Written Wonderland

Serio let out a soft breath that hinted at a chuckle, his smile curling just enough to look a touch cocky. He kept his gaze on the painting, though, back to his earlier stance of enjoying the piece's movements.

"If there's one thing I know how to do, it's getting people to show up to a party."

Granted.... should he admit the caveat? Nah, not right now. In fact... The man glanced back briefly to Amelia's social group, and then went ahead and shifted his gaze back to Juniper.

"If ya like, I could introduce you to someone who's been later tonight."

Juniper's blood coursed dangerously through his veins again, and he finished off his drink to calm himself down. At least, if his face was still red, he could reasonably blame it on the alcohol. Or the heat in the room, come to think of it. 

"I'll admit that I'm curious," Juniper said without matching Serio's gaze, "assuming we are discreet." 

“Mmmhmm.” Serio nodded softly before finishing off the rest of his drink.

“At most, some folks might guess I’ve taken a liking to you outside of business, since Peter and I don’t really have a business relationship. That should be an innocent enough notion to let them entertain, though; it’s not precisely false, and I keep a wide variety of company. Peter’s an actor, who also travels in a wide range of social circles himself.”

The man smiled off-handedly and lazily swirled the large ice cube around in his glass, contemplating where they should go from here.

“I really should let Peter schmooze a bit longer before pulling him away, though. What d’you say we part ways to enjoy the evening for a bit, and I’ll come find you once Ms. Brenton finishes her set?”

Juniper felt the disappointment settle on his tongue when he realized they wouldn't immediately go see this Peter but wanted to seem completely unruffled. 

"Sounds reasonable to me," Juniper said and held up his empty glass casually to simultaneously thank Serio and make it obvious he would head back to the bar. With that, he turned away and could not stop the grin from taking up all of his round face, at least momentarily. His ears may have even moved with the intensity of it. The feeling of excitement threatened to overwhelm him. 

By the time he made it back over to the bar, however, just a few short steps away, he had re-collected himself and casually asked for another Grasshopper from the bartender. Sitting back down where he had been moments ago made everything wash over him again, and he could not help but relive moments of it, seeing the flash of Cory's jacket, the thrill of this new potential venture with Serio. Juniper thought hard over what he had said and done and checked it for flaws, wondered if he had been too obvious or if his enthusiasm, having not come out fully to Serio, might seem mal-intentioned in some way. He waved that aside quickly more out of worry that self-comfort. Surely he had been excited enough that Serio knew, right? But then, that meant he knew. And that was dangerous. As dangerous as opening up a gay club? Well, if they were doing it together... And hadn't Serio said people "will think I've taken a liking to you"? Maybe he's gay, too. Wait, no, he said he wasn't. But people might think he is? 

After his new drink arrived, Juniper agonized over the evening a bit more before suddenly becoming curious when his mind circled back around to his interaction with Cory. He remembered the way Cory had said his name back to him and fought the urge to shiver. 

Juniper shook his head at himself and lit another cigarette. After taking a few drags on it to steady his nerves and quiet the anxiety, he thought about looking around to see where Cory was now. Deciding it would look casual enough, he turned on his seat as if wanting to watch the singer but used his peripheral vision to check the room for Cory. He was still standing in front of that statue... Juniper allowed his mind to wander while he looked discreetly at the man, finding it difficult to turn away with all the excitement in his body screaming, but he did, his rational mind demanding propriety. 

Maybe he would take Serio up on his offer. He certainly had the capital to do it, and if Serio was really as confident as he says he is about getting clientele... Juniper's business-centric mind pushed out the part that reveled in the idea of a whole room of men Juniper didn't need to be afraid of or could even... No, this would be a business venture. Purely, business. Or, well, mostly business. Maybe not business on his night off, when he could attend his own club as a guest. He found his mouth unwelcomingly watering at the thought and took a sip of his drink to wash it down. 

Serio raised his own empty glass to Juniper in return, but in a way that fairly clearly yielded heading back to the bar. They'd just agreed to part ways, after all, and as that wasn't Serio's first drink, it'd probably do him just fine to go a bit without one anyway. He lingered by the painting a moment longer to finish admiring it, and spend a moment himself contemplating over the conversation he'd just had. A server had just finished practically invisibly making her way to deliver the drinks to Amelia's social group that Cory had requested earlier, and quite smoothly passed back Serio's way to collect that empty drink glass he was holding on to. He gave her a friendly flirtatious smile, which she returned before continuing on her way, masterfully moving about the room without much intruding upon anyone while collecting empty glasses and the like.

Art fully admired, conversation somewhat processed, and having been relieved of his empty glass, Serio took to leisurely meandering about the room, and soon enough was stopped by someone else to chat. Really, he had known it'd be an inevitability, and he greeted it charmingly.

