Chapter 15
Jordan called the next morning while Will was making coffee. That, in itself, was strange: The two of them tended to communicate entirely via text messages, voice notes, and memes. That was their love language. What made it even odder was that Jordan tended not to surface until at least eleven a.m. It was nine.
“Who died?” Will asked when he picked up, at the exact same moment that Jordan demanded: “What happened last night?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” said Will. “Where were you?”
“Turns out I wasn’t on the rota last night, so I went for a curry with April.”
“Wow. Thanks for cluing me in.”
“Well, I kind of got the feeling that you and your new bestie might want to hang out just one-on-one,” Jordan replied. “Was I incorrect?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just. You know. A vibe I may or may not have picked up on. I’m very intuitive. So?”
Will considered the question. It would be a lie to say he didn’t like spending time with Patrick just the two of them. And last night had taken such a wild direction that he had to admit, he hadn’t even really noticed Jordan and April’s absence. The trust Patrick had placed in him, his game willingness, had been thrilling. But did that constitute a vibe?
It wasn’t his business to tell Jordan that he knew, for certain, that Patrick was gay. Or that he had given him a drag makeover, that there had been a split second when Patrick had wiped away a smudge of paint from his face and their eyes had met and Will’s heart had threatened to pack up shop and retire for good.
“I don’t know,” he said, finally. “We had a good time, then things got awkward and he left.”
“Awkward how?”
“Awkward like…” Will’s phone vibrated in his hand before he could finish the thought. “One second.” He drew the phone from his ear and looked at the screen: It was a text from Patrick.
“That was him. He wants to know if I feel like showing him around the city today.”
“Right,” said Jordan. “You need to douche.”
“Oh god, shut up.”
“And wear your best underwear. Calvins. None of that HM shite.”
“You’re deranged, Jordan. He wants to go for a walk, not get in my pants.”
“I’m not deranged, I’m bloody psychic. Do not fuck this up, William,” Jordan insisted. “If you do, I will never forgive you.” And he hung up.
Will texted Patrick back, saying sure, a walk sounded good, and an hour later they met in Pigeon Park. Patrick admired the cathedral, ducked just in time to avoid one of the eponymous birds colliding with his head, and followed Will down the street to Victoria Square, past the nymph-like sculpture lovingly known as the Floozie, then around the corner to where the art museum opened out onto a wishing fountain that looked like something out of La Dolce Vita.
“People love to joke about Birmingham being a dump, but she’s always been good to me,” said Will. “Not to brag, but we have a Dishoom now and everything. Come on. I want to show you something.” He marched on, explaining to Patrick as they went exactly what a Dishoom was.
The Library of Birmingham sat in Centenary Square like an enormous stack of Christmas presents, shining gold in the late-morning sun. “I was here when they did the grand opening,” said Will. “Malala spoke all about the power of words. I cried. Margo called me a wetter and then we got pizza.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Patrick.
“That’s not what I want to show you,” said Will, shooing him inside, up a series of escalators and then into the lift. It pleased him, seeing Patrick taking in the library’s vast interior, the look on his face as they reached the very top of the building.
“This way,” he said, leading him through a narrow door into a small room that felt even smaller on account of the stacked walls, curlicued brass fixtures, and ornate dark wooden paneling. Birds and flowers bloomed and flitted between the neatly shelved volumes and framed printings situated under glass. On the way to meet Patrick, Will had asked himself what he could show him that would, well, not impress him exactly—this was the Midlands, not Malibu—but at least convey how much Will loved this place.
“You’re an actor,” said Will. “I thought you might get a kick out of the Shakespeare library.”
“A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee,” Patrick murmured, rapt as he gazed around the room.
“Come again?”
Patrick turned to him, eyes bright. “I love it,” he said. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Shakespeare’s First Folio is kept here,” Will said. “Comedies, tragedies, histories. So many boys dressed as girls.”
“Men in dresses?” Patrick pretended to clutch his pearls. “Scandalous.”
Will laughed, then beckoned Patrick out of the room and continued with the tour, taking him out into the secret garden on the library’s roof. There was nobody else up here, and Will fancied he could see Patrick’s back straighten as they walked between trees and bushes all flush with the bounty of spring, errant petals circling on the breeze that was actually quite brisk.
“There’s one more thing I want to show you,” Will shouted to him over the wind, after they had circled the roof and taken in the panoramic view of the city, which, he had to admit, was probably more impressive from street level. Birmingham was the opposite of a Monet; she looked far better in close-up.
The Rainbow Room was on the lowest level of the library, in the children’s section. This, Will explained as they walked around the colorful, classroom-like space, was where he and Faye Runaway would read to kids as part of drag queen story hour.
“How many jobs do you have, exactly?” asked Patrick.
“Just the two. Bookseller, drag artist. A normal amount. I mean, you know. The economy.” Will waved a hand to convey the financial precarity that had been the background noise of his entire adult life. “Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. It’s like how every single air stewardess has a side hustle selling her worn tights on the internet.”
