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“What are you going to do?” Will asked.
Jordan drummed his fingers on the countertop. “Something fabulous, I’m sure,” he said. “I just need to figure out what.”
“Let me know when you do,” said Will. “We’ll fight it together.”
“Thanks, boo.” Jordan kissed him on the cheek and headed for the exit, no doubt returning home for an outfit change before his shift at the bar. Will pottered around behind the counter for a while longer, enjoying the quiet that descended whenever Jordan vacated a room, a silence permeated only by the comforting sound of April humming in the back. He had half a mind to go back there and probe that theory of hers about their celebrity customer.
Three. This made three meetings with Patrick. (He wasn’t sure when he started thinking of Patrick Lake as just “Patrick,” like they were old chums or something, but here he was.) Could April be right? Surely not.
“Emma Frost, my foot,” he muttered, reaching to answer his vibrating phone. It took him a moment to recognize the voice on the other end: Separated from her arched brows and fake lashes, Faye Runaway sounded a little like Ozzy Osbourne.
“I might have a gig for you, babygirl,” she said. “Olivia Lyfe was supposed to do it, but she just got doxed.”
“Doxed? Sounds painful.”
“Don’t be cute, dear. Some bigoted mouth-breathers leaked all her information online. Her phone number, her private accounts. People are sending pictures of her all dolled up to her grandparents in Jamaica.”
“Shit.” Will instantly regretted his flippant tone. “That’s awful.”
“She wasn’t out to them,” Faye said. “She’s in bits. She’s even talking about giving up drag.”
“She’s upset, needs a bit of time,” Will said. “You’re not a real queen until you’ve threatened to give up drag—even I know that.”
“True. But she’s really left me in the lurch, so I think she means it, at least for now.”
“What’s the gig?”
“Drag queen story hour at the library. Saturdays at noon. I don’t know how you are with kids, but you have that bookshop job, so I reasoned there is a pretty good chance you’re at least semiliterate.”
“Tee-hee,” Will sang. “You said ‘semi.’ ”
He was fairly certain he could hear Faye pinch the bridge of her nose.
“Just don’t be late,” she warned. Then, to somebody else as she hung up: “Never have kids.”
Chapter 12
A bump in the road jolted Patrick awake, and for one deeply confusing moment he had no idea where he was. It happened from time to time, usually during a press tour, when he would wake up each day in a new time zone. Now, though, he was on the way to Manchester with Will, the guy from the bookstore, who had texted him that morning to let him know he was heading up north after work in the afternoon to meet a collector of rare memorabilia and hopefully they’d have some luck.
Patrick knew that it wasn’t exactly normal for clients to tag along, but filming was suspended for the day while the director and the studio hashed out some crucial creative difference that neither Patrick nor Audra was privy to—they were only the meat puppets who had to do as they were told; why would they need to know about anything as inconsequential as story or character?—and so he had been at a loose end.
But this, he reminded himself, was for work. Richard Ranger’s character seemed to shift with every new version of the script they received. How was he expected to build a performance on foundations that kept shaking? He’d decided he would go back to the beginning, the original run, except those early issues had turned out to be shrouded in mystery. With nothing but time on his hands, Patrick had gone deep down the rabbit hole of online fandom, the fabled Omega Issue evoking first curiosity, then obsession.
His privilege was showing, he figured. He could request whatever he wanted at any hour of the day. Of course he would fixate on one of the few things he couldn’t have.
It might even be fun, he had thought, to try and track down this piece of apocrypha. A real-life quest. And time away from the set, the hotel, the cast, was its own reward. Time instead spent with Will, who sat smirking at him in puckish amusement from the opposite side of the spacious backseat.
“Did you enjoy your nap?” Will asked, sweetly.
“Sorry about that,” said Patrick hoarsely, reaching for the bottle of water in the armrest. “I always fall asleep in cars. On trains. Planes. Can’t help it.”
“A handy skill,” said Will. “Being able to nod off anywhere. Also, adorable.”
“I…what?”
“You’re like a baby.”
“I am not.”
