Chapter 1

1

Looking back, I’m not sure how the friendly challenge began. My first guess would be the night of my thirtieth birthday. The night I asked a question one too many times.

My outgoing boyfriend had promised me a “special surprise”. Then we ended up at Stonewall Saloon as usual.

That night, I’d been abandoned by my best friend and business partner, Felicity, who was working. Our gang of friends from the Bay Area was also absent. I was in a funk sitting at the bar teasing the big, bald bartender and playing Poor Me with shots and pints.

So I’d asked the one question that had been bugging me for a long time.

“What’s your name? Your real name?”

“If I tell you, I might have to kill you,” the bartender with the tag proclaiming him to be “Alex” said. He wasn’t smiling. He hardly ever smiled.

Wait a sec. This was a new answer for him.

I wasn’t as quick on the draw as I’d been earlier in the evening. I blinked at him and probably looked like a baby owl. A baby owl who’d soaked up a brewery or two.

What he said was a joke, right? He wouldn’t really kill me, would he? Or wait. Were we playing “Who said this famous line”?

I was too far gone tonight to be absolutely sure if what he’d said was a joke or a game—or if he was serious. All I knew was I was here and confused. And drunk. So very, very, very, very drunk.

Over the past year or so, I’d seen this handsome bartender wearing numerous nametags, all with different first names on them. At first, I thought I was imagining it. Then when I was sure, I asked him his real name. He always reflected. Deflected. Whatever.

Tonight, deep in my misery, I’d asked because I really wanted to know what his real name was. Again, he turned it into a joke. It didn’t look like my wish to learn his name was getting granted. Even if it was my birthday. Didn’t he owe me something as the birthday boy?

“Right, Alex.” I sighed into my beer. “You know what? You’re already killing me.”

I took a breath, letting the alcohol fumes go from my mouth back through my nose. “Alex,” or whoever he was, had become my only friend tonight like he’d been a lot of nights for the past few months.

I’d come in happy and ready to celebrate. Now a few hours later, I was wallowing and throwing the biggest pity party on the planet.

“Alex or whoever you are, I’ll have another one.”

Alex glared at me, like he wanted me to wake up and smell the…well, not roses. Not here.

“Jimmy, my friend, he isn’t worth it.”

Tell me something I didn’t know.

“Yeah, I got it. You’re right. So can I have another beer? No, wait. Make that another shot. Let’s party.”

His glare turned a little soft. He shook his head. No more beer? No shot? Or maybe no, he didn’t know what to do with me? Or no, he didn’t get it.

Yeah, well, join the club. I didn’t get it either. A beer would help clear things up.

A beer and his super secret name.

I couldn’t forget my goal. My birthday present to me was finding out his first name.

Tonight he wasn’t playing. He wasn’t in a chitchat mood. Something was bugging him. He was being surly, a big meanie. Well, that made two of us. Dammit, after all this time, sitting in front of him at the bar and chatting, I was getting seriously drunk and seriously serious.

I sighed. The alcohol fumes made my stomach rumble. I got it. He didn’t take me seriously. Nobody did. In this whole bar filled with gigantic, hairy, rambunctious guys, I looked like a matchstick.

People say I’m a lightweight, a twink I guess they’d call me behind my back. I’d just been publically dumped by my boyfriend/roommate or at least left hanging by him. On my birthday, no less. I was feeling very naked, very vulnerable. All I wanted was to know something real about my only true friend tonight.

My shit ex-boyfriend’s name was Alex, which was what made me ask bartender Alex what his real name was. They couldn’t be both named Alex, could they? Alex, Alex, Bo Alex, ALEX. God, I hoped not.

For a little over a year, Alex the Shit and I had been coming to Stonewall Saloon. While we were here, we always seemed to end up fighting. He would sit with me at the bar, we’d order drinks, and then after a few minutes, he’d turn to me.

“So who do you think’s the best looking tonight?”

“Why? What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t. I’m just wondering.” Most of the time, he’d wink at me at that point. “You always gotta keep your options open.”

Then he’d get up and wander away. Most of the time I’d sit at the bar and talk to the bartender, the guy in front of me now.