Chapter Twenty-Nine
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ryan
“I wish people would stop falling in love. It’s absolutely sickening,” Peaches said with a dry smile as she plucked a jelly baby out of the packet on the counter next to her and went back to doing her make-up.
“Aww, are you jealous?” Ink asked as he filled in his sharply drawn facial hair that was more stylish than ninety percent of the men I knew. “Don’t worry, true love will come for you soon and then you’ll be just as sickening as everyone else.”
“No thank you. I’d rather not.”
“Not having any luck getting laid then?” I asked as I used more spirit gum to glue rhinestones to the side of my head. Luckily I’d decided against doing a whole head of gems or otherwise I’d be here all fucking night.
“I didn’t say that,” Peaches said, not looking at either of us as she spoke. “I just pointed out that everyone around here seems to have been struck by Cupid’s arrow and it’s rather sickening to be around—and I mean that in the nauseating way, not that you’re all serving cunt.”
“We can do both,” I said with a laugh. “It’s called talent.”
“It’s called something,” Peaches said under her breath and Ink snorted.
“Who pissed in your cornflakes today?” Ink asked. “You’re being a right mardy cow.”
“Sorry,” Peaches said. “Ignore me.”
“Never.” Ink leant over and kissed the side of Peaches’s head, right on top of her wig cap. “But for now you get a temporary respite because I want to know when we’re going to meet Legs’s new beau.”
“You’ve already met him,” I said, not taking my eyes off my reflection as I put more gems into place. It wasn’t like I was trying to put off my chaotic best friends meeting Mason, but considering the stick currently up Peaches’s butt, I didn’t think tonight was the best time. There was clearly something going on, but I didn’t know whether to prod Peaches or let her stew. As sweet as she was, she could be proper tetchy at times.
Ink scoffed. “Yeah, but that was ages ago! We need to meet him again.”
“I’ll try and—” The rest of my sentence was cut off by a knock at the door. The three of us all turned in unison to see Pierce, The Court’s green-haired bartender and unofficial dressing room runner, sticking his head around the door.
“Evening,” he said with an easy smile. “You’ve got a visitor, Legs. Said he’s your boyfriend? Big guy with reddish hair, bit of a bruise above his eye.” Pierce gestured at his own face. “Want me to bring him up or do you want to come out? Or I can tell him to sod off if you don’t know who he is.”
My heart fluttered and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like I’d just found a winning lottery ticket in my bag. Maybe love had made me sickening but I didn’t care. I’d happily be sickening forever if it meant I got to keep feeling like this.
I hadn’t actually told Mason I loved him, though.
I’d said it in roundabout ways, told him I loved things about him or things he did, but neither of us had actually said those three little words. I wondered if, subconsciously, we both thought we needed to wait more than a week between actually getting together and saying how we felt.
But now I’d thought about it, that felt kind of ridiculous considering how we’d ended up here. Maybe I just needed to come out and say it. After all, I felt it. And I wanted Mason to know how much he meant to me.
“I’ll come down,” I said as I closed my pot of gems and screwed the lid back onto my spirit gum so it didn’t end up everywhere. I’d learnt that lesson the hard way. I glanced down at myself in my boxers and tights and then back at Pierce. “Give me two minutes to throw some clothes on.”
“I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”
“Can I come too?” Ink asked as I searched around for a pair of shorts and a loose shirt, eventually finding a salmon pink cardigan and a pair of white linen shorts at the bottom of my bag that had probably been there for a couple of months. I really needed to empty it out more often .
“If you must,” I said with a chuckle as I slid my feet into a pair of slippers I always left backstage because they were so much comfier than walking around barefoot. Plus the floor was freezing in the winter and I did not like having cold feet. “But I’m going to be very disgusting and in love and kiss my boyfriend.”
“In which case, I’ll wait here and you can bring him back to say hi,” Ink said with a wink. “I promise we’ll be on our best behaviour, won’t we, Madam Grumpy Pants?” She prodded Peaches’s upper arm with a finger and Peaches chuckled.
