I last all of three minutes standing alone in my kitchen with the drip drip drip of the faucet. The walls have absorbed our fight and keep replaying his words to me.
I love you, Michael-Grace; I’m sure. You need to be sure, so we’ll go on a break.
A break.
No Matteo. Right now, I have no Matteo, unless I’m all in. And I don’t think I am ready to go all in.
Anger flairs, deep and hot inside me. How dare he do this to me? Tell me he loves me and then leave me? What sort of horrible villain does that? We’ve been together for three months. How can he possibly be sure? How can he think I could be sure?
But he’s not really asking me to be sure I love him, he’s asking me to be sure about him. About his character and his care for me. Which . . . I am. I think I am, at least. Enough to know that I feel a desperate, yawning loss after our fight. I identify with Luke, because it feels like someone I love just chopped off my right hand, and I’m teetering at the top of an abyss.
I’m headed out my own door before I know what I’m doing. And I’m in Lawrence’s car, roaring down my street before I know what I’ve decided to do. I think I’m headed to Matteo’s house to hash this out with him. To tell him I need time, but I don’t want a break.
Out of instinct, I drive through town. Or maybe the car drives itself to its house. I’ll never know. What I do know is that just like Ron Weasley discovering the light on in Hagrid’s cabin, I spy the smallest of lights on in the shop’s apartment as I drive by.
And like I’ve conjured my closest friend when I need him most, I pull to the side of the street and stare.
L is home.
CHAPTER 23
“Girl, you look . . . faded.” Lawrence peers at me, and I get the sense that he means more than just my hair. I’m nestled in my favorite chair in his quiet studio, and even that isn’t soothing my ills. There’s too much going on, not the very least that L hasn’t said a word about where he’s been.
I raise my eyes to meet L’s in the mirror. “Gee, thanks. Love you too,” I retort, my surliness rising full force in my gullet. I can’t help myself from studying him in the mirror though—the slightly puffy right eye with healing cut, the Band-Aids on one clavicle beneath his black tank top emblazoned with a Swarovski crystal DANCE across the front. Other than the abrasions, it’s like he never left.
Lawrence catches the cast of my thoughts. “I already told you last night and today, I’m fine. I was visiting old friends—the type who don’t have cell phones and don’t drive cars unless they’re stolen. I had to hang out for a week to see who would show up on the weekends. Nothing turned up other than some stupid bar fights at a party. I’m going to just lay low, but I have got to get caught up with this Halloween event.”
I squint my eyes at him. He’s been like this since I texted him yesterday. Nonchalant. A complete one-eighty from the “spooked out of his skin” Lawrence who left last week. I can’t tell if it’s an act or if he’s truly put at ease by whatever he did or didn’t find. I’ve thought it before, but this is yet another moment where I realize I may not, and may not ever, know everything about Lawrence. I used to think him easy to read, but right now he’s holding his hand pretty close to his chest.
Yes, I’m home, come over tomorrow morning and we’ll do hair.
That’s what I’d gotten after my seven frantic texts trying to determine if he was home and safe. Well, and my second objective was obviously that once I determined L was safe, I needed a best friend. But I didn’t want to explain my fight with Matteo over text, and L was so cagey, I decided to wait until I could see him in person.
We’ll do hair. That’s all he’d sent, as if he hadn’t just been gallivanting off to Lord knows where, doing whatever it was he was doing. As if he hadn’t left a police station after handing over an incriminating photo of a man he thought was trying to hurt him—a man either pretending to be or actually appearing as the Golden Arrow.
Then again, he didn’t know what I knew—about the leak, the missing drugs, or Matteo’s theory about a police leak. Matteo.
My heart squeezes so hard I have a little bit of acid burn in my throat.
He doesn’t know about that either. About the spaghetti splatter of my love life all over my kitchen floor. He doesn’t know that his arrival home derailed my pursuit of my boyfriend, possibly to his house. Possibly to show up on his doorstep a sobbing, wretched mess.
