Parties were something, and Patrick were the party monster every week. Whether he was forty or too old for it, he was still in the game, or at least he wanted to believe that he was. Just pretending to be his image from twenty years ago, which he hadn't been for a long time.

Hitting on younger people, pretending to be the cool guy, as if he wasn't the biggest dickhead you've ever had the displeasure of meeting. Jesus Christ, he couldn't take his eyes off you, even when he tried—a shameless idiot.

He could hear Art's stupid nasal voice telling him that he should stop going after "kindergarten" and start going after the people his own age, the forty-somethings. Just to bring him back to reality, not that Patrick wanted to come back to reality.

Patrick didn't want to accept that he was already starting to get old. God, no, he just wanted to continue his lazy life of partying—no commitment, no kids, just him and his sweet escapes with people half his age.

Usually, he just had to work on getting close, and then, like magic, you'd spend the night with him—only for him to figured it out that you weren't like that at all. Shit, you caught him off guard and made him have to down more drinks than he would've liked.

One, two, three drinks—he was getting high and he didn't even know more than your name, but giving up wasn't an option. Not that he was putting his life into it... Maybe, he was, Patrick couldn't help but treat everything with intensity.

“You know, I've been next to you all night,” he said sincerely, everything you had said wasn't really what he wanted to know. He was just trying to come clean, even if that wasn't the initial plan. “And still don't know what you're about.”

Another drink downed, a stupid smile, and he couldn't take his eyes off you again—his thoughts racing, and numb too. “I'm just curious,” was he really hiding his plea of a kind of old, sad, and needy guy? Oh, he was, it was even funny, if it weren't tragic. “Is this for real or... I don't know, just an act?”