Page 140 of The Menagerie

“That’s what the dildos are for, bitch.”

Jeremiah intervenes with a laugh, “Settle down, you two. Cam, you haven’t gone in a while.”

“Hm… never have I ever stripped for money,” Camilla says, grinning wickedly at her sister.

“You bitch,” Clover says, taking a quick swig of her drink. “I was incollegeandbroke!”

Rowan would kill for either of those excuses as he takes his own sip, the beer now gone warm from how slowly he’s been nursing it. Fuck. Tonight isreallydredging up a lot of shit that he didn’t think would come upever. He knows, logically, that he could lie, but well…. He’s never been very good at that particular skill.

“I’ll be damned, Campbell,” Mal says next to him. “Is there anything youhaven’tdone?”

Rowan shrugs, trying to play off his racing heartbeat as indifferent. “Guess not.”

“And you never stripped for me?”

“Uh….”

Because what the hell does hesayto that, other thanWe don’t reallydothat, Mal, orI gladly would as long as you weren’t paying me anything.

They’ve sexted plenty of times now, sending each other pics and videos with barely a second thought anymore, but stripping is… deliberate. Deliberatelyintimate, Rowan guesses. Even with his history of doing it “professionally” when he was a coked-out teenager, he’d promised himself years ago that if he ever did it again, it would be for someone he wanted to show off to and not to put food in his belly or poison in his veins.

Not as part of a nonromanticjust fuckin’arrangement.

But thankfully, Jeremiah swoops in and saves the day with “Never have I ever been in a gangbang.”

The rest of the Menagerie employees howl with laughter and bang on the table, chanting for Mal and Rowan both to drink.

“Fuckinggross, Mal!” Amy squeals, pretending to avert her eyes as if Mal’s going to get ravaged right in front of her.

“I fuckin’ told you not to come, skank!”

The Savaryns continue their bickering, but the rest of the game goes by largely without incident. Thankfully without any more skeletons of Rowan’s smashing through the layers of closets Rowan’s locked them in.

Rowan learns that Mal is allergic to grapefruit—which Rowan drinks with in solidarity due to the interaction the citrus has with his meds—Camilla is older than Clover by seven minutes, even though she acts like the younger of the two, Jeremiah has his master’s in psychology but prefers bartending, and Amy used to run track in high school, among many,manysexual things about everyone, most of which Rowan probably shouldn’t know.

Only when Mal announces that he needs another drink does it end, and another round of drinks materializes by their side without the excuse of a game to sip down.

“OH, THISis myjam!” Camilla squeals as the opening melody to some pop song pumps through the speakers, reaching across the table and waggling her fingers at Amy. “Come dance with me, love!”

“I’ve got you, birthday boy!” Jeremiah claims Mal, dramatically twirling out of his stool.

“Looks like that leaves me and you, Rowan!” Clover grins, taking a somehow still elegant sip of her cocktail despite the three she’s had already. “Lezz-a-gay!”

Her impression of Super Mario makes the whole group explode into giggles as the table empties and half fumbles their way to the dance floor. Pairing off, they each take on their own distinct style. Realistically, he knows they’re probably all good dancers, but they’re here to have a good time, pride be damned.

Clover is a riot. The song playing is some kind of pop-rap mashup, and she bangs out hit after hit of terrible dance moves, starting with the Egyptian and working her way to the sprinkler. Rowan laughs and mirrors her, occasionally throwing in his own freestyle that has the both of them grinning and out of breath.

Next to them, Amy and Camilla are taking things abitmore seriously, at least attempting some kind of conventional club dancing, all swaying hips and pumping arms. It makes Rowan smile when eventually they give up on being serious and start undulating and attempting to moonwalk.

Inevitably, Rowan’s gaze shifts to Mal and Jeremiah. He finds them doing something alittletoo close to grinding. They’re not eventouching, for fuck’s sake, a respectable gap between them for Jesus, but it still makes a mean, sour swirl of jealousy rise in the back of Rowan’s throat that nearly kills the pleasant buzz he has going on.

“All right, quit hogging him!” Camilla calls out, dragging Mal away from Jeremiah to waltz with him, horribly mismatched to the current rock song playing.

From then on, Mal bounces between each of them, arms flailing wildly and legs stomping out of rhythm no matter what type of music is playing. He’s intoxicating to watch as the gorgeous smile blossoms on his face with each and every song, each and every dance move. From little sways of his hips to tiny shimmies of his shoulders, Rowan can’t take his eyes off of him.

When he finally gets to Rowan, his cheeks are flushed a pretty pink, and the tips of his neatly coiffed hair are damp with sweat, and he’s fucking beautiful. But like everyone else, he thrashes around wildly a meager two feet from Rowan, and even with his erratic and silly movements, Rowan can’t stop watching. It makes a grin break out on his own face as he dips down into a low squat, bouncing back up a little too close to Mal and shimmying in front of him.

He’s literally been inside the man countless times by now, but his heart still flutters at being in such close proximity to him. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be over the butterflies that have taken up permanent residence inside his chest ever since he met Mal all those months ago.

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