✔️The Greaser and the Skirtchaser [18+]

26. One of the Wicker Hotel Stays (M)

Vance talked to his family about taking jobs from Resthaven, and they approved it, but he'd been abusing that excuse more than a few times to go sneak out with Blake. He couldn't help it. Blake had about a million places he knew about—clubs, festivals, markets, bars, parks—but Vance was starting to go less for the novelty and more for the stories about them. Vance would always ask for one, and Blake always had more to spare.

"Yeah, my Aunt Milly once worked here. She struck out into the city after graduation trying to make it as a writer while moonlighting as a bartender. You know that story." Blake was just stirring a straw through his coke sitting on this shiny bar top looking a bit nervous here even though he said that the bar here didn't ID.

"What story?"

He chuckled, but it didn't sound all that funny. "Well, you know. She was pretty wild back then, but she was just—young. Her writing wasn't doing too well, so she just quit it and got a job as a typist. She watched me a few times when I was a kid, always lecturing me about drinking and all. I was just thinking 'what a load of crap', but I was just a brat, you know?"

Vance chuckled. "Yeah, I have a few little cousins."

"Right, yes." Blake nodded and sipped his soda. His leg was bouncing.

"Well, what happened to Aunt Milly?" It wasn't often he spoke about his family even though Vance would talk his ear off about it.

"She, um, well, it's just a terrible story now that I'm thinking about it. I'm not sure why I started talking about her." He laughed. "But she told me plenty of stories about the types of bastards that would walk in here. It was her version of the boogeyman, trying to scare me away from bars."

"Danny would make up stories about how there were bugs in my house when he wanted me to play outside with him."

Blake laughed. "Are you scared of bugs?"

"Not really, but Danny made sure I was." Vance just huffed out a laugh. "What makes Aunt Milly a terrible story?"

"Oh, uh, she passed away a few years ago. It wasn't much of a story."

Vance felt awkward. "Oh. Sorry about that."

"No, no, I never really knew her anyway." He waved it away. He glanced at Vance's coke. "You feel like getting out of here?"

"Didn't you want to wait for the pianist?" He was supposed to be pretty famous since there were people filling up the tables in the bar.

"Yeah," Blake admitted before relaxing a bit. Then, he said more to himself, "Yeah, we'll wait."

"Do you wanna go somewhere?" Vance tilted his head. "You seem jittery."

Blake laughed. "I guess it was all the stories coming back. She really knew how to sell 'em; she should've kept writing."

"We can leave." Since Vance was down here on business—really, he wasn't just fooling around—he'd booked a hotel room. It was a battle to convince his mamma that he'd be fine on his own, and Danny was all for it when Vance told him Jenny would be coming with. "And hit the sack early."

Blake got a little pink. "Yes. Yeah, that sounds—yeah."

They ditched the bar before the pianist could even show his face, and they were only a few blocks away from the Wicker Hotel. Blake recommended it, somehow got him a deal with the reception, and it was a pretty quaint place. They were both pretty quiet by the time they rode up the elevator and got into the room. They'd had sex plenty of times, and Vance had shaken off his nerves, but calling it nerves wasn't exactly right. He wasn't so anxious as he was... well, Vance didn't know how to describe the tangle of electricity in his stomach when he was watching Blake undress. It was like butterflies but not quite, and it was making him want Blake to start touching and kissing him all over already.