October 1943. Manhattan, New York.
Peter Corcoran has been a Friday night regular at the Starling Club for so long that he has his own seat at a back table. From here, he watches the battalion of stunning single ladies take turns dancing with the most handsome man in the whole establishment. That attractive man is not only his best friend but also his roommate—and it won’t be one of the drop-dead-gorgeous women who Daniel Bennet goes home with at the end of the night.
When the closed apartment door cuts off the rest of the world, Danny gives him the first of a series of burning kisses—kisses that never cease to shatter Peter’s universe. But the tiny, cynical voice in the back of his head has him doubting their strange, secret charade and wondering if their romance could ever be more than just an indulgence at the end of the week, when prying eyes aren’t looking…
Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of homophobia.
General Release Date: 28th July 2020
It wasn’t until ten o’clock rolled around that Peter Corcoran began to get impatient enough to think about grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair and making his way home. There was only so long that he could pretend to enjoy people-watching.
The Starling Club in Bowery was as busy as it was every Friday night. The dance floor was crowded enough that couples had only their two-foot square to dance in, and the bar counter on the left wall had people trying to squeeze in to any space they could to shout out their orders. The hall was a fair enough size, but it always felt smaller than it was when people were packed like sardines, which was every time he came. They stood in packs in floating groups around the few wooden columns that held the wood beam-laced ceiling up. The wax-polished cherry wood dance floor glowed in the glimpses between dress shoes and heels, but it would certainly need to be buffed again tomorrow after a night of wear and tear. As for the bar, he could hardly catch sight of the bartenders as they worked to sling whiskeys, southsides and gin rickeys as fast as humanly possible.
It was busy, but Peter had still managed to get his usual seat at the corner-most table in the back, where about two dozen tables were placed so people could sit when they needed to smoke a cigarette or rest their feet for a song. It was his usual seat for a reason. Sitting all the way in the back meant that no one looking for some drunk small-talk, or perhaps to bum a cigarette, would drift close enough to bother him. So instead, he was able to watch the crowd in peace by himself.
There were plenty of the neighborhood faces he recognized tonight, but his gaze landed on a group of women standing by the edge of the dance floor. The four gals had to be the most gorgeous flock of dames who played together and broke hearts just for fun in their spare time. He had no silly daydreams about even being close to their league, but why would he care? Leave that to all the thick-headed men who like to drink all night then parade over to try to woo them like strutting peacocks during mating season.
Especially the blonde. Peter could acknowledge when a woman was a bombshell beauty. Her platinum-blonde hair was always perfectly in place all night long, as if she had her own private stylist, like a movie star. Her skin was crystal clear of any blemishes and her garnet-red lipstick was the best match for her fair ivory complexion. Not to mention her wide eyes, which were baby blue, expressive like a doe’s, and always framed by lashes so long that any guy would be drawn to them. Of course, any man here would kill to have her eyes on him, but she had her gaze fixed across the hall. He traced her eyeline with ease and wasn’t surprised to find her attention set on a handsome man leaning an arm on the bar to settle with the tender.
The man looked a bit flushed, but it didn’t hurt his natural attractiveness—quite the opposite, really. He could easily be an actor, with a face like that, or maybe a model for one of those department stores on Fifth Ave. He wore a nice set of navy-blue trousers with an impeccably pressed white dress shirt tucked in. They certainly weren’t his finest set of clothes, like a formal suit for big affairs, but they were close. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, showing off his well-muscled forearms, and the button near his throat was undone from the warmth, but that only piled on the natural magnetism that radiated from him.
Peter looked back at the ladies and the whole band of them were watching the man at the bar now. They patted the pleats of their skirts smooth and tucked loose curls of hair behind their ears, each one hoping that he was about to stroll over and ask her for a dance. He had danced with each of them over the past few hours, but they all wanted at least one more. He could see it in their eyes as they ogled him and whispered to each other with their cherry lips.
He could also understand their disappointment all too well when the man at the bar didn’t turn back to the dance floor when he pushed off from the counter. Peter dropped his eyes to his glass. The man walked straight through the smattering of rickety tables and wooden folding chairs nearby, but the glass in his hand was empty and a poor excuse for his attention. He only glanced up again when the guy got right to his table and rested his hands on the back of the chair next to him.
“Hey, you think you’re about ready to head out?” the man asked.
Peter shrugged, pretending that wasn’t what he had been contemplating for the past hour now.
“Sure, Dan. If you think you’ve had enough.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Danny confirmed. He picked his jacket up off the chair but didn’t throw it on yet in the hot building. “I’ve spent more than I should have already and you know that they’re gonna start playing all that crooning Ernest Tubb music I don’t like.”
“We can’t have you being tortured by country songs now, can we?”
Danny laughed and nodded. “You’re damn right we can’t. Because then I’d have to go get another drink and I’d be dirt poor.”
“Okay then, let’s get out of here.”
Peter stood, stretching the achy muscles in his back and ass from sitting on the hard chair all night. He grabbed his own jacket and left his glass on the table for some busboy to pick up as he followed Danny out of the maze of seating.
He could feel the pin-prick tingles of the ladies’ eyes on the back of his neck, but he didn’t dare look over at them. He didn’t want them to know that he knew. He just kept his head down like the meek little wallflower that he was and shrugged his jacket on as the two of them stepped outside through the heavy oak door at the front and onto the sidewalk.
The night air was biting and cruel as it cut through the dark, barren streets of the now sleeping city. It whipped through the towering buildings, kicking up leaves, and ripped pieces of newspaper in the gutter, and it seemed to slice right through the layers of his clothes even though he had bundled himself up like an elderly woman in his winter jacket. Just another reason for his sour attitude, like he even needed another on top of an already bittersweet night.
He tried his best to push his annoyance aside. He didn’t want Danny to notice it on his face when they hurried down the sidewalk to their shared apartment. Danny was rambling, possibly a little drunk from the couple glasses of whiskey he had nursed all night, and he kept glancing over at Peter with that shit-eating grin of his that, no matter what, made Peter’s heart clench in his chest.
“And did you see Judith Martin? She ended up coming back three times for a dance.” Danny chuckled.
Aver Rigsly was born and raised in the Boston, Massachusetts area and spends her days working at a travel agency in Quincy. Some of her favourite places to visit are Washington D.C., Bangor, Maine, and most of all New York City. When she isn’t working a trip or writing LGBTQA+ romance obsessively, she spends her free time relaxing with knitting, needlepoint, video games, or marathoning horror movies with the family.
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