After I’d seen L’s light on and determined that he was both alive and not leaving his house until morning, I’d turned around and gone home. I’d sat in the quiet living room for exactly one hour, until realizing that Ryan wasn’t coming home either, then cried myself to sleep, hugging a completely bewildered Trog. It’s a little known fact that corgi fur sops up human tears better than any other fur.
This morning I’d woken with the determination to text—no, call, this was important—Matteo and discuss just what exactly had transpired last night. I felt lost. I felt adrift. I still felt confused, at war with myself, and caged in. But I knew one thing. I knew I didn’t want to be apart from Matteo. Did I?
Unbidden, a memory of sitting next to Daniel in his car, the easy humor, the sheer nerd understanding between us, springs to life in my memory. Should I be with someone like that, someone already my kind?
Well, add that to the pile of goo in my head, I guess.
Lawrence either hasn’t noticed my continued silence, or he’s purposely overlooking it. “Speaking of Halloween, don’t forget you’re basically my walking billboard. Maybe we’ll even make you a T-shirt or something. All right, what are we in for today? Electric Boogaloo blue? Hot to Trot red? Oooh, I was thinking we’d do a shaved layer underneath, but lady’s choice.” He shakes out his fingers and arches them like a classical pianist about to attack the keys.
I deflate. “I don’t know. Maybe just a trim.”
L squints one eye. “A trim.”
“And I’m not sure on the color, maybe let’s just put it back to natural?”
L’s hands still, alarm growing in his countenance.
My shoulders slump. I’m feeling less than powerful, or sexy. “I guess I could just work on growing it out.”
The chair whips around before I’m prepared for it, and I’m brought face to . . . well, chest, with Lawrence. “Girl,” he says peering down at me as if I’ve just declared myself contagious with greyscale. “This is serious. What is going on in that head of yours?”
“Can’t a person just love what they are born with and celebrate it?”
“Whatever you are selling, I am not buying it,” Lawrence says, completely deadpan.
I deflate instantly. “Yeah. Me neither. L, I’m a mess.” In fact, no one is buying anything I’m selling these days. That thought brings tears, and L has to hand me an entire towel—not a Kleenex, a towel—to mop up with. I spill the story from Daniel to Zed while L listens patiently.
The story takes long enough that he takes a seat in the swivel chair next to me, chin in hand. He’s such a good listener; I don’t stop just at Matteo, I regurgitate all of what’s been going on. How I’m drowning in work, haven’t been a good friend, how the case has me tied in knots. I let it all run out, like someone squeezing the last water out of a water balloon that has popped, finally dribbling into silence.
“Okay, first off, boring hair isn’t going to help any of that.”
I snort.
“Second off, you’re being like a sumo wrestler and just pushing. Pushing everything. Pushing yourself. And you’re up against a pretty big world with a lot of weight, so maybe pushing isn’t the way to get what you want.”
I blink at him. “Isn’t pushing for what I want exactly what we talked about me doing?”
“Well, yes and no. Going after what you want is exactly what you should be doing. But trying to use brute force to get there may not be the best tactic.”
“I’m not following.”
Lawrence stands and comes behind my chair, running his fingers through
my hair. It’s meditative on his part, like a reflex. It’s soothing on my end, my body instantly relaxing in anticipation of one of L’s famous scalp massages. He grabs a bowl off a nearby workstation and starts mixing color while he hums—all normal for him, but I get the sense that he’s trying to think too.
“Let’s leave Hot-Lanta to the side for right now,” are the first words out of his mouth as he approaches my chair, armed with black brushes, gloves, and bowls balanced on his arm.
“Okay . . .” I agree, eyeing the bowls. I’m not sure what color he’s chosen, but I guess I abdicated my vote earlier with the trim nonsense.
“So, you’re not in love with the Hooded Falcon stuff. But you really love the movie work.”
It’s a fair summation, so I nod.
