The Marigny Opera House smelled like glitter and sweat and candle wax—almost like it probably did when it was an honest-to-God church.

    Someone had spilled champagne on a velvet drape near the stage. I’d already wiped down two pews, stacked twenty folding chairs, and gathered so many lipstick-smeared coupe sses that my hands were starting to smell like citrus and sugar.

    “Well, this was a whole different kind of hot,” one of the performers, Tess Ticr, said, their tone wry.

    They nodded toward the stage where two of the organizers whom I’d been introduced to earlier, were dressed up like burlesque dancers in feathered robes and were spinning like dervishes, sequins catching everyst flicker of light.

    “It was wild,” I agreed.

    Tess offered me a drink—Pimm’s, garnished with cucumber and an overachieving sprig of mint. I shook my head. “I’m good.”

    They shrugged and took a long sip of the Pimm’s through a straw. “Now, handsome, I was wondering if you’d like toe have a spliff and a dinner with me,” they offered suggestively.

    This was New Orleans, and it wasn’t the first time I’d been propositioned by someone whose team I didn’t y on.

    “I’m still on duty.” I stacked a folded chair against the wall.

    “What do you do, doll?”

    “Construction.”

    “No wonder you look good in a toolbelt.”

    “He’s Naomi’s, Tess.” Aurelie pped my could-have-been-dinner-date on their back.

    Tess frowned. “She gets all the good ones.”

    That’s when we all turned and saw Naomi and Jonah on the other side of the room. They stood close, not touching, but his body leaned toward hers, hers slightly tilted away.

    A conversation that looked more like a maybe than a yes, I told myself. But it didn’t make me feel better. My stomach twisted—not in anger or even jealousy—just an ache that she’d been mine, all mine, and I’d squandered it.

    I wanted to be beside her again—not just in body, but in that space where people go soft with each other.

    But that wasn’t mine tonight.

    And maybe not ever again.

    Scary fucking thought.

    “Is she into him?” Tess spoke with the pink straw of their drink close to their lips.

    “Wouldn’t you be into him?” Aurelie asked, amused.

    Tess shrugged. “Not when Mr. Toolbelt is here with his big…hammer.”

    I choked out augh and picked up a sequin boa someone had left on the floor.

    Jonah and Naomi walked up to us and I froze, waiting, wanting, like a fucking puppy with my tongue hanging out, begging for attention.

    “Thanks, Gage, for all your help.” Naomi seemed damn ufortable saying those words.

    Jonah looked at what I had in my hand and grinned. “Hot pink looks good on you.”

    I put the boa around my neck. “I’ve always thought so.”

    Naomi’s eyes lit up—and we both felt it—the charge in the air.

    She’s mine, I wanted to scream at Jonah when he wrapped his arm around her waist, right before I broke his jaw with my big hammer.

    “Well, if you’re all on clean-up, then I’m going to take midy for dinner at the Elysian Bar,” Jonah announced.

    She didn’t shrug his arm off, but she didn’t lean into him either.

    Thank God for small mercies.

    “Go.” Aurelie waved a hand.

    “You sure?” Naomi looked at Aurelie and then at me.

    No, baby, stay the fuck here with me.

    “Absolutely,” I murmured, and it would’ve been easier to cut my fucking heart out and give it to her.

    She swallowed and nodded vaguely. “Oh, Tess, thanks. You make that outfit look good.”

    Tess stroked their hand down their chest, covered in the tealce of a teddy. “I know, and thank you for giving it to me.”

    “It’s your payment for walking the show.” Naomi went on tiptoe and kissed Tess’s cheek. They flushed. No one was immune to her charms.

    Jonah and Naomi left—and I watched, my hands clutching the sequined boa around my neck.

    “Stop growling,” Aurelie mocked.

    “She didn’t even say hello.” I sounded like a whiney teenager.

    “She said thank you,” Aurelie pointed out, now looking at me with disgust.

    “Besides, all the eye-fucking y’all were doing got me all hot and bothered.” Tess fanned themselves with acy Spanish abanico.

    “They were, weren’t they?” Aurelie sprawled atop a pile of cushions. “I’m exhausted. Every year, I think I’m going to let someone else organize this…and here I am again with Naomi.”

    It took us another hour to clean up.

    I liked the opera house—it managed to stay holy despite the debauchery that it had experienced.

    People lingered as we cleaned—queer couples, drag performers with half their makeup wiped off, burlesque dancers leaning against each other on the pews, sipping wine out of Solo cups.

    “I love this city, don’t you?” Aurelie murmured.

    “Yeah.”

    This was the real New Orleans—where people didn’t care who you loved, as long as you showed up with respect and a te to share.

    I grew up epting people as they came.

    My parents’ neighbor, Uncle Walton, wore caftans and sang Aretha on his porch. Mama’s church friend made pralines and sold them on Bourbon to raise money. Everyone was allowed to be themselves.

    Hell, no one gave me a second look tonight, even though I probably seemed out of ce. Tattooed contractor with a hammer in one hand and a folding chair in the other? Just another member of the crew? Or maybe a performer?

    “Tough luck she left with the suit, eh?” Aurelie scanned the slowly-emptying church.

    “Tough,” I agreed.

    Aurelie stared at me for a beat, then her voice softened, just a touch. “Tess isn’t wrong, you know. You two…I always thought you were the hottest couple. And not just because you probably fuck like minks—but because you bnced each other. Calmed each other.”

    If only I’d seen what everyone else had—that we were made for each other, I’d be the one having drinks at the Elysian Bar (another old church that was now a hotel and bar) with my girl, not the fucking suit.

    “Alright, I think we’re done.” Aurelie winked at me. “And you looked good cleaning up all those feathers.”

    “I think I can make myself a feather duster now,” I joked as I picked up a stray pearl from the floor. “And a pearl ne.”

    “You’d look good in both,” she stated confidently.