“Oh, people…then I’d have to talk to them.”
“The Mysterious Mastermind Author—or whatever the hell you wanted to be—doesn’t know how to talk to people?”
Patrick did a nose-scrunch at him, distressingly adorable. The light dwindled: gold and silver, indigo and cream lace. “I can, I said. I’ve just always…I was a sort of strange boy, growing up. I was ill a lot—or they told me so, and I’ve got fuzzy memories of that—so I never went to school. Lots of tutors. They’d come to the house, to the hotel. I didn’t go out much.”
“You don’t seem ill.”
“I got over it, apparently.”
“And you grew up in your father’s hotel.”
“Watching people. Sitting on the edges of balconies, the corner of the grand staircase…seeing all the glamour, the politicians and businessmen, the motion-picture stars and the old railroad barons…you could hear the ballroom rustle with dresses and sparkle with emeralds, in bracelets, tiaras, tie-pins…the music always sounded like champagne and laughter.”
“No wonder you’re a writer,” Perry said, with some difficulty. Silk dresses and emerald pins. Champagne and ballrooms. Nothing his life had room for. But he could see the twinkling lights, could hear the leap of violin and piano and influential chatter, in Patrick’s soft words. “You grew up hearing all those stories.”
“Oh, I’m great in a crowd. Meeting people, listening to them. Dad had me playing hotel porter when I was a kid, and then at his side talking to everyone, when I got older. Making contacts, remembering details.”
“Paying attention to everything.”
“So, yeah, I can do that.” But Patrick’s tone went wry, on the words; Perry looked at him, and thought about loneliness on a birthday, and about escape, not at a familial Ellery hotel property, but here in a river-side citrus-scented inland town. Luxurious—the Bell Court wore opulence like a debutante wore diamonds—and also subdued, an oasis rather than a gala.
Patrick added, “I’m not very good at…at friends, I guess.” That beach-sand laid-back voice made the words lighter than the resignation behind them. “At opening up.Toogood at watching. Too aware of what everybody might be thinking. Because they always are, at least the politicians and the powerful people.”
“Thinking.”
“Yes.”
“You’d be surprised how often that’s not true, aboutpoliticians.”
That made Patrick laugh, a peal of carillon sound in the high-ceilinged room. “Fair point. I suppose you’d know. Security’s part of your job, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much the definition.” Perry wound stray bits of light, Patrick’s hair, through his fingers. Over calluses, over the scar on his first knuckle. “National safety. From rum-runners in a San Diego port to babysitting a Senator here in Orangeville.”
“Is it always the Southwest?”
“That’d be my region. Also, you’re wrong.”
Patrick moved, startled; said, “Ow,” when fingers inadvertently tugged hair, and then protested, “No. Wait. About what?”
“You. Opening up. Being good at people.”
“I’m not—”
Perry made a gesture: the bed, himself, Patrick beside him, mutual nakedness in expensive sheets. Everything he did not do: and yet, and yet.
“That’s sex. And you. You’re—I saw you and I just wanted you. Iwantyou.”
“Could’ve kicked me out of bed, couldn’t you? Had your birthday-present fun, and been done with it.”
“But,” Patrick argued, young and indignant and beautiful in banner-waving emotion, “no. I couldn’t. When I said I want you—I want to know you. I’m curious. I like stories. You’re a story. Not like fiction, not like dramatic gun-fights and train robberies, I mean, you’re here and you’re a real person, and you’re the sort of person who worries about everyone’s safety. Even mine.”
“And you’ve been talking,” Perry said, “to me. About you, and what you want, and why you’re lonely.”
“I—” Patrick went silent, gazing at him. Beyond window-panes, the world sprawled, suddenly astonished: familiar andreshaped. Orange and citrus groves, the new wood and eager shopfronts of a growing town, the faint breezy susurration of California sagebrush hills and canyons beyond. “I guess I have. You—I don’t do that.”
“If it helps, I’m pretty good at interrogation techniques.”
“Interrogation techniques,” Patrick said, and the edge of his mouth twitched; and then he started laughing, helplessly, unless that was the other aching broken silver-bell emotion, and he ended up cradled against Perry’s chest, face tucked against Perry’s collarbone. The sweep of his eyelashes moved like golden silk.
