The Bad Crowd

Chapter 3 - I wish

Jack and Andy stood on the balcony of a back alley club, suspended above the frenetic lights and colored fog like birds on a rush hour powerline. Sweat thickened the air, bringing with it the heaving aroma of bodies thrashing to a techno heartbeat. Manny was somewhere down there, his face pressed against the throat of a Gothic beauty. She wanted this. They always did. What young hurting thing didn’t want a beautiful stranger to steal their lives away?

Her skin was caked in ghostly, smeared makeup, the coon eyes turning into smudgy tears that streaked down her cheeks and turned her into a rock goddess of youthful surrender.

Jack shifted his hand so that his pinky finger looped through Andy's, his eyes never leaving the scene below. Andy leaned into him, and whispered something, his lips brushing against the cup of Jack's ear.

The sound was lost to the music, but Jack heard him anyway. Jack smiled. Andy raised their linked hands and brushed his lips across the shorter man's knuckles, then left to go collect their errant third. If left to his own devices, Manny would inevitably breed trouble.

Andy wove his way through the crowd, eyes swimming in their sockets as he scanned face after face. Sweat slicked skin pressed against his shoulder, his side, and the heat of the room was the heat of a thousand lost souls, lost to music.

A song later, Andy found him. He leaned heavily on Manny's back, looping his arms around him, and purred a whisper into the space between them. "Let the nice girl go? Jack is getting antsy."

Manny grunted, leaning back against Andy's weight, and sighed. His lips were pale with stolen foundation, his eyes lurid and dark with want. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” The girl disappeared into the crowd before he looked back, and he sighed in defeat.

"See what you did? You made me lose my dinner." Manny whined against Andy's neck.

Andy laughed and bent down to his ear. "We'll eat as a family. Come on. Jack's buying."

Manny rolled his eyes. "Fine. Jerk."

"Yeah, yeah. Now wipe that s**t off your face. You look like you ate a donut without using your hands." Andy’s fingers curled around Manny’s cheek, thumb running over his bottom lip. His lip lifted. The makeup didn’t move.

Andy growled softly and straightened up, looking up at the balcony with its neon glow turning Jack into a sapphire ghost, and flashed an overwhite smile.

Manny smiled with him. Jack nodded, having never lost track of Andy’s willowy form while he flowed through the crush of bodies below, and headed for the clashing crimson light of the exit.

It wasn't long before the others joined him. Manny was still sulking when they stepped out into the rain. Jack stood with his young face turned towards the sky, eyes closed and arms outstretched. The rain was cold and blissful on his overheated skin.

"Come on, Rihanna." Manny said, ruffling Jack's sticky hair from within the loop of Andy's arms. His characteristic grin had returned. "Andy says you're buying."

Jack didn't move at first, then slowly dropped his arms, turned, and smiled back at them. He looked at his friends, at the way the water refused to stick to the white that smeared across Manny's lips, pooling instead in the rise of his top lip, and the way their eyes glittered with breathless anticipation and barely contained fervor.

With his chocolate brown hair sticking to his cheeks and flopping forward over his shoulders, Jack bowed low, extending his arm toward the mouth of the alley. Manny broke free, dashing ahead. His heavy boots made miniature crowns in each puddle he ran through. Andy laughed, holding out his hand. Jack pressed himself against Andy's side, each oblivious of the way his clothes bled rainwater into Andy's shirt. They'd both be soaked by the time they got anywhere anyway. They walked like lovers, Andy's arm draped over Jack's shoulder in Manny's wake.