Leo let out a breath. “I need a whole GPS. I just… came out. At work. To my family. It went as well as a lead balloon.” He gestured vaguely at the room—the drag queen in a sequined gown arguing with a nonbinary person in a mesh tank top, the two older gay men holding hands in a corner booth. “And I don’t know how to be this . Part of… all of this.”
He took a sip. It tasted like possibility.
“That obvious?” Leo asked.
“First time?” A voice cut through his spiral. An older woman with silver-streaked hair and a leather vest covered in patches settled onto the stool next to him. One patch read Silent Generation, Loud Mouth .
Mari nodded slowly. She didn’t offer platitudes. Instead, she pointed. ferrari raunchy shemale
A young trans man with a septum piercing and a cowboy hat walked by and gave Leo a small, two-fingered salute. Leo blinked, then returned it.
He wasn’t a fraud. He was just new. And the raft—the whole messy, glorious, argumentative, loving fleet of rafts—had a spot saved for him. Leo let out a breath
The jukebox switched to a thumping house remix. Jules the bartender slid a glass of something pink and fizzy toward Leo. “On the house,” she said. “Welcome home.”