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They stared at each other and Leo took a moment to contemplate how fucking stupid that sounded. It looked like the bouncer was thinking the same thing.
“I mean, I just don’t do clubs,” Leo clarified.
“Shame,” the bouncer said, eyeing him up and down.
Leo flushed.
“I’m Brendan,” the guy said, and held out a beefy hand for Leo to shake. “So if this isn’t your scene, what are you doing here?”
Leo bit his lip. “There’s a…wake? I guess? For my great-uncle.”
“Oh, Jimmy? I’m sorry for your loss. Were you close?”
And that, Leo thought, is how you address a bereavement— not with “were you the cowboy he rode to save a horse?” like the tall blond arsehole at the funeral. He still wasn’t quite over it—both the fact that the guy had thought he’d looked like his great-uncle’s type, or that Uncle Jimmy’s type was apparently over sixty years his junior. He supposed he shouldn’t really be surprised. There had been stories, told in hushed tones when his mother was a bottle and a half of red in, that Leo wasn’t supposed to have heard, of a succession of pool boys.
“Uncle Jimmy has a pool?” he’d once asked excitedly when he’d been about eight, sweltering through a Sydney summer.
His mother’s mouth had turned down. “No.”
It had taken Leo a few years to figure that one out.
“You right, mate?” Brendan asked, dragging Leo back to the present.
“Yeah. Um, we weren’t super close, but I always liked him. He was a bit of a black sheep in the family,” Leo said.
Brendan grinned widely. “Sounds like Jimmy. Go on in, kid.”
Kid. Leo fought the urge to point out that he was thirty and headed inside instead.
It was like walking into a wall of sound and colour. Lights flashed, temporarily blinding him while intermittently illuminating dark corners, and bass beats thumped so hard that the floor vibrated under his feet. He took another few steps forward, trying to orient himself as his senses were overwhelmed. Despite the lights and the noise, it wasn’t actually that hard to find who he was looking for. Over by the bar, several drag queens were holding court, for want of a better term, surrounded by a crowd of people who were smiling and laughing and clinking their glasses in response to whatever the tallest of the queens had said. Leo recognised her as the one from the funeral who’d invited everyone here. It couldn’t have been more different from the subdued atmosphere at the funeral home, and Leo was suddenly glad he’d come. He headed over towards the group.
As soon as he reached the bar, a girl with rainbow hair appeared at his elbow with a bright smile and thrust out a hand. “Hi! I’m Wei,” she shouted over top of Daft Punk’s repeated insistence that they were up all night to get lucky.
He shook the proffered hand. “Leo.” There wasn’t much point in trying to say more, not with the noise levels what they were. What was that saying? If it’s too loud, you’re too old? Right now, with his eardrums ringing, Leo felt about a hundred.
Wei tapped his arm, and he looked down to find she was holding out a shot glass. “Tequila!”
He took it, looking at it dubiously. It was a Wednesday. Who did tequila shots on a Wednesday?
Uncle Jimmy’s friends, apparently. Wei lifted her own glass and knocked it against his.
“To Jimmy!” She slammed it back, and he really had no choice but to follow suit.
It burned all the way down, making his eyes water as he gasped out, “To Uncle Jimmy.”
All around him, people lifted their glasses in a toast, and it warmed him inside in a way that wasn’t all caused by the alcohol. It was nice to think that Jimmy had friends who cared about him, even if they were…well…“unsuitable” was the word his mother probably would have used.
Leo had asked her before he’d left the house if she wanted to come with him. She’d given him a look that was all pursed lips and judgement and said, “If you must go, try to not to embarrass yourself, and don’t catch anything off the toilet seats.”
He’d taken that as a no.
A long arm was flung across his shoulders and a voice purred “Darling!” He turned and looked up into the face of the woman—Man? Queen? Leo wasn’t sure what the proper term was here—who’d announced the drinks at the funeral. “You must be Jimmy’s little nephew! I’m Miss O’Jenny. Sounds like misogyny, but spelled like Jenny from the Block.”
Leo blinked. “Pleased to meet you?”
“I am still Jenny from the block,” Miss O’Jenny said in response to something someone behind her said. She leaned down to buss his cheek with a kiss. “Pleased to meet you, too, darling. Welcome to The Palace.”
“Why is it called The Palace?” Leo asked, just for something to say.
