Somewhere in this new persona that she was showing everyone, my Aerin lurked. I was sure of that.

I decided to match her step for step.

“Yeah, I know we’re in a lesbian bar, Aerin. What of it?!” I asked her caustically, summoning my sense of irritability earlier to color my voice.

“Hang on, hang on …” Shane tried to step between us, sensing that an argument was about to take off.

“Butt out!” Aerin and I shouted simultaneously, each rounding on our hapless friend.

Something must have clicked between us then, because we simultaneously turned to look at each other in surprise, and I hope Aerin could see that I was playing along, and was following her lead.

After a beat, she gave me a quick smile, imperceptible to the others.

“What of it?!” she asked loudly, repeating my last question posed to her. “You show up in that outfit here? This is a meat market, can’t you see? Do you plan on being assaulted or something? I can almost see through that sheer, gauzy thing, for goodness sake!”

“And what does my outfit have to do with you, anyway?!” I shot back. “You’ve been aloof towards me all day. So what do you care about what I wear? I can wear whatever I want to, right? Besides, if it really mattered to you, you’d have been here earlier with me to…”

“Me and what army, Harley?!” she continued in a haranguing voice. “Because that’s what it would take to fight everyone off of you, dressed in that outfit! You know how that dress looks on you, right? I’m surprised you haven’t been hit on hard by half the women in this club!”

Annie interrupted us drily, “Only half?”

Katy joined in the shouting, “What the fuck, Annie? Can’t you see they’re having enough trouble as it is?!”

In the midst of the resulting arguments that suddenly broke out around us, Aerin made to grab my forearm, to drag me away, as she continued to shout, “I’m taking you home right now. Get you changed!”

I pulled back and shouted back, “This outdated attitude of yours may work with your other women, Aerin, but you’re reading me wrong if you think that it’ll work with me!”