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At least it wasn’t a first edition.
He was contemplating another sojourn in the screaming cupboard when the bell rang again: It was April. She approached the counter with care, a smoothie in each hand, brown paper bag clutched carefully between her forearm and left boob like she was nursing an infant, but her eyes blazed.
“You will not believe who I just saw,” she said breathlessly.
Will laughed. So much for the hat and sunglasses.
“I could take a very good guess,” he said.
“Shut up. He was here? Patrick Lake was here?” April set their lunch down on the counter and slapped Will on the arm. “And I missed it because you insisted it was my turn to go out for food?”
“You wanted to get your steps in.”
“As if Patrick Lake was in Gilroy’s,” April said. “What was he doing here? Oh! Did he come in to thank you for helping during that whole debacle on Friday?”
“No,” said Will. “I don’t actually think he knew that was me.”
“And you didn’t tell him?”
Will dodged the question.
“He’s the one who rang about the Omega Issue,” he told her, knowing it would pique her interest. “I said it could be a tall order, but that we’d ask around for him. I thought maybe it might be a project that’s perfect for the expertise of someone who is, let’s say, not me?”
The fire returned to April’s eyes.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Oh my god. Patrick Lake, our client. Patrick Lake, my client.” She tore the sandwich bags open with abandon. “What is going on in Birmingham right now?”
“I know, right?” said Will, grinning along with her but also turning over April’s unanswered question in his mind. Why hadn’t he told Patrick who he was, that they’d already met? He wasn’t sure exactly, only that it had something to do with the flushed red cheeks of the man he’d met that first night, and the unguarded way Patrick had looked right at him. The more he dwelled on it—and dwell on it he did—the more it seemed to Will that he’d got a glimpse of something that night, too. A version of Patrick Lake that few people in the world ever saw.
It was silly, he knew, but for all the swooning he’d felt when Patrick walked into Gilroy’s like a cowboy from an old advert, Will thought he preferred that initial red-faced, clumsy grin. So he wouldn’t embarrass the man by bringing it up. He would file it away like he had with so many other fleeting glances and secret crushes over the years, and that way he would be able to keep the moment separate and safe, all to himself.
Chapter 10
Patrick returned to the secondhand bookstore on Bull Street a couple of days later, for reasons he could not entirely explain. He had given the guy who worked there, Will, his contact details, and he knew from his own attempts at finding the Omega Issue that locating a copy would likely take some time. Checking in personally was unnecessary.
And contrary to his wishful thinking, that guy in the bookstore, the one with the dark hair and the cute snub nose, had not been flirting with him. He just worked in customer service. He probably smiled like that at everybody. Patrick still cringed at the eagerness with which he’d written down his number. What a putz!
Maybe I’ll pick up some reading material while I’m here, he thought. Maybe Audra and I can start a book club to pass the time while we’re sitting around waiting for Lucas Grant to decide what the hell he wants this movie to be.
Besides, it was only a short walk to Gilroy’s: out of the hotel, across the square where the cathedral looked plastered over the bright spring sky like a decal, and around the corner. You could almost follow the chiming sound of the tram as it slid to a stop opposite the bookshop’s front window. Patrick wondered if maybe he needed to soften his earlier appraisal of Birmingham. There was a beauty to the city that took its time in revealing itself; like a dowdy girl in an old movie, she needed to let down her hair and take off her glasses before you could really see it.
Patrick felt strangely nervous as he pushed the door to the shop open and stepped inside. Will stood behind the counter, chatting with a woman in a Hellfire Gala T-shirt. Was this the coworker Will had mentioned? Another young man with bleached hair sat on the counter with his legs crossed and an iced latte dangling from his left hand. His right hand was entwined with Will’s, and Patrick was surprised to feel a pang of jealousy. Although he wasn’t sure if it was because of the hand-holding with Will specifically, or merely the casual, almost unthinking care these two men displayed for each other. To Patrick, being so physically at ease with another man was practically unimaginable.
The bell over the door rang, and all three people at the counter turned in unison, pausing in a comical tableau when they saw him.
“Hi again,” he said.
“Hello,” said Will, his face blooming into a wide smile. “Again.” He withdrew his hand from his companion’s to swipe a stray lock of hair from his eyes.
“Sorry to bother you,” Patrick continued. “I just had some time to spare today, and I…I felt bad. I didn’t buy anything the last time I was in here.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—” Will began, but he was interrupted by his friend.
“We have a wide-ranging collection of fiction, memoir, and history,” she said, “along with stationery and postcards.”
“Sounds good,” said Patrick, taking a couple more steps into the store. “I love your shirt, by the way.”
“Thanks!” she beamed. “I’m a big X-Men fan. I love Captain Kismet, too,” she quickly added. “I’m April—Will filled me in on your Omega Issue assignment. Quite the challenge, I have to say. I’ve been emailing with some seriously eccentric collectors, plumbed the depths of forums that would turn your hair white…”
