Chapter 33
“You look good as a blonde,” Jordan remarked as Will straightened his wig in the bedroom mirror. “It doesn’t wash you out at all.”
“Thanks, doll,” said Will, keeping his voice purposely monotonous because the only thing Jordan liked more than a backhanded compliment was a reaction. “Whatever did I do all those weeks without you?”
“Ignore him,” said April from her perch on the bed. “It’s fierce. Sarah Michelle Gellar found shaking.”
“I’m the one who’s shaking,” said Will. “Look at these hands. It’s taken me twice as long to do my makeup.”
“Have you decided on a number yet?” Jordan asked.
Will shook his head. He had been so emboldened by their victory on Centenary Square and his reunion with Jordan that he’d decided to keep moving forward, to—in Jordan’s words—“get over himself” and sign up to sing live that Sunday night at the Village. As much as it still stung, he was learning that there was a strength to be found in vulnerability, in letting yourself be known. He had Patrick to thank for that, at least. He had finally found his voice.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’ve been listening to so much Taylor Swift and Joni Mitchell, I’m amazed the Spotify algorithm hasn’t arranged for someone to come over and do a welfare check.”
“Don’t worry,” April told Jordan. “I blocked all of Patrick’s social media on Will’s phone so he can’t obsessively scroll while crying to ‘Both Sides Now.’?”
“That would have been my first move, too,” said Jordan. “Well done. But what about the pictures in his camera roll?”
April winced. “He technically wasn’t allowed to take any,” she whispered. “It was part of that NDA.”
“Fucking hell.” Jordan whistled.
“It’s even more pathetic than that,” said Will, reminding them he was still in the room and had heard every word. “I keep going through receipts on my phone. The taxi rides. That stupid scooter hire. The routes we took. Just to remind myself that it was real, that it happened.”
“Oh, babe.” April sighed.
“Even more proof that Patrick Lake is a waste of a haircut,” said Jordan. “If he kept you as his dirty little secret, he should have at least made it worth your while with gifts. Something expensive and sparkly that you could sell for a boatload of cash to pay for a trip to Mykonos.”
“Huh. You’re right. He’s rich.” Will tutted at himself. “I kept forgetting that part.”
“Still,” Jordan added. “Maybe it’s for the best that a five-star Uber rating is all you have to remember him by.”
“Not quite all.” Will pointed to the copy of Maurice, which hadn’t left his nightstand since that day in the bookshop, when Patrick had blithely defaced it.
Jordan picked up the book, and it fell open to the bookmarked page where Patrick’s phone number was scrawled across the scene where Alec climbed up to Maurice’s bedroom window on a ladder. Will had that entire passage memorized by now. Sir, was you calling out for me?
“I’d have preferred jewelry,” Jordan said, snapping the volume shut and replacing it on the bedside table.
“Anyway!” April clapped her hands like she could reset the room. “Song choice. Madonna? Cher? Kylie? You love a bit of Kylie.”
“Hardly groundbreaking,” said Jordan. “Why not lean into the heartache? It works for Adele.”
“And she’s a national treasure,” added April.
“Isn’t she!” agreed Jordan. “Adele era?” April nodded, and he turned to Will. “Adele era?”
“It’s my first time singing live,” said Will, “and I am still bricking it just a smidge. So if you could please stop comparing me to Adele, that would be great.”
“Fine,” said Jordan. “But just so you know…you’re a national treasure, too.”
Will paused mid–lip liner, unsure if he had heard him correctly.
“Jordan,” he said. “That is quite possibly the nicest thing you have ever said to me. Are you feeling all right?”
Jordan cleared his throat. “So anyway, I posted something online a little while ago, just trying to raise awareness of what was happening at the Village, how the council keeps trying to shut it down.”
Will simply nodded, uncomfortably aware that this was something he would have only too gladly helped Jordan with if they had been speaking at the time.
“Anyway,” Jordan continued, “it’s picked up a little bit of attention.”
