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…”
“I appreciate it, truly,” said Patrick. “Who’s your favorite mutant, though?” He rarely got to talk about this stuff; even his coworkers on the movie had superhero fatigue. “Mine’s Emma Frost.”
“She slays.” April nodded in respect. “But I’m a Storm girl. Always have been.”
“A-hem.” The blond sprang off the counter and extended his hand. “Jordan Thomas,” he said. “Your forehead is a masterpiece. Botox? No judgments.”
“Jordan!” Will exclaimed.
“I said no judgments,” Jordan said.
“No Botox,” Patrick laughed. “Just lucky, I guess.” The compliment had been genuine, and based on appearances, it seemed Jordan knew what he was talking about. Patrick had worked in Hollywood long enough to recognize good cosmetic work when he saw it. Kudos to the aesthetician who had tended to Jordan’s lips and brow: His facial fillers were probably the most subtle thing about him.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Patrick shook the offered hand.
“We met the other night,” Jordan said. “Kind of. You were at my bar? The Village. I served you and your friends.”
“Oh! Right!” Patrick withdrew his palm before it could begin to sweat, and immediately hated that his first instinct was to be embarrassed, to grow flustered when all he’d really done was allow his meticulously constructed persona to slip for a few moments. And Grace had stepped in before things got too bad. Grace with the green eyes.
“Jordan actually wanted to apologize for something,” said Will.
Patrick raised an eyebrow. Jordan did, too. Or rather, he tried.
“I do?” Jordan asked.
“Yes.” Will prodded him. “Jordan here, in what I wish I could say was a rare lapse in judgment, took a photo of you.” He closed his hand into a fist, brought it to his nose, and mimed taking a big breath.
“Oh,” Patrick said again, his diminishing cheer now crumpling like tissue paper. “I see.”
Jordan pursed his sculpted Cupid’s bow.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “Hope you didn’t get any flak for it. I mean, it would be corporate cowardice at its most craven if your career were to suffer. Anyway, it’s gone now. Will said I should delete it. At first I was like, why? That would be like saying you were doing something wrong, right? You weren’t hurting anyone, and it’s not like having a good time in a gay bar is a crime. Not since the 1960s. But then I thought, it’s a bit vulgar, you know? To post pictures of someone without their permission. Not hot-girl shit at all. So…sorry. Again.”
Jordan was clearly unaccustomed to delivering apologies, but as artless and rambling as it was, Patrick was touched. The smooth running of the entire entertainment industry depended on bland statements, pretty words arranged neatly so as to conceal their emptiness.
He couldn’t blame Jordan for his own secrets, or the fact that his contract with Wonder Studios held archaic ideas of what constituted “family-friendly.” In the first Kismet movie, he had punched a bad guy so hard he went through the side of a mountain. Family-friendly bone-crunching violence, apparently. His was a world full of such idiotic rules and contradictions, and he did not begrudge outsiders their insouciance.
“It’s forgotten,” he said. Then, eager to move the conversation along, he asked: “So how long have you guys been together?”
Will and Jordan frowned for a second—or at least Will frowned, and Jordan’s energy grew perplexed—and then they both burst out laughing.
“We’re besties,” said Will, and Jordan added, “I like to think that I can do a lot better than him, thank you very much.”
Patrick instantly liked Jordan a little more. The rush of affection tasted like relief, and no, he was not going to interrogate that emotional response right now.
“My mistake. I’m just going to…” He gestured vaguely at their surroundings.
“Yes! Browse!” April said. “Let us know if you have any questions.”
He turned away and began to examine the spines on the shelves, picking up the occasional book to read the cover, but all the while he could feel three stares burning into the back of his head, so much so that he couldn’t concentrate on anything he read and started just pretending to peruse the dust jackets. He experienced a similar feeling exploring art galleries, unsure how long to stand in front of one piece before moving on to the next.
When what felt like an appropriate amount of time had passed, he grabbed three volumes at random: a collection of poetry by Wordsworth; The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood; and a dog-eared beginner’s guide to feng shui from the ’90s, which he hoped might give him the inspiration to contact his decorator in LA. When he returned with them to the counter, Will glanced at each title as he rang them up, and Patrick tried to analyze them through those green eyes. His choices were probably basic, pedestrian. He watched Will carefully for the slightest hint of a smirk or eye roll, but all Will did was say:
“Bag?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Patrick said.
Will shrugged. “All right.” And then: “I think you’ll really like that one.”
“Pardon?”
“The Atwood,” Will clarified. “It’s probably my fave of hers.”
“Is that so.” Patrick grabbed his purchases. Will smiled back at him, and then he was finally out of excuses to stay. He held the books in the crook of his arm as he left the store and made the leisurely walk back to the hotel.
Patrick’s line of work did not often call for him to look outward, and he couldn’t quite remember the last time he had been so curious about another person. When Patrick had walked into Gilroy’s, Will had smiled like he wasn’t even surprised to see him there, like he was any other returning customer. He had made Patrick feel just for a second that he wasn’t a stranger in this town, like he already had a friend.
There was also the dusting of black hair peeking out from under the collar and sleeves of his shirt, the slight flourish of the wrist as he had typed Patrick’s request, the little details that Patrick rarely allowed himself to notice in other men. And something about those green eyes made him almost certain that he and Will had met before, but try as he might, he couldn’t put his finger on it. He must have been in the crowd at the bar that night, he decided. That was almost certainly it.
Or possibly it wasn’t that at all. It was the other thing, that glimmer of recognition he always did his best to ignore, that said: You too?
Fine, so what if he had wanted to see him again, however briefly? It had been a while. Longer than a while. He was allowed to look, as long as that was all he did, and discreetly at that. It wasn’t about Will from the charming secondhand bookstore at all, really. He could be anyone.
Although, as Patrick strolled back across the square in the shade of the cathedral, he could momentarily admit to himself that Will’s quick, bright smile alone had been worth the visit.