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“Never mind that,” said Will. “Where is he?”
A carousel of increasingly grave scenarios began to spin through his mind: Patrick being pursued by paparazzi in such a frenzy that his car went off the road; Patrick being accosted by a deranged fan; Patrick falling from the top of the Hollywood sign. What on earth Patrick would have been doing atop the Hollywood sign in the first place was beside the point. If he had fallen, then he could have broken both his legs, might at this very moment be clinging on to life, and here they were at the Chateau bloody Marmont playing dress-up when they should be out forming search parties!
“I’m going to go look for him,” Will declared, marching toward the door as if he had any idea where Patrick might be, or where to even begin his search, or even any knowledge of this city at all.
He hurled the door open, and as if by magic, there Patrick was, standing in the hallway, hand outstretched, caught in the motion of entering. It had been just a few months, a handful of long weeks since they last saw each other, but he looked different somehow. Taller, maybe?
“Will…” Patrick’s eyes widened in shock, and Will said the first thing that came to mind, the only words he felt capable of getting out in the right order:
“What time do you call this?”
“LA traffic,” said Patrick. “I was at the beach, and getting back took forever, and…” He smiled lopsidedly, a single dimple creasing the left side of his face. “And gay men,” he announced, “are simply incapable of being on time.”
“That’s a stereotype,” Will replied with a smirk. “I thought you were above those.”
“There you are.” Simone’s voice behind them sounded infinitesimally gentler now that her client was present. “Where have you been?”
Patrick’s eyes drifted from Will’s.
“Venice,” he said. “Traffic. I’m sorry.”
“What were you doing out there?” asked Simone. “You know what, never mind, we don’t have time. Patrick, there’s a tux over there with your name on it. You have”—she checked her Cartier watch—“five minutes to get premiere-ready, and then we are all leaving.”
“Five minutes,” Patrick repeated. “Sure. Can do.”
He brushed past Simone toward the room where Audra had helped Will get ready, and once more Will questioned what on earth he was doing here. This was not his world, and certainly not the time to be distracting Patrick.
“Will?” Patrick called. “You coming?” His expression softened. “I think we need to talk.”
“Yes,” said Will, crossing the room to meet him. “Yes, we do.”
Patrick closed the door behind them, and Will braced himself. He remembered, with sudden horror, how things had ended the last time Patrick walked into a hotel to find him dressed in red.
What he did not expect was for Patrick to grip him in a crushing embrace, arms viselike around his back, face buried in his neck. Will curled his arms around Patrick’s shoulders, closing his eyes and gladly using one of the five minutes allotted to them by Simone to remind himself of Patrick’s smell, the way he felt, the sheer solidness of him.
This, he thought, was worth crossing an ocean for.
“You crushed it,” Patrick said into his neck.
“Excuse me?” asked Will, pulling away, and realizing with some amusement that Patrick appeared to be as scrambled as he was.
“Your song,” said Patrick. “I saw you, Will. I heard you sing. It was amazing.”
“What?” Will asked incredulously. “How?”
“Jordan sent it to me. He seemed to think I might find it relevant to my interests.”
Will’s heart swelled. He resolved to bring Jordan back a truly ostentatious souvenir from Los Angeles.
“He also said something about a guy called Maurice?” Patrick continued. “Do I need to get all jealous? Because I totally will.”
Will laughed and said, “That reminds me, you still owe me twenty quid.”
“I owe you so much more than that,” Patrick said somberly. “I’m sorry, Will. So sorry, you’ll probably never know.”
Oh, shit. They were really doing this.
“You hurt me,” said Will.
