and I was pretty sure by Ang as well. It had no bearing on our relationship at all.
The Vegas trip had changed everything. The first night at the club had been Angelos idea. And his frank statement that he wanted to dance—and I had known as soon as he said it that he meant more than just moving to the music—had sparked the same emotions in me Id felt as I watched him and Cole eyeing each other across a room. I could let him fly a bit. I knew he would always come home. So I stood there, with my exboyfriend at my side, watching Angelo dance. I knew Jon was talking, although I barely heard a word he said. I could only see Angelo. And what I saw was a revelation to me. He