Patrick grimaced. “I have a cousin who works for Delta. I may never be able to go to Thanksgiving dinner ever again.”
“Oh, don’t be such a prude.” Will punched his arm playfully. “We all do what we have to, to get by. You must have had your fair share of demeaning jobs before you got famous.”
“I guess. I’ve been very lucky.”
“I have, too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Lucky to have figured out what I love to do.”
“We have that in common,” said Patrick, holding the door open for Will as they left the Rainbow Room.
“I’d show you my other place of work, but you’ve already seen the sights of Gilroy’s,” said Will. “The till, the exceptionally charming staff.” He gestured at himself. “The only thing left is the screaming cupboard.”
“The what now?”
“A contemplative space that April and I use for decompression purposes. It’s less dramatic than it sounds, don’t worry. I’m not much of a screamer myself. I prefer quiet reflection. You know. Mindfulness and such. I’m actually very chill.”
“You definitely give off a way chill vibe.” Patrick adopted a surfer-esque tone, and Will laughed.
“You just think I’m not chill because you’re from LA,” he said. “I bet everybody there and their dog has Reiki sessions and a prescription for Xanax.”
“I don’t have a dog” was all Patrick said in response. “I travel for work too much.”
“But you would otherwise, right? You seem like such a dog person.”
“I guess I am. What about you? Let me guess. Cats.”
“I am currently focusing a lot of my energy on keeping a peace lily named Cordelia alive. I’m not quite ready to graduate to sapient mammals.”
From there they walked through to the rep theater, then out onto Broad Street, which Patrick remarked looked much improved during daylight. They strolled slowly down Birmingham’s very own walk of fame, the stars commemorating some of the city’s best-loved sons and daughters. Patrick kept his eyes fixed on the ground as they strolled, proudly pointing to a paving stone from time to time when he recognized one of the names underfoot. Ozzy Osbourne. Julie Walters. Joan Armatrading.
“?‘The Weakness in Me,’?” he said. “What a song.”
“Right?” Will stopped and grabbed his arm. “Not to mention featured in one of the best Shakespeare adaptations of all time.”
“10 Things I Hate About You!” Patrick practically yelled back, and held up his hand for a high five. He could have been the good-natured jock in a high school movie in that moment, an all-American himbo prom king who gets the girl after learning some valuable lesson or other. Will gamely slapped his palm and then kept on walking.
“We should go see a movie,” said Patrick, catching up with him.
“Now, you mean?”
“Sure.”
“That’s so weird,” said Will. “I have never thought about actors just, like, going to the cinema. Which is entirely stupid, because of course you would. It probably counts as work. I bet all of your cinema tickets are tax-deductible.”
“Plus I really, really like popcorn,” said Patrick.
“I mean, who doesn’t?”
“Do you know where has the best popcorn in the world?” Patrick turned so he was walking backward and facing Will at the same time. “The Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.” He glanced down at his feet, currently obscuring one of the Moody Blues. “It’s on the other walk of fame.”
“Well, we probably can’t compete with that,” said Will, “but I am pretty sure I can hook you up with some popcorn.” He got out his phone to check nearby listings, and they settled on a screening of an action movie with some variety of plane in the title. Or maybe it was a boat. Will supposed they would find out.
Click, click, click.
“What’s that sound?” he asked, looking around. “I hate to sound a hundred years old, but kids who don’t have their phones set to silent drive me insane. I was on a bus the other day, and all I could hear was someone clickity-clacking away on their screen. And then they took a video call. Without headphones. Tell me that’s not serial-killer behavior.”
“It’s not,” said Patrick, smile fading. “Not kids, that is.” Will followed his eye line to where a middle-aged man in all-black denim stood a hundred or so yards away, photographing Patrick from behind a transparent bus shelter. It was such a stupid place to hide that Will almost laughed. Instead, seeing the way Patrick’s entire body language was changing, becoming all closed off, he whipped out his phone again and opened a different app.
“This way,” he said, playing tour guide once again and hurriedly directing Patrick around a corner, where his phone informed him an available electric scooter was sitting idle.
“What’s this?”
“It’s like a Boris bike,” said Will, stepping onto it and scanning his phone across the handlebars.
“That sounds made up,” said Patrick.
“Welcome to England,” said Will. “Now hop on and hold tight. I’ll get us out of here before that pap can catch up.”
Will had never learned to ride a bike. His mom had never been very outdoorsy, and his dad had never been, well, present. But one of his favorite ever birthday presents as a kid had been his scooter. It was a glorious shade of electric blue that Will had been convinced made it go faster somehow, and he’d lost count of the number of times he’d pushed it to the top of a nearby hill and then whooped and hollered all the way down, wind stinging his eyes, feeling for just a second like he was flying.
