Page 53 of Cosplay & Consequences

“She’s blunt, cool, and smart. Can I have her?” Brayonna asked.

Paige laughed as she came up behind Faye. “Sorry. She’s mine.”

Brayonna turned to her husband. “Bennet, I want kids now.”

Bennet shook his head. “Sorry, I think I still have a chance with Daniel.”

“Action!”

Daniel tore through his monologue, his performance improving on this take.

As he performed, I looked over to Paige. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

Paige let out a small sigh, putting down her phone. “Thanks. I’m still getting used to the idea.”

“I’m sure you’ll be great. I am curious though, why now after thirteen years?”

Faye and Paige shared a look. “Danny didn’t tell you?” Paige asked.

Something in the way she worded that made me feel jumpy. What was Daniel hiding now? “Tell me what?”

Paige gave me a tight-lipped smile, staring daggers at her brother. “Of course he didn’t. That’s just like him.”

She shook her head before gesturing toward my train wreck of an outfit. “Come on. We should probably talk. And find you something to wear. Your costume looks like it lost a fight with a pack of rabid goats.”

I turned back to Bray and Bennet. “Do you guys want to come?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m making plans for my future husband,” Bennet quipped.

Brayonna snorted. “Go on. I want to see Daniel strut.”

Paige and Faye took me back into the studio and down a long hallway. There were pictures of cast members and posters from As The Minutes Tick By on the wall, some of them going back thirty years. We reached his dressing room at the end of the hallway, where a cardboard star hung on the door with “Uncle Danny” written on it in almost illegible scrawl.

“Your work?” I asked Faye.

She rolled her eyes, but there was a small upturn at the corners of her lips. “He refuses to take it down. I made it when I was four.”

“Yeah, Danny’s a sentimental sort,” Paige sighed, opening the door and walking inside. When I walked in, I saw exactly what she meant.

Various theatrical posters lined the walls including, of course, a poster of The Scotsman. The long makeup mirror, however, was covered with personal pictures. There were a few photos of a smiling, bearded man and a young Danny working on various cars. There were also some of the cast members and multiple pictures of Danny and Sebastian. The majority of the pictures were of Faye from every phase of her life until now. One of those photos stuck out to me. A picture of Danny with a younger Faye, both with wide smiles.

Paige pulled out a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from a duffel bag and shoved them into my hands. “I didn’t hit the gym today, so they should be clean.”

I took the clothes, but I kept studying the picture of Daniel and Faye. “I’ve seen this picture before.” I squinted, realizing the image was cropped in a strange way.

Paige chuckled. “Good eye. That’s Danny and Faye backstage at the Kismet Sizzle concert.

I let out a gasp. In all the photos I’ve seen online, Faye had been cropped out. I checked again and saw it: Kismet Sizzle’s hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Wait. So that picture in all the tabloids was bogus? That song wasn’t about Danny?”

“Oh, it was about Uncle Danny, all right,” Faye sneered. “She couldn’t keep her hands off him at the concert. He wasn’t interested, and it pissed her off. I didn’t even get an autograph.”

“The one-time Danny cashed in on his fame,” Paige said, shaking her head. “And it backfired on him.”

“Why didn’t he release the real photo?” I asked as I took off my brocade and pulled Paige’s T-shirt over my tank top.

“Because he and Mom made a deal when he took his first important job that he’d never use me in any publicity,” Faye explained.

Thinking back to my research, he always dodged the question, even when I interviewed him at the Con. Not even when he was sitting and having a drink with me and Sebastian. He always kept Faye out of the conversation.