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Friday is live music night. Izzy gave into the idea a few years ago, and it turns out he enjoys it most of the time. Some of the bands – Izzy would say a rare few, Ed would say most – aren’t terrible, and a lucky few have been invited back on the regular.
Tonight’s band is one of the regulars: first Friday of the month, every month. The band doesn’t have a name. In fact, Izzy doesn’t know the name of two of the band’s members. They do a weird combination of folk music, sea shanties (why?), Bob Dylan covers (also why?), and, on one particularly odd occasion, punk influenced covers of Irish folk songs, which confused Izzy to the point of taking an hour-long smoke break Ed had to physically drag him back from.
But he keeps inviting them back. They bring in a regular audience, earn more here than they do at other bars, and aren’t terrible enough that patrons try to start fights with them. Izzy knows there’s value in a calm audience. He’s getting too old to throw drunk assholes out of the bar on the regular. His back can’t take it.
The other reason – the one Izzy will never admit to – drops the snare drum in the middle of setting up. It lands on its side and rolls away like a cartoon, off the stage and between the tables, coming to a stop only when Izzy puts a foot on top of it. The lead singer nearly crashes into him as he chases it, catching himself and turning a warm, broad smile on Izzy. “Cheers, mate. Thanks,” he says, knocking every single thought out of Izzy’s head.
Izzy doesn’t know his real name, just that he goes by Frenchie, drops something every five minutes, and has a rich, surprisingly deep singing voice that makes any song sound like honey. Izzy has an ear for voices – he has a very distinct one of his own, after all – and Frenchie’s makes him want to tear his clothes off.
Obviously he responds to this feeling by saying absolutely nothing about it and being a complete and total asshole to the guy, which has been his M.O. for decades. Frenchie responds by smiling and trying to wheedle his favorite song out of him. He has so far been unsuccessful, but he’s not giving up.
Izzy takes his boot off the snare drum so Frenchie can pick it up. He’s so tall that Izzy could tuck himself under his chin.
“Any requests tonight?”
“Fuck off,” Izzy responds automatically, turning on his heel and walking away.
He hears Frenchie laugh behind him. “I’ll figure it out someday!”
“You won’t,” Izzy calls back before getting behind the bar and trying very hard to ignore him.
Once they open, it’s a slow stream of regulars that keep Izzy occupied pulling pints and occasionally making cocktails. Ed insisted on expanding the drink menu a few years ago, and Izzy, once he stopped arguing, found it was actually interesting. It’s sort of like math, sort of like art.
He still refuses to make drinks with stupid names, though. He has limits.
Ed strolls in just before the music starts. Izzy pours them two shots of rum, which they clink together and down. Ed grins and presses a chaste but affectionate kiss to his cheek. That’s still new enough to be unusual, though he’s much more used to the smack on the ass he gets next.
It’s nice, in a weird and unexpected way, for him and Ed to be… well, good again. After struggling through the end of their relationship and an ugly breakup, it’s a relief, five years later, to be together in the bar they worked so hard on and be friends. Izzy still loves Ed, and Ed still loves him, but it’s different. It’s nice. Izzy feels like he has his feet under him again.
He kicks Ed’s ankle in retaliation for the smack anyway.
On stage, Frenchie steps up to the microphone. It’s like flipping a switch – hearing that voice sends shivers up Izzy’s spine. In the bright stage lights, he sees Frenchie notice and wink at him. “Hello everyone. Happy Pride Weekend!”
The crowd cheers – half of their usually stoic clientele are covered in glitter – and bang their glasses on their tables. Frenchie beams at all of them. “I got a few requests tonight, and I’ll get to them, but first, I, uh.” He glances around and catches Izzy’s eye again, which brightens him up. “This song means a lot to me, and it’s the perfect weekend for it, so, cheers.”
He starts singing. For the first verse it’s only him, no music, just his rich, beautiful voice until the drums kick in. The song is slow, bluesy, and Izzy quickly realizes it’s about being queer. It’s about being openly, joyously, defiantly queer. It’s a giant ‘fuck you’ to all the people who say they can’t, or that it’s wrong. It’s about celebrating themselves.
For a moment, because old habits and old fears run fucking deep, Izzy feels a stab of panic. Part of him wants to stop him from singing any more, to say you can’t do that here, you don’t know these people, it might not be safe as if this isn’t his goddamn place. As if there aren’t pride flags in every window. As if he and Ed didn’t carve this safe place out of the city with sheer bullheaded stubbornness, fists, and an unflinching refusal to hide who they are. As if Izzy doesn’t walk around with his chest scars visible some nights. As if Ed hasn’t thrown a glass at every asshole who tries to start shit.
