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“I’ll find it again,” I said, Amelia picking her head back up again. “This thing with Ryan, it feels like a fresh start. Like maybe things will be okay again.”
“Oh, so you’ve already seen his thing?”
I snorted and shot her a look, arching my brow as if I were going to shoot an arrow from it. “Girl… I wish. No, joking, joking.”
“You’re so not joking,” she said, eyes looking right through my bullshit.
“Well, I guess since we were talking about sparks.” I could feel my cheeks start growing uncharacteristically warm and red. “He’s not bad on the eyes. Or the chest, or hands, or anything else he’d want to get on.”
Amelia shook her head, laughing. “Here, do you need a napkin? I think you’re drooling.” She handed me an imaginary napkin, which I swatted away with imaginary distaste.
“It’s not drool,” I said, wiping my lip with my thumb. “It’s imaginary something else.”
“Oh you’re ridiculous. Ree-to-the-dick-you-lus.” Amelia slapped my chest and stood up. “All right, come on. Let’s go grab burgers at Juno Pine’s. I’m as hungry as I am curious to hear more about this Ryan guy.”
I stood, both my growling stomach and I agreeing with her plans. She grabbed her book and watered-down coffee, dumping it in a green trash bin and walking with me up to the main path that led out of Pebble Park. A stretch of the White Mountains crisscrossed the sky like jagged teeth, the sun inching closer and closer to them, ready to be swallowed whole for the night.
“Want to come over to Mom’s place tonight and watch stupid-as-dick movies that were made to be serious as all hell?”
“That sounds perfect to me,” I said. “I stopped by Mom’s last weekend to help with that new section in her garden. I think you’re going to be pretty impressed when you see it.”
Amelia was about to say something but got cut off by a cheery “Hey, bitch!” from ahead of us. I put a hand over my eyes to block the sun and spotted none other than my own drag mom striding toward us. He was out of drag, in his regular Billie Delano persona, wearing a pair of skinny black jeans and a gray tank top with J.Lo lyrics printed all across it.
Someone else was with him. It took me a second to recognize her: Kimmy Mowry, a relatively new resident to Blue Creek and our first-ever drag king. She’d made a pretty big splash since she arrived and didn’t have any trouble booking gigs. She walked with a confident strut underneath her knee-high combat boots, dark hair cut shoulder short with silver highlights reflecting the sun.
Billie introduced Kimmy, who had never even said hello to me although we worked a couple of the same nights.
“How are you holding up, babe?” Billie said, a reassuring hand on my shoulder. He’d been there last night and had driven me home after the police were done questioning us, so he was running on as few hours of sleep as I was.
“I’m all right,” I said. “As all right as I can be.”
“What a wild night, huh?” Kimmy said, a hand on her hip.
I nodded and answered with a “Truly.” I wasn’t sure if it was just a new drag persona coming into “my” terf, or if I genuinely didn’t get good vibes from Kimmy, but something about her didn’t really gel with me.
“Kimmy and I were just coming out for some fresh air,” Billie said with the same tone of a lover being caught with their other lover.
I nodded, not caring who my drag mom hung out with. “It’s a beautiful day for it. And I think we all need some centering time after everything that’s happened.”
Amelia and I started walking again, leaving the two to their peaceful afternoon. I was halfway down the path before an “Oh!” from Kimmy made me slow down and turn. “Billie told me about how you were quitting drag. It sucks, but I understand. I’ll hold down your show and make you proud, don’t worry.”
I froze in my tracks as if a Charmed one had lifted her hands and stopped time herself. “Huh?”
“Your show. It’s in good hands. I’ve got you.”
“I didn’t… I didn’t agree to anything—Billie?” I turned to my drag mom. His lips were pulled into a tight frown.
“I’m sorry, Elijah. After we talked in my car and you told me you were done, well, I didn’t want the bar to suffer with one less queen, so I thought Kimmy would be a great fill-in.” He wrung his hands, the ruby red chipping off his fingernails.
I sucked in a breath. Shocked but also hurt.
But also… I had told Billie I quit. He believed me. What did I expect him to do?
Wait until my corpse got cold at least, shit.
