All That and a Bag of Chips

Chapter 7

Less than an hour later, Collin and Sam had shrugged into their jackets and were out the door, walking to the club. It was only ten or fifteen minutes away, depending on your pace.

It had once taken Collin and Avery an hour to make the opposite trek back to his home, but that was because they'd stop to canoodle next to the swings at Laurel Park.

Damn his alcohol riddled brain! That wasn't something he should think about right now.

He was a free man. Free to indulge in what was once forbidden fruit: flirting with abandon, bumping and grinding with strangers on the dance floor, pursuing beautiful women. And not just Hot Heather, but any hottie.

Collin was ready and up to the task. He was full of liquid courage and was dressed to impress with a pair of dark Levi's and a blue and brown striped collared shirt from H&M that perfectly matched his Steve Madden shoes. He'd gelled his hair to perfection, and thanks to a Listerine strip, his breath was minty fresh.

Sam, as usual, was also on point. Her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders and a few dabs of glitter made her cheeks glow and accentuated the sparkle in her cinnamon-colored eyes. Cuffed jeans, black Doc Martens, and a crisp white t-shirt finished off her ensemble. She seemed to strike the perfect balance between butch and femme that, based on her dating record, was a magnet for every unattached lesbian in a ten-mile radius.

Just as Collin's ears numbed in the cool night, they arrived outside of the club. It was still early in the night and other businesses were still open along the main strip of downtown. Groups of people were walking down the well-lit sidewalk, holding doggie bags from restaurants, eating ice cream, or laughing about the movie they had just seen at the Santa Cruz Cinema. Right outside the club, a few people were standing around smoking cigarettes, and the bouncer, who cannily resembled TRL's Carson Daly, was sitting on a stool outside of the doorway.

"Hey, Joe," Collin said, pulling out his wallet to show his ID. The ID with a name no one called him and a sex marker that didn't match his identity. At least the picture was up to date. If he'd been anywhere else, he would have felt tense handing over this government-issued lie, worried about how it outed him as trans. Here, though, he wasn't worried.

Joe took the ID and gave it a cursory glance. "Have fun," he said as he handed it back, taking Sam's ID next.

"Oh, you know us. Of course we're going to have fun!" Sam answered as she took her ID back.

The place wasn't mobbed, but it was more crowded than Collin expected this early on a Thursday night. People occupied most of the barstools, and a small group had formed on the dance floor. As Sam and Collin sauntered towards the coat rack, the DJ started playing Get Low by Lil' Jon.

Sam's eyes widened, and a huge grin spread across her face. "This is my song!" she announced and tossed her jacket to Collin. "My balls!" she sang along with the end of the chorus and disappeared into the vacillating mass on the darkened dancefloor.

"There goes my wingman," Collin muttered as he hung up both their jackets on the rack.

Looking around, Collin knew several of the people here. Jordan, his TA from his lecture course on Ancient Greek Literature, was busy cuddling with some guy in a corner. A clique from the campus group CLUH (Challenging, Learning about, and Understanding Hetero-normativity) was occupying one end of the bar. Other people scattered about looked familiar, either from being regulars at the club or just from being part of the queer community in this small college town.

Collin made eye contact with two women he knew from the dorms and walked over to them.

"Hey Collin," Lisa and Kim greeted him in unison as he approached.