Javier hummed with understanding, leaning back in his seat. “So your ex got the friends in the break-up, did he?” He shook his head and made a dismissive noise. “Isn’t that always how things go? He’s the psychopath, but because he’s probably charming, he takes all the friends with him?
“How did you know?” Desmond asked, then felt immediately foolish. That was more or less what he’d just implied. Something about Javier flustered him as much as it drew him in. He was, like, proper gay instead of being quiet gay in a suit with a lot of money, like he was. Des had always been attracted to the proper gays.
“Don’t you worry, sweetie,” Javier said with a smile. “I might not run an escort service, but this time, I’ll make an exception foryou. Any man who would make another grown man dress up in a nappy and sing in someone’s place of business deserves to be upstaged at a benefit concert. I would be happy to be your date Friday night.”
It was the answer Desmond had been hoping for, but now he felt awkward in the face of Javier’s kindness. “I truly appreciate this,” he said. “And I will pay for your time if?—”
Javier held up a long, graceful finger. “Not an escort,” he said. “I’ll go with you as your friend.”
“As my friend,” Desmond repeated, relaxing a little. “I like the sound of that.”
“So do I,” Javier smiled. He reached into his carry-all to fetch his phone. “Give me your number and I’ll give you mine, and we can coordinate before Friday.”
“Sounds perfect,” Desmond said, reaching for his phone as well. With any luck, Javier Rivera would turn out to be exactly what and who he needed.
three
. . .
One advantage of having spent the better part of a decade walking runways around the world was that Javier had a wardrobe filled with high fashion clothing, from casual to formalwear. Some designers considered it payment in full to let models keep their clothes, which had sounded nice when he was new to modeling, but didn’t pay the rent at the end of the day.
Javier didn’t want to think about the rent, even now. Especially now, with maybe one month’s financial cushion for Rivera Talent in the bank. Maybe. But he was glad that he had exactly the right outfit to wear to a gala concert. He’d been thinking Wembley Stadium and some super popular headliner who had sold a billion albums, either recently or within the last thirty years. But when Desmond White texted him the details, it turned out the concert in question was the London Symphony Orchestra and the venue was the Royal Albert Hall.
“Wow! You look fancy,” Maisy said when Javier came out of the tiny office in the space he rented for Rivera Talent dressed in Armani. “Off to deliver another Valentine’s Day telegram?” she added with a teasing smirk.
Javier was not amused. “Too soon,” he said, shaking his head and striding across the small front office space to fetch his Burberry overcoat from the closet. That one hadn’t been a payment or a gift. He’d spent his first commission payment as an agency owner on the lush coat. He’d been craving one for years, and what better time was there to splurge than the dazzling dawn of a new business endeavor?
He wished he’d saved his money in some interest-bearing account instead. He could use that infusion of cash now to dig himself out of the hole Rivera Talent was slowly sinking into.
“I’m meeting a client at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall,” he lied as he shrugged into the coat. He didn’t know why it bothered him to admit he had a date. Probably because it wasn’t actually a date. It was more of a fake-boyfriend gig.
He caught his reflection in the full-length mirror tucked in the corner of the main office. At least he looked damn good. He wore just enough make-up to accentuate what his mama had given him but not quite so much that his face shouted “gay!” with capital rainbows. Desmond’s ex would probably eat his heart out when he saw his sort of replacement, but Javier hoped he’d get a chance to dazzle with his wit instead of just his looks.
“Really?” Maisy asked, making a face. She already had a perpetually awkward and confused look, which she enhanced, deliberately or not, by wearing a colorful mishmash of what she called “vintage finds” that had probably come from all the wrong sort of charity shops. “That isn’t where I would expect the luminaries of the fashion industry to hang out on a Friday night.”
Javier glanced in the mirror at her as he reached for a silky, white scarf to wind around his neck. “This is a different sort of client.”
“Oh,” Maisy said, her expression almost comically knowing. “So it’s come to that, then, has it?”
Javier made an impatient noise as he turned away from the mirror. “It has not come to that,” he said. “It will never come tothat.” He remembered Desmond had said something astoundingly similar in the limo. It made his heart beat faster.
“We do have the energy bill to pay,” Maisy told him coyly as he crossed to the door. “It’s a bit more than we were expecting. Maybe a slap and a tickle would cover it?”
Javier winced. Maisy was joking. At least, he hoped she was joking. It wasn’t that he’d been expecting it to be easy to run a modeling agency, he just hadn’t expected it to be so hard.
“Take the rest of the day off,tía,” he told Maisy as he gripped the door handle.
“It’s past five already,” Maisy told him as he opened it.
“Then take tomorrow off,” Javier said teasingly.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” she said as he left the office with a wave.
Maisy might have been eccentric, but Javier loved her. She’d been a stylist at his last agency while studying for her law degree, and she had taken on styling duties at Rivera Talent as well as admin work. She didn’t always get things right, but she was unfailingly loyal, to the point of accepting less compensation than she should have, despite Javier’s insistence. Which was more than some of the other talent he’d originally signed could say, um,Gordon.
Rivera Talent’s office was a fair distance from the Royal Albert Hall. Javier and Desmond had been texting back and forth for the last two days to coordinate their not-date. It took two Tube lines and a short walk in the breezy, damp, February evening to make it to the entrance of the Royal Albert Hall, but the journey gave time for Javier to get into the right headspace for his date of convenience.
Desmond was waiting inside the lobby, which was already filling with men and women who looked as expensive as Javier,but who probably weren’t acting a part. Javier didn’t care about any of them, though. One look at Desmond, and everything else faded into the background.