The public scooters did not go that fast, and they were an ugly shade of orange, but still, Will felt almost the same way as the two of them raced through the city, Patrick laughing in his ear, arms firmly around his waist. Like he was capable of anything. After a while, he felt Patrick carefully remove his arms, and he looked back just for a second to see him, hands outstretched, eyes closed. And if anybody walking through Birmingham city center that day saw a tall, blond blur whizz past and had time to ask themselves, Was that Patrick Lake?, he was already gone.
The New Street Odeon was run-down and in dire need of an update compared to the other cinemas in the city, which boasted reclining chairs and IMAX screens, but that was exactly why Will had settled on it. This place was all but empty on weekdays, meaning Patrick could walk in unbothered.
Will had already bought the tickets online en route, and he made small talk with the anemic-looking teenager at admissions while she scanned the QR code on his phone, keeping her attention on him and not the guy next to him, whose face was casually turned away. He told himself he had chosen a practically abandoned picture house to make life easier for Patrick, and not so that he would have him all to himself, and he got halfway to convinced before the memory of Patrick’s thumb on his cheekbone came back to him.
Knowing that Patrick was gay didn’t change a thing, in theory. Nor did knowing that he had a far more flamboyant side than his exterior indicated. But as with all knowledge, it did beget more questions. Or at least one question in particular that Will didn’t dare ask.
Do I have a shot with you?
The theater was already dark by the time they had bought popcorn and drinks, and so they slipped into the first couple of seats in the back row.
“Are we late?” Patrick asked.
“Barely.”
“You’re just feeding the stereotype at this point,” Patrick teased. “About gay men always being late.”
“I object to that. We’re right on time. It’s not our fault if everybody else shows up early.”
“All I know is that if I turned up late to an audition, I wouldn’t book many gigs.”
“You do realize that the screening time they tell you is a lie,” Will said. “The trick is to rock up half an hour after that, and they’ll only just be dimming the lights then.”
“But then you miss the trailers,” Patrick countered. “I like the trailers.”
“The same trailers that have been all over the internet for weeks?” Will asked, throwing a fistful of popcorn into his mouth.
“It’s all part of the experience,” said Patrick. “I just love going to the movies. Always have. I went as often as I could when I was a kid.”
As they continued to talk over the trailers Patrick claimed he wanted to see, they lowered their voices further and further so as not to disturb the dozen or so other moviegoers scattered around the room. By the time the film began, they were whispering; each remark necessitated a turn of the head, a slight lean inward. Patrick was just a dark outline next to him, and Will found himself teasing the actor for his corny earnestness, his Americanisms.
“You guys have amazing foreign policy,” he told Patrick in a hushed tone as they watched a helicopter launch a missile.
“We learned from watching you,” Patrick fired back.
Will wasn’t even fully aware of the fact that they had been flirting until he felt the slightest nudge of Patrick’s little finger against his on the armrest between their seats. As an experiment, he withdrew his hand, plucked a single piece of popcorn from the bag in his lap, and popped it into his mouth, before returning it to the armrest. Patrick’s hand was still there, unmoving.
“I suppose it must come in handy now, too,” whispered Will.
“What must?”
“Going to the movies.” Will nodded to the rest of the theater and said quietly, “In the dark, nobody knows you’re you.”
“You’re right,” said Patrick.
“We could be anybody right now,” Will continued. “A couple of complete strangers.” What are you saying? he screamed inwardly. What are you doing?
“True,” said Patrick. “But all the same…” Was it Will’s imagination, or was Patrick’s finger moving against his? “I’m glad that I’m here with you.”
“Me too,” said Will, lifting his pinkie ever so slowly in response.
Patrick shook slightly next to him, and it took Will a second to realize he was laughing gently.
“You’re going to make me do it, aren’t you?”
“Do what?” Will asked.
“You know what.”
“I don’t!” Will whispered. “Honestly, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” Reasonably, he didn’t. Such a thing was so far outside the realm of things that happened in the real world, least of all to him. At the same time, some part of him thought that he might know. But fear had taught him the best thing to do with that secret knowledge was bury it.
Those instincts had kept him safe. Kept him alive, on nights when he had the sudden, urgent intuition that a man he had got too close to could turn on him, that somebody who hated himself would channel that rage outward. Survival first. Happiness second.
What if, though?he thought. Good god, what if?
And once that question is uttered, it demands an answer.
“I’m asking you,” said Will, “to do it.”
Patrick inched closer. “Do what?” he asked, feigning innocence this time.
Oh no, Will thought. This man.
“Do,” he whispered, “the,” he leaned in, “thing.” When Patrick didn’t move away, he inclined even further, their faces a breath away from each other. A second passed, just long enough for Will to think he had made a terrible mistake, and panic began to bubble up inside him. “Wait—” he began, before Patrick’s mouth closed on his, and whatever words that may have been on his lips were gently brushed away.