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“Does she still perform here?” I asked, already thinking of what days were open in my schedule.
“She doesn’t, no.” I could already tell that the story wasn’t ending on a good note. No wonder Elijah looked at the glass as half-empty and covered in baby spiders, because life had crushed its heel down onto his neck and wasn’t seeming to let up anytime soon. “Kevin passed a year after he took me in. A drunk driver leaving one of his shows raced right through a red as Kevin was crossing the street. He didn’t stand a chance.” Elijah’s voice cracked. “Kevin was driving us home that night. I was about to cross with him but left my phone inside the club, so I ran back in, telling him I’d meet him at his car.”
“Oh no— Elijah.” I couldn’t stop myself from standing and wrapping my arms around Elijah, like that dark night we first met outside of the bar. Elijah didn’t tense at my touch. Just like that other night, he melted into me, and the strain in his shoulders and neck seemed to immediately disappear as he rested his head against my chest.
“A Majora show was always so mind-blowing. Like beyond gaggy,” Elijah said, head still on my chest. “She’d snatch wigs left and right with her dips and death drops. And her music mixes were always so smart. She’d have comedy bits between sexy bits between ballroom bits. An inspiration.”
We separated, and Elijah motioned back to the chair, green gaze glistening, mouthing the words “thank you” before he got back to work, asking me to close my eyes so he could touch up the eyeshadow.
“So when he was gone,” Elijah continued, “I really thought I would go back to my fucked-up situation, but that’s when my bestie, Amelia, and her mom stepped in. I was only one year away from eighteen, but they still went through and adopted me. Her house had been like a second home for me growing up, and it only felt natural calling Gina my mom. Then I met my drag mom, Asstral Divine, and she put me in drag for the first time. I felt like I was making Majora proud. It was really nice.”
“They sound like incredible people.”
“They are,” he said before asking me to pout my lips as he uncapped an almost neon blue lipstick. I must have looked a little wide-eyed at it because he gave me a wink and told me to settle back.
“Don’t get scared now,” he said as he applied the lipstick. “You actually look insanely good. I’m almost a little jealous but also super proud. Like damn… I did that shit.”
I had zero idea of what I was about to see in that mirror, but Elijah’s giddy excitement spread to me. He took a step back—a painter admiring his finished masterpiece—and a genuine smile spread on his face. He grabbed a wig from the display, telling me to close my eyes so that I wouldn’t know which one he picked, and he placed it on my head, the heavy weight of it surprising.
“Okay, ready?” Elijah asked with a hand on the mirror and a smile still on his lips. He went off my nod and pulled the blue sheet in a dramatic swish, like a magician revealing his hidden assistant to a gasping crowd.
And my jaw dropped.
Holy shit, Elijah was a magician.
12
Elijah King
Handsome detective Ryan Diaz no longer sat in front of me. In his place was a shocked and freshly minted queen with her jaw on the floor and her voluminous dark brown wig sitting like a shining crown on her head. I wasn’t entirely sure if I could pull it off, Ryan being a man with a capital M, but my skills surpassed even my own expectations.
Maybe I should start expecting more of myself.
I let Ryan soak it in. I remembered my first time in drag and how out of body it had initially felt. You got so used to looking in the mirror and seeing one thing you completely forgot the possibility of a thousand other things until one of them stared back at you. For me, it was like staring at a part of myself that would have stayed buried until the day I died if I had allowed myself to listen to my fears and insecurities.
“Like it?” I asked after a few moments of Ryan leaning forward for a closer look. His cheeks glittered with a diamond-like highlight, just above the dark contour line that cut the side of his face. I was hesitant about using too much contour on him since it could end up making his jaw looking even more pronounced, but the strategic angles I used enhanced the illusion instead of hurt it.
“I’m shocked,” he said. “I love it. Holy shit.” His sapphire-blue smile matched the gleam in his eyes, framed by a stunning purple-and-pink ombre eyeshadow.
