Chapter 1
Looking over his shoulder to the camera-phone in Joaquin’s hand, Sam requests, “Make sure all the flags are in frame.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Quin complains like he’s heard it all before, he has. He still lowers the camera angle a bit so the entire wall of pride flags are visible. “Turn a little, no the other way, we need more ass if you wanna keep you likes up.”
“Man, shut up,”
“I’m just saying,” Joaquin ‘just says’, “you’re going to have a hard time one-upping the nearly-nudey you posted last week. You’ve set your followers expectations real high,”
It was true enough. Two weeks ago Sam had made a post to his 8.6 million Instagram followers staying that, if they could reach the donation goal of the shelter linked in his bio that he would post in his boxers, which is not something he had ever done before. The link was to a women’s shelter, he had found out a few hours before that the shelter that had essentially saved one of his best friends lives was going to be shut down within the week. Wanda had been inconsolable at the news that the shelter had lost its funding and had not even been given time to fundraise or relocate its residents. Sam had barely been able to understand her through the tears once she had gathered the strength to tell him about it.
Long story short, Sam’s followers raised the money to keep the shelter running (and then some) in less than two days. 34 hours to be precise.
“Sammy,” Eileen gets his attention from behind the bar of the little dinner. “Be a dear and take those two new tables, the barely legal trio and muscles over there.”
The dinner is busy, most of the customers coming in from the pride parade being centered a couple streets down. Sam’s own mother fluttering around in a t-shirt declaring she was giving out ‘free mom hugs’ to anyone who wanted one.
Sam’s own outfit consists of what he’d worn to the parade when he’d ventured out earlier in the day. Perks of working in the family’s restaurant is that it is totally acceptable for him to show up to work in possibly-too-short shorts and a cheesy t-shirt of a melting heart in pink-purple-blue.
He would often simply pin his name tag on whatever he was wearing before work. Today, they were given (and/or encouraged to bring) pride-related pins to place around the simple name badge.
Today, Sam has his usual “Sam” tag with “he/him” in smaller font below it. As well as a Black Lives Matter logo, the raised fist with the letters “BLM” in bold. He also has cutesy “bi panic” frog and a duck with a knife held in its beak with the words “be gay, do crime” sticker-ed to the back of his notepad, which he pulls out when he answers Eileen with, “Yes ma’am, miss ma’am.”
Joaquin passes Sam his phone back. Sam gives a quick “thanks,” to him. Eileen is quick to put Quin to work as well.
Sam gives the photos a quick once-over, picking out his favorite and pasting his usual hashtags onto the caption area and hitting the post button before he scans the tables to find who Eileen had described.
As bland and common as the description was, the ‘barely legal trio’ of frat boys and ‘muscles’ are not hard to find.
Sam spots ‘muscles’ first, he’s kind of hard to miss now that Sam’s looking. And Eileen was very correct in her description of the man sitting alone in his booth.
‘Muscles’ has long, dark hair to his shoulders. The bits that were up in a small bun are falling down into his face now. Gloved hands are clasped together on the table, he’s watching the open floor of rowdy dancers, Sam’s watching his leather-wrapped arms.
The ‘barely legal trio’ are two seats down and practically vibrating in their seats, pushing and shoving at one another. One of them has a jacket, Sam’s sure it says something like ‘Alpha-delta-dipshit’ freshman edition. Sam heads to them first, half hoping to get the interaction over with so he can go chat up big, broad and broody in the corner.
He steps over, giving his usual, “hi guys, I’m Sam, what can I get for y’all today?”
Unsurprisingly, all three order the cheapest bottled beer available. Sam is handed a ten dollar bill and told to “keep the change” a 13 cent tip.
Sam slips the bill into the pocket of his waist-apron with a roll of his eyes and turns to move on to his next customer. He stops short for Nebula’s call of “behind you,” where she passes a full tray balanced on one hand by his nose. His eyes connect with her name tag and the pink-white-blue pin through a pile of fries. She sets up her tray on the little foldable tables Sam can never remember the name of and slaps a hand against Sam’s ‘ass-set’.
“Hey, hey!” It’s said as a mocking admonishment, but Sam knows she’ll take it as the joke it it. “Hands off the goods, baby.” He rubs at the spot on his ass where her hand had connected a bit dramatically for a second while they both laugh at one another. Nebula turns to start handing out orders to her table and Sam shifts over to his wet-dream-walking.
“Well, hello there handsome,” Sam starts his usual spill. Well, his usual for men he’s hoping to drag out of the diner with him after close. Don’t judge, it’s worked more often than not. “I’m Sam, what can I do for you?”
“Oh, uhm,” The man Sam’s brain is now referring to as ‘arms-arms-arms’ stumbles for a minute, “what’s good?”
“Well,” Sam bends and reaches a hand forward to point at a popular choice, “if you asked anyone else, it’s this right here. But I’ll be honest with you, that’s just cause Eileen gets a good deal on it with Gary over on fifth and we have it in spades. Me though,” Sam turns the page, looking sideways at the menu to find what he’s searching for, “I’d never lie to you like that, can’t go wrong with, ah, here.” He taps the laminated page a few times for emphasis.
“Pumpkin pie, in a cup,” the man reads the beginning of the description, glancing up to make eye contact with Sam whose brain then switches to ‘blue-blue-blue’ as a descriptor of the customer.
“Pie, but it’ll get ya loose,” Sam explains the alcoholic drink. He’d suggested a drink and not a food for the fact that most of the current clientele was there for celebration and alcohol as much as he’d chosen it with mellowing the man out in mind. Not enough to get him drunk, that would of course mean Sam wouldn’t be keeping him around after closing.
Seeing the mans skepticism, Sam grins, as flirty as he can be without being inappropriate, “you trust me?”
“Uh, typically trusting a stranger is not something I would do,” this longer sentence allows Sam to catch a hit of a foreign accent, though from what or where Sam isn’t sure. The man continues, “I believe I must make an exception for you, today.”
“You won’t regret it, sugar.” Sam stands up straighter and taps the table, winking as he turns, “I’ll be right back.”