He slowly shook his head.

“So clearly you have no problem fooling around with another man.”

“No, but…”

“But what?”

“Every time I’ve been with…” he felt himself blushing again, “…with another guy, there’s always been a girl there too. It’s never one-on-one.”

“And one-on-one is bad?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He shrugged helplessly.

“You don’t want to think of yourself as g*y, is that it?” Jen’s tone was so gentle, and so thick with understanding, that his throat clogged.

“I’m not g*y,” he answered honestly. “I love women way too much to be considered g*y.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” She paused. “But you’re into men too.”

“Yes.”

“So then you’re bi.”

Amusement trickled through him. “I love how everything must always be defined. Gay, straight, bi. Why can’t people just f**k whoever they want without feeling the need to label it or explain it away?”

Jen pointed her finger at him. “Ha! Exactly!”

Crap. He’d totally walked into that one, hadn’t he?

“Now change the word people to you, and whoever they want to Aidan.” When he didn’t respond right away, her blue eyes turned shrewd. “Wait a minute—are you freaking out about having sex with him because this is about more than just sex? Do you have feelings for Aidan?”

That uncharacteristic rush of helplessness returned with full force. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I like hanging out with him, I know that much. When I stayed at his place last month, we got along really well. We have a shit-ton in common, he’s easy to talk to. So yeah, we’re buddies. I can’t f**k one of my buddies. That’d be like me hooking up with Matt or Ryan or Texas.”

“Except you don’t want to hook up with Matt or Ryan or Texas. You want Aidan.” Jen got a dreamy look in her eyes. “And good choice, by the way. Aidan is gorgeous. And those dimples…Lord.”

She pretended to fan herself, and Dylan had to laugh. “Dude’s not hard on the eyes,” he agreed.

She smiled. “I’ll give you the same advice Annabelle gave me when I was hesitating about going after Cash—life’s too short. Go after what you want.”

Uncertainty seized his chest. “I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. You know exactly what you want, Dylan. And you’re placing way too much pressure on yourself. You’re acting like sex will lead to a relationship and a commitment ceremony and marching in the Pride parade—maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But maybe you should talk to Aidan and find out what he’s looking for before you make assumptions.”

She raised a good point. “I guess I should, huh?”

Really? You’ve only now figured out that avoiding him like the plague is a bad idea?

He ignored the internal taunt. Yeah, maybe actually taking Aidan’s calls, instead of acting like the conversation they’d had on poker night hadn’t happened, would’ve been the more mature course of action.

“You’re right. I need to talk to him.” He cleared his suddenly dry throat. “Thanks, Jen.”

She rewarded him with that beautiful smile that never failed to take his breath away. “No problem.” The smile widened, curving into smirk territory. “And BTW? If you end up doing the deed with Aidan? I expect details. Like, a lot of details. Oooh, I can lend you my camera! And I’d expect a lot of pictures. Maybe one of you and Aidan making out, and one where he’s on his knees, taking you in his…”

She was too busy verbalizing her fantasies—which she’d clearly put a lot of thought into—to notice that he was flipping her the bird.

Chapter Fifteen

Working on your birthday absolutely sucked. Miranda hadn’t minded teaching at the studio today, which hardly counted as work because it was something she loved to do, but spending her birthday night at the club? Sucked.

At least Alex was here. She could always count on him to make her shift entertaining, and he didn’t disappoint. For the past ten minutes, he’d been mixing drinks to the music à la Tom Cruise in Cocktail, cracking Miranda up and eliciting a wave of oohs and aahs from the crowd of females gathered at the bar.

“Miranda! You can go on break now!”

She slid two Corona bottles in front of a customer, then turned to her manager. She had to shout over the hip-hop remix pounding out of the speakers. “I just took one an hour ago!”

It was hard to tell in the strobe lights, but was that a secretive smile on Wendy’s face?

“Take another one! Chill out in the break room for a while.”

Uh-oh. Miranda got a very bad feeling as she untied her apron and tucked it beneath the cash register. She supposed she could’ve insisted she wanted to keep working, but who the heck turned down a break? Still, she had the sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t going to like what she found in the break room. Oh God, had Wendy somehow managed to organize a party? Maybe called in the other bartenders and bouncers who weren’t on duty tonight? Would there be a cake?

Miranda’s stomach churned with anxiety. Aside from Alex, she wasn’t buddy-buddy with her colleagues here at OMG. And she hated parties. With a passion. The only time she enjoyed being the center of attention was when she was on stage, but even then, it didn’t exactly count as “attention”. When she danced, she blocked out everything and everyone, focusing only on the music, the rhythm, the sense of peace that washed over her and carried her away to another realm where life just made sense.