L pins my hair and begins slathering the goop onto a brush. “Well, it seems to me that despite you not loving the work with the comic right now, it’s brought you two jobs that you do love—the movie gig and the LAPD stuff.”
I nod again, my nose twitching from the smell of the caustic glop. I secretly love the smell, but it does sting the nostrils sometimes. From the look of the gel before L wraps the foil over it, I’m guessing he’s chosen some shade of pink.
“As far as the costuming stuff, girl, you know you can tell me to take a hike any time—”
“Definitely not,” I break in. “It’s basically my favorite thing to do.”
“So which things aren’t bringing you joy?”
I frown. “Joy? L, it’s ‘Which things aren’t bringing me money.’ I’m so broke I can’t even fix my car. No, strike that—I can’t even tow my car to have it looked at to not be able to afford to have it fixed.”
“No, the question is joy. Chérie, when you’re drowning, you need to locate shore before you start swimming.”
I frown. “In order of joy, I’d say the movie stuff and your costumes are the best. And then the LAPD case, minus my broken heart. Then my pet project that I came up with—so we’ll say any of the comic projects that actually mean something to me bring me joy. I have less joy about taking on more sewing projects, and even less joy about my writing job.” Sorry, Falcon. Sad to see the day when the Hooded Falcon comic was one of my least favorite items on my list.
“Okay, so tell them that you aren’t going to write that chimpanzee comic. That it’s either your side project or the highway. You can self-publish comics, right?”
“But that’s crazy—”
“Okay, so we’ve axed one of your weights. Then renegotiate or drop those other sewing projects. Finish these and don’t take on more. There’s more weight. Poof. Gone.”
I goggle at L. “You are so fast to just axe those things, but those other sewing projects are literally what is putting food on my table, aside from my job, which I’ll lose if I tell them to take a hike with the project that Casey green-lighted.”
“Have you asked that?”
“Well, no.”
Lawrence gives a wry grin. “Then ask. Or tell and then basically ask permission on the back end. Same idea: back out of the projects you don’t enjoy. Don’t take more on.”
“That’s ballsy.”
“Never thought you were a girl to shrink from a challenge.”
I press my lips together. Can it really be that easy? Step up to the plate and tell them that I am doing the project I wanted or not at all?
“I’m not, but how on earth am I going to afford to live?”
“You’re resourceful. I’ve been pretty selfish with your time. Maybe it’s time to raise your rates and go after some other queen to design for.” He holds up a finger. “Just maintain a little discount for your best friend, hmm?”
I just stare at him in the mirror. “Where is all of this coming from? Were you off attending a business conference or something?”
L foils one last piece of my hair before taking up residence in the other chair again. “I’m showing you where you could weave instead of lean. It’s something Daniel and his business partner, Harrison, and I have been talking about. Doing more of what you love, less of what you don’t, and pricing yourself at what you’re worth.”
Well, that sounds simple enough. Except not affording my life isn’t simple. And yet, there is a grain of truth in what L is saying. I have just been . . . leaning. Trying to do everything. His point stands.
I cross one knee over the other, putting my chin in my hand to mirror his. “Has Daniel been helping you this much with business stuff? It sure sounds like you’ve recently been over it.”
L’s eye slide sideways and then back to mine. “Yeah, I’m preaching to the choir about going after what you want, basically. I’ve been looking to make some changes.”
Alarm bells ring in my head, and I sit up straighter.
“Not drastic changes, sit yourself down. Hire on another stylist. Open another studio. Brand my own hair care products, stuff like that. And I think I’m going to perform less.”
“But you love performing!”
L nods. “I do. It’s my life’s passion. But I don’t want to be stuck trying to make who I am fit who I want to be if it’s not who I want to be anymore. I think it’s healthy to allow yourself the opportunity to grow a new set of passions.”
That strikes a chord in me. Is that what I am doing with Matteo? Clinging so hard to what I had pictured for so many years that I wanted without really checking in internally to see if I still want it?