“I swear, I’ll be utterly charming. Besides, your man is rather yummy. I don’t suppose anyone else on that rugby team is single and queer?”
I thought for a second. “I mean, Devon is gay but I’m not sure if he’s single.” I still wasn’t sure if there was something going on between him and Jonny or if they were simply good friends, and I hadn’t found a way to ask that didn’t sound nosy as fuck. Maybe I’d get Mason to ask instead. Or West, he seemed to have a little more tact.
Peaches smiled, a little spark back in her eyes. “Good to know.”
I hoped I hadn’t started something, but everyone was an adult with a brain, so I was sure they could talk to each other and express interest, or a lack of it. And maybe… just maybe… if Jonny was interested but didn’t know what to do, seeing Peaches flirting with his man would give him the push he needed to get his shit together.
After all, sometimes people didn’t know what they wanted until they nearly lost it .
I left Peaches dreaming of sexy rugby players and wandered through The Court’s backstage area, down the little set of concrete steps, and out the door beside the stage that led to the floor where the audience would be seated. The room always felt smaller than it was due to The Court’s cosy, kitschy speakeasy vibe that provided a camp flair to the space. The floor in front of the stage was covered in round tables, some with little lamps on them, that’d all be packed away later when The Court transformed into a nightclub.
There was a dark-topped bar in one corner, and I could see Pierce and a couple of other staff members behind it already slinging drinks for the patrons flooding into the club. And leaning against the edge of the bar sipping his customary double rum and Coke like some eighteen-year-old rugby lad was Mason. He was dressed in the most gorgeous pair of stonewashed jeans and the floral shirt I’d convinced him to buy because I’d rightly known he’d look hot as fuck in it.
He smiled brightly as he saw me, his whole face lighting up like he’d suddenly been hit with a spotlight, and he held up his hand in a half wave as I walked over to him.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I said, standing on my toes to greet him with a kiss as I slipped my hands into his.
“What a surprise. I had no idea you’d be here.”
“You must be following me then.”
Mason chuckled, his nose brushing against mine. “Or it’s written on the fridge calendar and you invited me.”
“That too. ”
“I have a present for you,” Mason said as he stepped back slightly but kept hold of one of my hands.
“A present? You can come here whenever you want.”
“I already do,” he said teasingly as he reached for a rectangular white cardboard box on top of the bar that I hadn’t noticed. I’d been too distracted by Mason’s perfect round butt. He slid the box towards me but left it on the bar. Frowning, I slowly opened the lid, a little gasp of surprise escaping my lips when I saw what was inside.
Cookies.
Lots of cookies.
At least twenty-four of them in four different flavours, each one large and soft looking.
“I remembered you saying you usually have snacks in your dressing room,” Mason said, putting his arm around my waist and lightly kissing the top of my head. “And that you usually end up sharing. So I figured I’d get you enough to give away a couple without feeling like you’re missing out. There’s red velvet, chunky triple chocolate, salted caramel crunch, and white chocolate, lemon, and blueberry. I didn’t get any peanut butter ones because I wasn’t sure if anyone had an allergy.”
“These are perfect, thank you,” I said, looking up at him with a grateful smile as my heart thumped wildly. “And truthfully, I’m not actually the biggest fan of peanut butter.”
“Then I’m glad I didn’t get them.”
“Do you want one?” I asked as my eyes trailed back over the box of cookies. They all looked so good and I could already smell them, the scent of sugar and chocolate and caramel filling my nostrils and making my stomach rumble .
“But they’re yours,” Mason said with soft surprise.
“And? You’re my boyfriend and I love you and I want to share these with you.”
“Y-You love me?”
“Of course,” I said, reaching up to cup his jaw with my hand. I hadn’t been planning to say it, but my heart knew better than my mind what I needed, and I couldn’t think of a more perfect moment. It was soft and sweet, just like the cookies. Just like Mason. “You are the best person I’ve ever met, Mason. You’re funny and sweet and you get me—I mean, you’ll listen to me talking about fonts, for Christ’s sake, and you still look at me like I’m the only person in the world.”
