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“It’s a teenage band playing to other moody teenagers.”
“And…?”
“And what is more cringeworthy to that kind of crowd than, well, us?” Will grinned, and Patrick began to smile, too, as realization dawned. “They won’t even look at anyone over the age of twenty. They’ll think we’re the most boring people on the planet. Invisible, almost.”
“So what you’re saying is…” Patrick gestured at his own face.
“If we deck you out in the lamest clothes ever, they won’t see Patrick Lake, star of the Kismet movies. They’ll see a normcore guy in a baseball cap and assume you’re someone’s older brother. If they even see you at all.”
“That…that is kind of genius.”
“I know, right?” Will kissed him briefly on the mouth, and it felt like punctuation.
“Is the band any good?”
“If I admit that they’re bloody awful, will you still come?”
Patrick pulled him closer, looked into his eyes, and said, “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do tomorrow evening than see a terrible band play terrible music with you.”
Will kissed him again, a firm and languorous full stop this time.
“Then it’s a date,” he said. “I am going to dress you up so ugly.”
“Oh yeah?” Patrick grinned.
“It’s going to take all of my considerable talents.” Will nodded. “You’re quite good-looking, I don’t know if anybody has ever mentioned that.”
“You’re pretty damn gorgeous yourself,” Patrick said.
Will laughed. “I’m all right.”
“No. Really.” Patrick’s gaze grew serious, his voice deeper. He flipped Will onto his back, that strength making quick work, and pinned him to the bed. Will’s breathing quickened as Patrick leaned down to growl in his ear: “Let me show you what I mean.”
Chapter 19
1949
For the third time in as many weeks, in what was fast becoming an unspoken ongoing arrangement, Charles collapsed on top of Dickie with a wordless, guttural exclamation, robbed of human speech. A moment later, he rolled off him so that they lay side by side, legs entangled in sheets, glistening chests rising and falling in near unison as they caught their breath.
Dickie lit two cigarettes in his mouth, and then handed one to Charles, the same way Paul Henreid had done for Bette Davis in that picture. Now what was it called? He’d be damned if he could remember. Charles could barely remember his own name at this present moment, he was still so caught up in that devilishly clever thing Dickie had done with his tongue.
“You’ve learned a new trick or two since Istanbul,” he said.
Dickie laughed. It was a full and throaty sound, and once again Charles could not help but wonder what the last five years had held for Dickie, the ways in which they had changed him from that taciturn captain to this louche dispenser of ungodly pleasures.
“I will admit, I am more experienced than I was,” Dickie said. “When you and I first met, I was…well, let’s not be shy about it. I was a real pill.”
“You were not.”
“I was! I took life so seriously, and we were at war, life was a serious business. But since then, I’ve come to think of it as less of a business entirely, and more like…”
“Play?”
Dickie blew out a cloud of smoke, turned to him, and smiled. “Play. Precisely.”
“Well, in that case,” said Charles, “I am glad that you disappeared, and even gladder to have found this newly enlightened Dickie Oswin.”
Dickie’s smile settled into a thin line.
