Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

for some reason, El making fun of it put him on edge. He scowled and didn’t reply.
    He did, however, pull out his phone again.
    El stopped laughing. “Man, you really are fixated on him, aren’t you?”
    Denver was, and he didn’t like it. “I’d figured he wasn’t interested, and then out of the blue he texts. Dunno. Just kind of threw me, I guess.”
    “If I hadn’t promised Paul we’d put together this new shelving system, I’d come see the show between the two of you at the bar tonight.” He put down his magazine and glared at it. “If we hadn’t spent three hundred dollars on this damn thing, I’d burn it. I’m considering doing it anyway.”
    When Denver gave him a puzzled look, El gestured to the magazine, which upon closer inspection wasn’t a magazine at all but an instruction manual. The cover showed sleek, stylized shelving set up over a kitchen area. However, when Denver peeked inside, he saw nothing but a sea of charts, diagrams, and words. He quickly closed the manual. “Good luck with that.”
    “You’re supposed to open that and say, ‘Gosh, El, this is so easy I could do it in my sleep.’ That way I don’t have to fuck with it anymore.”
    Denver was pretty sure he was going to have a nightmare about that manual. “Not gonna happen.”
    El nudged him with his boot. “Hey, I’m kidding. Why are you so sour?”
    Denver shrugged. “I’ve just been in a mood, is all.”
    “So I noticed. What’s going on?”
    Denver had no idea. He wasn’t getting laid, which wasn’t helping, but it wasn’t because he didn’t have options. The sea of twink remained as full of fish as ever. He just . . . wasn’t interested for some reason. And he didn’t know why. He frowned. “I don’t know.”
    El stretched his feet out on his bench. “When’s your next night off? Come by and we’ll grill out on the balcony or something.”
    “I don’t have one. The other bouncer quit again.”
    El winced. “Well, now I know what’s wrong. You need to tell Jase you need a day off.”
    He did, he knew that. Usually he didn’t mind working through, but lately, yeah, he did. “I’ll talk to him.”
    “Better yet, you need to get another job. You told me this was supposed to be a stopgap gig while you got situated in town.”
    Denver became focused on some fringe along the side of his jeans. “Yeah, well, jobs are tight.”
    “Right. Except Tiny keeps asking me how he can convince you to accept a job from him. Something you want to tell me about here?”
    Denver jerked hard on the loose thread, making a hole. “No.”
    El sighed and nudged him with his boot again. “So. Tell me more about Bug Boy.”
    Denver shrugged. “You already heard the story. Not much to tell.”
    “Well, tell me again. I want to be able to tell your grandchildren about how you met over a laundry table.”
    Denver narrowed his eyes at El. “Are you going to do that annoying couple thing where you try to hook me up just because you are?”
    El shrugged. “Maybe. Mostly I’m just bored.” He scratched at his nicotine patch. “And craving a cigarette.”
    “You can still smoke, you know,” Denver pointed out. “Paul isn’t going to leave you over it.”
    “I know.” El glared at the patch. “I just—well, it seemed like it was time.” He sighed. “And I know Paul would prefer I didn’t. He worries I’ll die of lung cancer.”
    Considering how much El smoked, it wasn’t an invalid fear. “Well, good luck, I guess.”
    El clapped a hand on Denver’s shoulder, grimacing in camaraderie. “You too.”

Adam stood in a gas station restroom across from Lights Out, staring into a cracked and clouded mirror, coaching himself out loud. “You can do this,” he repeated for what had to be the tenth time. “You can do this, Adam. You can do this .”
    He didn’t believe it any more than he had the last nine times.
    Stop by , Denver had said. Stop by Lights Out, like it was no big deal. Of course, it wasn’t a big deal, not to most people.
    However, Adam wasn’t most people, a point driven home by the fact that he’d be wiping off his phone with a wet wipe before putting it back in his pocket and was now nearly hyperventilating over the dirtiness of the restroom.
    In hindsight, he should have planned things better. He should have said he’d come by another night, not tonight. Of course the same problems would exist whenever he came, but he could have used the time to think up a plan. He could have