Chapter 34
The day before the premiere of the first Kismet movie, Patrick, Corey, and Hector had hiked Runyon Canyon. It had been a pivotal moment in each of their careers: the biggest movie Corey had ever worked on as a stuntman, marking Patrick’s ascent as a leading man with a body built by Hector. They had all been more nervous than any of them had wanted to admit, and walking up a big hill had felt like a good way to burn off some of that anxious energy.
The day before the premiere of Kismet 2, in what Patrick hoped would now be a tradition of theirs, the three of them met at the bottom of Runyon again.
“And he tried to do it with you right there? In the bathroom?” Corey whistled. “That seems risky. And retro, sort of.”
Patrick had given Hector and Corey an abridged version of the events at the gala, taking great care to obfuscate Reece’s identity.
“What did Simone say?” asked Hector.
“Oh, get this.” Patrick jutted his chin out and recited: “?‘This is how it’s done, Patrick. You don’t want to come all the way out? Fine. This is the middle ground.’ I told her it felt grubby, and she said, ‘Compromise always is.’?”
“Maybe Simone has a point,” said Hector. “Not that you should be having your management team pimp you out like that,” he added, seeing Patrick’s mortified expression, “but come on, man. You’ve got to figure out some way of meeting guys.”
“I don’t know,” said Patrick. “This town makes things kind of impossible.”
“And you and Will are definitely…” Corey ventured.
“Over? Yes. Me and Will are one hundred percent over. It’s for the best, for both of us. For him especially. I asked too much of him. It wasn’t fair.” Some people simply weren’t supposed to hide away. Patrick understood that now. Will was born to shine. It would have been a crime to let that light flicker out in a closet.
“That’s a shame,” said Corey. “I really liked him.”
Patrick turned to look at him. “Really?”
“Sure! He was funny. He has, like, that dry English sense of humor where I feel like I’m constantly being called an idiot, but in a nice way, plus a little something extra.”
“He’s got spice,” added Hector.
“You guys surprise me,” said Patrick.
“Why?” they both asked.
“I don’t know. Will is just so different from…” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“From guys like us?” Corey offered.
“Yeah. I guess that’s what I meant.”
“That’s fucked up,” said Hector. “That you would think that. About your boyfriend.”
“It really is.” Patrick nodded, the knot of shame he’d been carrying around in his stomach for years tightening. Only this time it wasn’t shame about who he was, or who he wanted. He knew nothing about those desires was wrong. He couldn’t say the same of the way he’d behaved. The things he’d said and done. The restrictions and rules he had laid down that made it impossible for Will to ever really get close to him, or at least as close as Patrick truly wanted.
“I’m going to die alone,” he announced to the vast sky above them. “Alone, in a big empty house, surrounded by supplement pills and magazines with me on the cover.” He laughed, but it came out all wrong, a warped and ugly sound. “That’s showbiz, baby!”
“I don’t know what’s messed with your head more,” said Hector. “Being gay or being an actor.”
“Yeah,” Corey echoed. “Sure, Will is a li’l zesty, but I mean, so are you, at least these last few months. And you’ve been a lot more fun to hang out with.”
“I have?” Patrick looked at Corey quizzically.
“So much more fun than you were on the first Kismet movie,” Corey confirmed.
“And yeah, Will might not be addicted to the gym and eating elk every day,” Hector continued, “but didn’t you see his death drop into a split? Do you know how much strength and flexibility that takes? I mean it, man. Those queens are athletes. The stuff they do is like the Olympics, but they do all of it backward and in heels.”
“Ginger Rogers!” Corey blurted out, clearly thinking he was helping.
“Which season of RuPaul did she win?” Hector asked.
“You watch Drag Race?” Patrick asked, incredulous.
Hector fixed him with the kind of stare he usually reserved for when Patrick crapped out on his tenth burpee.
“Pat.” He squeezed his shoulder. “I am a whole bisexual.”
“Oh.” Patrick stopped in his tracks. “I…I didn’t know.”
Hector simply shrugged. “You never asked.”
He was right, Patrick realized. These two men, these generous, patient, fantastic men, were probably two of the only real friends he had in the world, and he knew next to nothing about them. He’d succeeded in becoming exactly the kind of self-centered asshole he’d always bragged he’d never be.
“I am starting to think,” he said slowly, “that I may have been very stupid.”
“Yes,” said Hector.
“A real dark-sided dumbass,” concurred Corey.