He turned his screen around for Will to see. Thousands of likes and shares, which in itself was great. Then Will started to scroll through the comments.
Hundreds of people had responded to Jordan’s post, sharing stories of their own experiences at the bar. Some were just a line or two, but others went on for paragraphs, spilling over into replies and whole separate threads spinning out under Jordan’s message.
So many firsts. First rebellious teen nights out, awed at finding a place where they could be themselves. First crushes. First kisses. First loves, first fights, first heartbreaks. First nights feeling brave enough to go out wearing women’s clothes. Firsts, seconds, thirds, the maps of entire lives unfolding within four walls and a smoking area, a safe place to tell one another love stories.
“This is amazing,” Will said, tearing his gaze away from the phone and up to the ceiling because he was not going to cry on this fresh beat. “You’re amazing.”
“No need to sound so surprised,” said Jordan. “And anyway, April has something to show you, too.”
April looked up at Jordan from her perch on the bed, eyes suddenly wide like a rabbit’s in the headlights.
“I do?” she asked.
“Yes. On your phone. Remember?”
“Oh. That.” April shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“It is not nothing.” Jordan turned to Will. “April has a new job.”
“What?” Will gasped. “You’re leaving Gilroy’s?”
“Well…yeah.” April held out her arms. “You actually happen to be looking at the new digital editor for FanFam.”
“FanFam? Well, that’s fun to say. Isn’t that the—”
“The biggest online destination in the world dedicated to pop culture from the perspectives of people of color? Sure is.” April grinned. “I get to write about comic books for. A. Living.”
“Oh my god, you superstar!” Will fanned his face. “Why would you tell me this now? I’m going to have to redo this!”
April cackled. “I love you, too,” she said.
“You need to finish getting ready if you don’t want to be late again,” said Jordan.
Will blanched. “I am ready.”
Jordan blinked. “Well, all right then. I shall hail us a carriage.”
When the car arrived, Jordan called shotgun and immediately began issuing instructions to the driver.
“I’m going to need you to avoid the Bristol Road,” he said as Will and April ensconced themselves in the back. “Go the long way, past the uni.”
The driver shrugged, happy to accept the higher fare, and Will smiled. Jordan had just requested a route that would avoid passing any of the billboards advertising the impending release of Kismet 2. The first time Will had glanced out of the tram window to Patrick’s face looking back from the side of a building, he’d had to breathe into a paper bag.
“Right, Miss Grace,” Jordan said, swiping down playlists on his phone. “We are choosing you a song by the time we get to the bar.”
“?‘Since U Been Gone’?” suggested April. “?‘Thank U, Next’?”
“I don’t think so,” said Will.
“?‘Breakup Song’? ‘Potential Breakup Song’?”
“Too on the nose.”
“?‘Don’t Speak’? ‘All Too Well’? ‘Someone Like You’?”
“No, no, and no.” On and on came the heartbreak anthem suggestions, until finally Will took the device out of Jordan’s hands and started conducting his own search. “I think,” he murmured, “I know what I want to say.”
Jordan grabbed the phone back and peered down at the screen. “J’approve,” he said. “And look! Perfect timing.” The car pulled up outside the Village, and Jordan jumped out immediately, marching inside to give the sound guy (also known as Dave in the DJ booth) instructions.
“Drink?” April asked.
“Absolutely.” Will nodded. “I’ll be right in.”
All those stories on Jordan’s phone. They started right here. And the more time that went by, the more Will began to feel that another story that began here, the unlikeliest one of all, remained unfinished. Even if it wasn’t happily ever after, didn’t Will deserve to know how it ended? Weren’t they both owed that?
He reached into the jacket he’d put on over his dress because it was September in the UK, which meant summer had left the building, and drew out his phone.
“Time to be brave,” he muttered, and dialed. Nothing happened at first, and he began to wonder if he’d forgotten to enter the international dialing code again.
“Hello?” came a voice on the other end of the line, crisp and clear. Funny. Will had expected the voice to sound farther away.
“Hello, Simone,” he said.