As if this isn’t exactly the kind of place they wanted it to be, where they could be out and proud and fucking sing about it.
Izzy listens to the song and thinks about what it took to get him here. He thinks of shitty, cheap group houses with a rotating cast of couch surfers. He thinks of loud, angry protests, throwing rocks, getting in fights, and kitchen table first aid. He thinks of his first Pride festival, just twenty years old and starting to figure out who he was. He thinks of painting his lips hot pink simply because he fucking could, and kissing Ed and kissing strangers because he liked how good it looked on them too.
Ed sidles up to him and slips an arm around his waist, and Izzy knows he’s thinking about it too. About what it means for them to be here in this space they made for themselves. He doesn’t say anything, but rests his head on Izzy’s, familiar and comfortable and the same as they’ve done for something like forty goddamn years.
For a single moment he locks eyes with Frenchie, and he knows they’re both thinking of the same things: of Pride parades and mutual aid and getting glitter in their hair and drag shows and street fights and all the things that got them to this bar, old and queer and fighting for the safety of all the kids that will come after them. Then he winks, and Izzy winks back, because why not?
The song ends and the crowd goes wild, making Frenchie laugh and blush. Ed presses a kiss to the tattoo on Izzy’s cheek for old time’s sake, before squeezing his shoulder and getting back to work.
The rest of the band’s set goes well. Izzy spends it distracted, trying to serve drinks and keep track of orders but glancing back at Frenchie every two seconds until even Ed notices. “You ever going to talk to him,” Ed asks between songs, “or are you going to keep burning a hole in him with your eyes and hope he notices?”
“Fuck off,” he responds, because it’s what Ed expects of him. Ed chuckles and turns away with a knowing look that doesn’t bode well for Izzy’s sanity.
He’s cleaning up behind the bar when Frenchie drops carelessly down onto one of the barstools, puts his elbows on the bar, and turns the full force of his smile on him.
Izzy’s completely unprepared and has to take a second to catch his breath. “Get you something?” he asks when he collects himself, trying not to let on how much he wants to climb over the bar and kiss him senseless.
Frenchie smiles like he can tell. “A pint and your phone number.”
Izzy sputters at that, nearly dropping the pint glass. “My – what do you – why?”
Frenchie laughs. “Because I like you,” he says in the patient tone of someone talking to a skittish cat. “You’re very handsome, and Ed told me you’re single, so if you don’t give it to me, I’m just going to ask him for it.”
Izzy whips around to glare at Ed, who beams and gives him two thumbs up like he’s fucking clever. Christ. His ex is trying to set him up. What the fuck.
Frenchie holds out his hand and wiggles his fingers playfully. “C’mon, babe. Let me take you out at least once.”
“He likes action movies,” Ed calls across the bar, like an asshole.
Frenchie just keeps grinning, but it softens a little. “I saw you while I was singing. You get it, you know? What it’s like to be our age, what we had to do to get here. It would be nice to talk to someone who gets it.”
And that’s what convinces Izzy, because yes, he knows, and Frenchie knows it too, and came out the other side of it proud and smiling.
“Give me your phone,” he says, and Frenchie leaps up to find it in his pocket. The screen is cracked, because of course it is, and Izzy has to be careful typing his number in.
Frenchie grins like he just won the lottery, plants both hands on the bar, and leans over to kiss the corner of Izzy’s mouth as he grabs his phone back. “Thanks, babe,” he calls over his shoulder as he dashes to help his bandmates carry their stuff out, leaving a stunned Izzy in his wake. “I’ll text you!”
Izzy watches him go in stunned silence, feeling his cheeks flush like he’s a teenager. At the other end of the bar, Ed whistles. “Damn, Iz, you still got it.”
“What part of ‘fuck off’ did you not understand?” he snaps back, because he’s not ready to process what happened just yet.
Before he can turn back to his work, though, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He has two texts from an unknown number. The first is a link to the song on YouTube, and the second says, “Saturday night. You, me, excessively romantic picnic dinner and an outdoor screening of the first Fast and the Furious movie. Thoughts?”
Izzy stares down at the message for a while before he realizes he’s grinning like an absolute loon. He catches Ed staring at him out of the corner of his eye, so he types out a quick “sure” before stuffing his phone back in his pocket.
Then he turns back to his work, humming the song to himself. He thinks he’s earned a little bit of celebration.