“That’s because to me you are.” He leant down and kissed me, his lips saying a million things neither of us would ever have the words for. “You are perfect, Ryan. I’ll never forget the way you saw me, the real me, and the way you offered me a safe place to be myself. You’re the most gorgeous person, Ry, inside and out. And yes, I’ll listen to you talk about fonts and monster classes and making drag props until you lose your voice, and then we’ll keep going because you can write everything down instead. Because hearing you talk about your passions is the easiest thing in the world. And maybe I won’t always understand, but I’ll try.”
“Just like I’ll try with rugby. And I am trying, I promise, but those shorts of yours are very distracting.”
He smirked, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I know. I thought about getting a smaller pair, just for you. ”
I groaned softly. “If you do that, you’ll never leave our house.”
“We’d have to eat at some point, though.”
I scoffed. “We can order takeaway.”
He laughed and kissed me again. “I love you, Ry. More than anything.”
“I love you too.”
We shared another kiss and I sighed happily, leaning against his chest. The Court bustled around us, humming with activity as more people filed in and made their way to the bar in search of drinks.
And I didn’t want any of them thinking my cookies were on offer.
I leant over and grabbed two of the red velvet cookies and then closed the box. I handed a cookie to Mason, who smiled softly before taking a huge bite and groaning happily. “That good?” I asked with a chuckle.
“See for yourself,” Mason said around his mouthful.
I took an equally huge bite of mine and smiled. The cookie was the perfect texture—soft and chewy and utterly delicious, with a tiny bit of tartness and bursts of sweetness from the large chunks of white chocolate nestled inside. If I was looking for perfection in cookie form, then I’d found it. Although there were three other flavours for me to taste… and it would be rude of me to say that this was the best cookie ever without giving the others a fair shot.
“Holy crap, these are good,” I said, resisting the temptation to shove the entire rest of the cookie into my mouth in one go like some sort of hamster. “Where did you get them? ”
“Jonny’s brother,” Mason said with the same disbelief that must have been mirrored on my face because he continued. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I didn’t even know Jonny had a brother. But yeah, apparently, he runs this homemade cookie business and he ships them across the UK.”
“What the—? And he’s been keeping this from us?” I asked with faux outrage. Although I was definitely disgruntled. “We could have had cookies all this time! That’s it, we’re disowning him!”
“Agreed! I think he said it was a new thing, though, so… maybe he can pay us back for hiding this with more cookies?”
“Good plan. We need more cookies to make up for the previous lack of cookies.”
I finished my cookie and then picked up the box, holding my other hand out to Mason. “Want to come backstage and eat more cookies with me? And maybe meet my friends? I can’t promise they won’t be weird but—”
Mason snorted. “You’ve met my friends. They can’t be any weirder than that.” He leant down and kissed me, and I could taste red velvet on his lips. “I’d love to. And you know me—I’ll never turn down free cookies. Plus if you need a hand with anything, I’ll do what I can, although I can’t promise I won’t also glue my fingers together.”
I chuckled and kissed him again. “Luckily, I have plenty of spirit gum remover. But all you need to do is sit there and look pretty.”
“I can do that,” he said. “I love you, Ry.”
“I love you too. ”
He gently plucked the box of cookies from my hand, because he was ever the gentleman, and gestured towards the stage door. “Come on, let’s sneak these cookies into your dressing room before anyone else sees them and we have to fend off a horde of angry drag queens.”
“Trust me, that’s a fight I’ll win,” I said. “I have a sword and everything.”
Mason laughed and squeezed my hand. “And you have me.”
I smiled brightly, my chest filled with a warmth that I knew would never go out. “Cookies, a sword, and a hot rugby boyfriend. Sounds like I’ve got everything I need.”