L sighs. “Truth be told . . . I’m tired. I feel like I’m running around all the time. I want to step back and do more limited performances. Sell-out shows instead of hosting the revue.” He shrugs, and I get the sense that he’s suddenly bashful. “More time at home, maybe a family.”
My eyes widen, and then it hits me. “This has to do with Stevie.”
L doesn’t answer, and I know I’m right.
“Has he stopped in again? Did something happen? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me—”
“No, he hasn’t come by again, but this just has me thinking. Maybe I’ll reach out and see . . . well, I don’t know. That ship has probably sailed, but it gets me thinking. Stevie and I were a long time ago, but it doesn’t mean that there’s not someone else for me. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask Harrison out for coffee.”
I nod. “That dancer body.”
Lawrence returns the nod. “True, that. Anyhow, I guess I realized I picture me sharing this with someone, someday. Maybe I’m ready to take my Grade A buns off the market. Forty is in the rearview mirror; I’m just thinking about the future. It’s why Daniel has been working with me on branding and possibly franchising. It’s not like hosting a revue is going to pay for retirement. And Stevie showing back up . . . well. It has me thinking about my future.”
“That’s really . . . adult . . . of you, L,” I say. I fear he takes that as a criticism by the look on his face, so I reach out and grab his big, warm hand, holding it in mine. “And for what it’s worth, if Stevie doesn’t still want your Grade A buns, he’s crazy. It’s worth checking on if it means you gain back your long-lost love. Any way it works out, it sounds wonderful. I’m excited for you. I want to see all those things for you if it’s what you want.”
He offers me a small smile. “You don’t think it’s too . . . boring? I mean, I am still a queen. I just want the drama to stay onstage, maybe.”
I squeeze his hand. “You’ll never be boring. Even if you find yourself a mister.”
Lawrence’s face lights up with his smile; it flashes quick as a wink before he peers at my hair. “Let’s check these and you can tell me blow-by-blow about your fight with Hot-Lanta.”
My heart convulses involuntarily. Matteo. I feel nearly sick, but spilling the tale to Lawrence seems cathartic.
L snorts when I explain how Matteo called me a nerd snob.
I raise my eyebrow in the mirror, and L tries to cover his snort with a cough and then finally gives in to a short fit of laughter.
“Girl, he hit it on the head.”
“Does everyone think this?” I ask. I’m offended, but I also realize that I thought Matteo could have a point when we fought. The fact that Lawrence agrees with him outright is disheartening. “I try so hard to be open-minded.”
“You are. About most things, but not this one.” L is kind when he corrects me. “But up until this point, it hasn’t been a problem for you.”
I open my mouth several times and then finally land on, “I’ve dated other people. You never said anything then.”
L cocks an eyebrow at me. “Honey, every one of those people deserved to be excused from the game.” He spins me around and crouches down so we’re eye level. “But you get up in your head, and sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. And it’s been even worse lately because of this work stuff. You’re tied up in knots, trying to please everyone and do everything . . . when I think all you need to do is reevaluate. Be honest with yourself. Accept who you are and what you love to do now. Find someone who loves who you are and supports what you want to do now. A wise mentor once said to me, ‘If you can’t love you, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?’”
“Amen,” I say automatically, which earns me a smile from L.
“Okay, now tell me what happened next.”
“What do you mean? I just told you everything.”
“No, after that. What happened after the fight?”
“I just stood there? And then I sort of just got in the car, and when I saw you were home, I pulled over and—”
L tsks. “You should have just driven to Matteo’s and left my sorry butt alone. I was safe and sound and told you as much. You worry too much.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah, there’s been a development in the case you don’t know about. That’s one of the things I need to tell you—one of the things I was going to tell you last night.”
L’s hands still, then he pulls the cape from around me. “Come over to the wash sink and tell me.”
I follow him over and relate the facts as I remember them—the missing evidence, the note, and Matteo’s suspicion that the Golden Arrow may be working with Muñez. The possibility of a leak.
The Queen Con (The Golden Arrow Mysteries Book 2) Page 24