Page 19 of Saving Pookie

"What you just said was crazy shit. Are you sure you're not⁠—"

I grit my teeth and pull her in close enough to whisper in her ear, "I know what you're doing. You're not going to turn this into a storyline. Do you understand me? I'll burn us all to the ground before I take the fall."When I pull back, I force a smile as she retreats with a scowl. "I'll see you upstairs, princess of the rats."

"Fuck you," she barks, turning and shoving her way past the cameraman.

He himself lingers in the doorway for a moment longer, capturing the cinematic shot of me watching my former girlfriend run away. When he's gone, I'm left with my thoughts, chewing on my tongue.

The truth is, we all party. Sometimes, way too hard.

Sometimes, it's just alcohol and weed.

Other times, it's cocaine and molly, Addies and Xannies.

We're all twenty-somethings in the service industry. It's not a big secret, but it's one that doesn't need to be exposed on national television.

I wonder if Pookie parties? I shake my head. There's no way. He's too restrained, too guarded to let loose. And what else do I think about Pookie? He's a handsome lad. No homo.

Now, it's time to go do some very gay things in the name of sweet, sexy, cold, hard cash.

On my way out of the dressing room, I chuckle at the thought of Tamra eating leftover pizza out of a torn box in an alleyway.

CHAPTER SIX

POOKIE

The last place I literally wanted to be on a Sunday night was at work. It's not work in the usual sense; I'm not shaking ass and slinging drinks. Instead, I'm partaking in a filmed party for the show at Maverick's penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side.

Fancy place and only about three blocks from where I used to live.

As for actual work, brunch at Mr. Pink's was mostly uneventful.

Gunnar paraded around the pool deck, serving drinks to the wealthy patrons while Braxton and I schmoozed with the older men seated at tables around the stage. There was only one drag performer who went by the stage name Goldie Yawn. As it turned out, Goldie Yawn is Mr. Pink's alter ego—a big-breasted blonde that gives off more Dolly Parton vibes than Goldie Hawn.

Gunnar and I bonded for a brief moment, the length of our bonding session lasting from the time he poured us two shots of tequila to the time it filtered down our throats and into our stomachs.

Then, as he left the bar, he looked over his shoulder and grinned. "Stop being so boring, noob."

Braxton immediately approached with a frown, upset he'd been left out of the shots. So, he poured two more: one for him and one for me. Now look, I don't have experience in the service industry, but I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to drink on the job. The second shot burned more than the first, and my stomach tilted into a blurred rush of heat. Cameron would never let me drink the hard shit. He wouldn't even let me drink beer, saying it was a man's drink and I wasn't a man. To him, I was his bottom, and that meant I could never be a man. He only ever let me drink wine, and I learned to despise the taste of it.

I flirted with the men as instructed and even sat on two of their laps. One man ran a soft hand over the inner side of my thigh, his knuckles grazing near my balls that were protected only by the thin fabric of my Speedo.

When we were splitting tips for the afternoon, the amount was much higher than normal. At first, I chalked the increased earnings up to taking Braxton's advice to heart. That was not the case. Instead, I found out that during Sunday Brunch, Mr. Pink donates all of his tips to the staff tip pool. He doesn't need the money.

As I was climbing back into my street clothes in the dressing room, Braxton approached, insisting I hang out with the rest of the boys. I initially declined but was accosted on my way out the door by Jules, who demanded that I show up for the after-party. Unfortunately, I'm someone who takes great pleasure in being asked to do things because it gives me permission to say no. When someone tells me to do something, I do it, because being obedient has been ingrained into my head.

There's a power imbalance here that is becoming increasingly clear. The Pink Stallions can't say no. We are nothing more than show ponies, no matter what Jules or Talon say.

And that's how I ended up at Maverick's penthouse just before four in the afternoon, and the party was already popping. All the lights were off, the silhouettes of people painted against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the glass was an unobstructed view of Central Park, which is a view I'm familiar with.

All of the stallions are here except Kolter, who I'm starting to believe isn't real. When I was a young kid, my dad took me deep into the desert and took me on a snipe hunt. The only way to catch a snipe is with a plastic grocery bag, but snipes aren't real. It's apparently a traditional prank that goes back generations. That's what this mysterious and elusive Kolter feels like. A fucking snipe. Everyone swears he exists, but until he shows up for work or an event, I'm going to choose to believe he's faker than true love.

The cameras are here too, four of them to be exact. Four cameramen behind the lenses, and then both Talon and Jules, so they must be expecting something especially juicy.

I make my way to stand beside the windows, drink in hand. A glass of water. Guess I'm living up to my reputation of being boring, but I don't know these people well enough to get shitfaced, especially with a camera aimed squarely at me. I hear shuffling behind me and cock my head over my shoulder to find a cameraman capturing some B-roll. All of this terminology is new to me, but I'm picking up on it rather quickly. B-roll is what production uses for establishing shots or for cutaways when they begin editing the footage together.

What do I look like?

Do I come across as mysterious sipping on my water?