Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work that we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets, here;  https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets

We close out this year of snippets with a New Year’s Eve party where murder intrudes. The first of my stories about Gay Private Eye Andrew Navarro who finds himself working on December 31^st. Working a party where Death is an uninvited guest. From my story “WRUD New Year’s Eve?” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2017/12/21/something-for-the-end-of-december-in-friday-flash-fics-by-jeff-baker/

I hadn’t planned on working New Year’s Eve when I got the text message. Enough cash to pay off my post-Christmas credit card balance, so I packed a toothbrush and my private eye license and checked into one of the ritziest hotels downtown for the night. Another working holiday for Andrew Navarro. I was between boyfriends, so no big deal. The party was on the top two floors, a New Year’s bash with booze and snacks and a posh room to safely crash in after ringing in the New Year. All part of an expensive package. I got with hotel manager, my latest employer, about Noon in the hotel lobby on December 31^st.

Here’s more.

The rest of the partiers trickled in as the afternoon went on, and most of the guys were pretty well-behaved at first, but some of them had evidently started partying early. About five-thirty with the lights coming on in the darkening city I saw a buff young guy in the hallway wearing nothing but a red speedo, a Santa Claus hat and “Naughty or Nice” printed in black marker across his chest and abs.

“Happy New Year, dude!” he said, giving me a thumbs-up. I gave him a nod and grinned.

And just a little more…

I checked in at the ballroom from time to time but mainly I patrolled the hallways, keeping my eyes and ears open for any trouble. It was after nine thirty and the music was blaring from the ballroom when I found trouble. The kid from earlier in the hallway with the Santa hat was lying face down on the floor. It didn’t take me more than a minute to realize he wouldn’t be ringing in this or any other New Years.

Hope your New Year’s isn’t anything like that, except maybe for seeing hunky guys! (Live ones, of course!)

Wishing you all the best for the New Year, 2024! —-jeff