“An absolute gobshite,” Patrick continued.
“I don’t know what that is,” said Corey, “but…sounds like it, yeah.”
“The question now is,” Hector continued, “what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know what I can do,” Patrick said. “It’s over. It’s too late.”
Corey shook his head determinedly.
“What am I always saying?” he asked.
“That only idiots skip leg day.”
“Well, yes. But what else? The trick to doing stunts safely?”
Patrick gave him a blank look.
“You’ve fallen,” Corey said. “But there’s still time for you to figure out where you want to land.”
The real world was waiting for Patrick when he left the canyon. He had purposely left his phone in the car and avoided wearing the smartwatch that told him how close he was to meeting his fitness goals for the day. When he was in movie-prepping mode, he was essentially paid every time he moved his body. After weeks of doing press for Kismet 2, he wanted to hike with the guys however he damn well pleased.
Patrick scrolled through notifications as he sipped water and wiped sweat and sunscreen from the back of his neck with a towel. Most were updates from Simone and the publicist she had hired about the premiere tomorrow, the logistics of where he would be and when, details that had been ironed out, balled up, and ironed again so many times that he knew them by heart. The Chinese Theatre on Hollywood at seven o’clock tomorrow.
Patrick deleted all incoming alerts, except two that had piqued his curiosity.
The first was from a number he didn’t recognize.
I got your number from Maurice. I thought you should see this.
Patrick had no idea who Maurice might be, but as soon as he opened the attached video, he realized it could only be from Jordan, and the terse tone made sense.
The footage was shaky, with a lot of background noise, but Patrick almost immediately recognized the location: the Village. The camera was trained on the stage, where Faye Runaway stood in a floor-length gown and turban à la Norma Desmond.
“Our next act is familiar to some of you,” she said over tipsy whoops and cheers. “And no, not because she can be found in the third stall of the gents’ during the interval. That would be me.” She delicately pretended to wipe the corner of her mouth, and Patrick let out a brief snort of laughter. “No, this next queen is very near and dear to my heart and yours. She’s a lady, she’s a tramp, she’s an absolute bastard…Let’s hear it for Grace Anatomy!”
Patrick’s stomach tightened, and he almost stopped the video. Even on a tiny screen, the prospect of seeing Will made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
Grace wore an ivory gown and a blond wig, with a leather jacket hanging delicately over her shoulders, like a girl whose boyfriend had just noticed she was cold. Patrick instantly recognized the visual reference—Buffy Summers, all dressed up to fight to the death on the night of her first school dance—a split second before he recognized the jacket. It was the one Will had worn that night at the Flapper. The one he’d worn while Patrick came undone.
Grace stepped up to the microphone stand.
“He said let’s get out of this town,” Will sang. “Drive out of the city, away from the crowds…”
It was a song Patrick knew, a song he happened to know Will loved, but right now he felt like he was hearing it for the first time. Oh god, Will was singing, singing live and so beautifully, the audience in thrall to this wildest dream. Until he reached the chorus, and his voice came close to cracking, his face wracked with emotion.
The knowledge that Patrick was behind that pain shattered him inside, but the pride he felt for Will in that moment rebuilt him. How he wished he could have been there, to tell anybody who would listen, See that person there? See her in all of her glory? She is the queen of my heart! To rush the stage and kiss the hem of Grace’s gown. To throw roses. To scream and clap until his throat and hands bled. To hold Will afterward, to tell him over and over again how special and important and precious and dear he was.
He reached the end of the video and started it again, taking in this time the pride in Faye’s voice as she introduced her protégé, the whistles and whoops as Grace took the stage, the crowd singing along when she reached the final chorus.
He drove back to his apartment and watched it again. Then once more after taking a shower. He was on his sixth or seventh viewing when he remembered he still had one more outstanding message: a voicemail. Patrick tapped the play button and left the phone on his bed as he pulled on a pair of sweats.
“Hello, I am trying to reach Mr. Lake.” The voice that came through was female, smoky, and, if Patrick had to hazard a guess, middle-aged. “You don’t know me, my name is Ellie Hoffman. I’ve been given your information by Simone Toussaint. A charming woman, I have to say. She seemed quite protective of you but agreed that you would probably want to hear this.”
Ellie Hoffman paused to clear her throat. Whether this was for dramatic tension or incidental, Patrick was practically hunched over the phone by the time she finished her message:
“I have the Omega Issue.”