Not long after the server had delivered the drinks, Amelia had momentarily parted from her social group and was approaching Cory, two drinks in hand. The man was momentarily startled when she greeted him, as he'd been quite absorbed in that statue, but he recovered smoothly enough and gave the woman a warm smile as he accepted one of the drinks from her. Both drinks were in small cocktail glasses, and looked likely on the fruity side of things. Amelia and Cory playfully clinked their glasses together and each took a sip, and then stood there by the statue chatting for a moment. Eventually Amelia pouted - still playfully - and Cory somewhat sheepishly rubbed at his hair, his smile apologetic and a little embarrassed. By the looks of it Amelia teased him about something, but not too harshly, and then moved to return to her social group again, and as soon as she turned her back Cory looked pretty deeply relieved. He took another sip of his drink, and then moved over to yet another piece of artwork to get lost in for a while, as that rather seemed to be his comfort zone in this place.

((OOC: So, I've already written up a (possible) actual timeskip to Serio and Peter heading Juniper's way, but realized that if Cory's gonna be alone staring at artwork for a good chunk of it, I didn't want to not give Juniper the opportunity to approach him? ^_^; As ever, zero expectations, and I can totes go ahead and post the rest of the timeskip if desired, but I did just wanna pause there to make sure I didn't bulldoze over anything.))

Over time, Serio made his way around the room chatting with various folks and occasionally stealing solitary moments of rest; Cory made his way around the room admiring various works of art; and Amelia's group eventually dispersed, some entering the dance floor and some heading out to mingle with other folks. At that point Amelia did go find Cory and drag him out onto the dance floor, and it looked like he was perhaps tipsy enough by then that he wasn't actually all that resistant to it. The song was a little less sultry and a little more upbeat, and Cory and Amelia and the other couple folks with them had a good time dancing as a casual group of friends. Actually, it seemed Cory knew a dance they didn't know, and Amelia delightedly asked him to teach them. It wasn't anything particularly complicated by any means - in fact it was a touch on the silly side of dances - but Amelia loved learning new things.

The red-head in a dark green suit that had been a part of the social cluster before spent some time on the dance floor with one of the other ladies in the group, the two having split off to be a little more... partnered. Their dancing was still perfectly cordial, though, and once the song was done the red-head only slightly melodramatically gave the lady a bow and kissed her hand before politely parting ways. The woman giggled and headed over to join Amelia and Cory's group in more lighthearted dancing.

The red-head made his way over to Serio after that, looking fairly triumphant, and greeted his friend with a hand on his shoulder. Serio smiled and welcomed him into the conversation he was currently in, smoothly making all the appropriate introductions.

And, as timing would have it, about then was when the singer bid everyone a good night. The band continued playing, and it sounded like there would be a new singer tapping in in a bit. Serio masterfully wrapped up the conversation with the small social group he'd currently been mingling with, and then stole the red-head away to go looking for Juniper.

((OOC: Cory's dance prolly has some cultural/status markers that Juniper could recognize, if that's a thing Juniper would recognize. Serio certainly did, but that's kind of his thing. Or, y'know, one of his things. Anyway, can elaborate if relevant. Also hopefully that wasn't like, information overload lol. Wanted to make sure Juniper had the opportunity to pay attention to whatever he was interested in paying attention to lol.))

Juniper stayed at the bar long enough to finish his second drink—"no more for now, thank you”—which gave him enough time to replay his conversation with Serio and get his mind straight about the upcoming conversation with Peter. To prove to himself that he was back under his own self-control, he struck up a conversation with a gentleman near the bar who was no one of note, really, but Juniper was always looking for ways to get his name out there, especially since his presence in the city was relatively new.

The man gave Juniper his business card in the event that he ever needed another accountant, which Juniper accepted distractedly as he had just glanced toward the dance floor and was confused by the dance style happening there. It felt out of place for this type of establishment but was not unappealing to watch. Juniper pocketed the business card and thanked the man before waiting patiently for Serio and Peter to approach.

Serio caught sight of Juniper at the bar easily enough, and nudged Peter that direction. Peter ultimately lead the way, strutting confidently and with a decidedly excited glint in his eye.

The red-head didn't directly approach Juniper, though; rather, he leaned against the bar a stool away and grabbed the bartender's attention to order a gin and tonic. Serio slid smoothly into the stool that was left open and ordered another old fashioned, and then leaned softly towards Juniper while the bartender got to work on their drinks.

"Peter and I were thinking to grab a table in the balcony after this; care to join us?"

On cue, the red-head on the other side of Serio leaned forward just enough to catch Juniper's eye around Serio, and he flashed a playfully knowing grin.

The red-head's grin put Juniper off a little, almost as if he were headed into an ambush of some kind, but--whoa, anxiety brain, slow down. Yes, that was ridiculous. Just because they might know he was attracted to men didn't need to mean they were out to get him. No, if Serio trusted this Peter person, then Juniper was going to give this all a shot, and at worst Juniper was fairly certain he could write the whole thing off as a big misunderstanding if it took a wrong turn. Nothing about what Juniper had said had been explicit as far as he could remember. 

"I haven't been to the balcony yet," Juniper said casually, "I'll come check it out with you." 

Serio smiled to Juniper, his expression a bit more cordial and soothing than his friend's. Though for what it was worth, Peter's expression backed off to merely excited pretty quickly.

"Serio tells me you moved to New York not too long ago," The red-head spoke up to make a bit of smalltalk while they awaited their drinks. Shouldn't be too long, but conversing was more fun than not. "How're you liking the Big Apple so far?"