The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow #1)(7)
“You know my boss? Like for how long?” I attempt a look over my shoulder.
“It’s nothing.” L forces my head forward and attacks my hair with a comb like the Hulk at an all-you-can-smash buffet. “I don’t like or dislike him. I’m just saying I preferred his daddy. Now leave it and let me do my work.”
I reach back over my own shoulders and grip Lawrence’s broad arms, stopping them from their movement at the nape of my neck. I am most certainly not letting this go. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, you know this how? Like preferred preferred his daddy?” I spin back around, ignoring the yank on my hair, and quirk my eyebrows up suggestively. My mind is reeling. Do Lawrence and Casey have a lovers’ past? Is that why he couldn’t care less about other comic books? It would certainly explain him clamming up about my work woes.
“You are going to look the wrong kind of fierce if I don’t get these foils in. You’re a damn Tasmanian devil today.” He finishes the processing in silence, then goes to the sink to rinse his brushes, letting me stew in my thoughts and chemicals. It is an unspoken pact between us that I don’t pry into Lawrence’s past. L accepts people as they are and expects the same from his friends. Some queens fiercely guard their real-world identities—understandable when some are high-powered lawyers or doctors afraid of losing credibility or business just because they enjoy performing drag. Lawrence isn’t quite that tight-lipped, but he has always been cagey about his past. Of course, I’ve fished a few times. I asked him about where he grew up, went to school, all the normal small-talk questions at the gamer convention where I met Ryan—dragging Lawrence along against his will—at the Genius table and Lawrence was performing at an after-party. And a few times after our Game of Thrones drinking games (one drink for death, two drinks for boobies). But he always passed it off with good humor, saying he’d been “born with sequins and a tiara.” It got to the point where I didn’t even ask; I just accepted Lawrence as is . . . except this isn’t something I can just set aside. This is my comic, my personal hero, and apparently one of my best friends is involved. Rule or no rule, I have to push.
“I’m waiting.”
Lawrence gives me a look that says he regrets having said anything.
“You were the one that brought it up, L.”
“Which I am regretting. It wasn’t like that, though Senior was eccentric. He’d been known to wear women’s underwear long before it was cool.” A small smile flits across his lips before he meets my eyes in the mirror and his face closes off again. “I worked for Senior, case closed.”
“You—what? You worked for Edward Casey Senior? The man who wrote The Hooded Falcon? The man who basically saved my life as a teenager? And you never thought to mention this in the years that you’ve known me?” I could understand maybe not telling me right away, but my feelings sting under the weight of how many opportunities L has had to divulge this information. I sure expounded on several occasions what the comic had meant to me as a teen.
The comic book store I worked in when I turned sixteen was the first place that had ever felt like home. Even though I wasn’t allowed to run the register because I was a girl—how 1950s can you get?—I put up with it because I loved the stacks of adventures waiting to be read and the conversations about Falcon and Swoosh I had with customers while stocking shelves. It was where I dreamed about living the life I wanted instead of the life my parents dictated, the place where I made my first comic friends, both on the page and in real life. That was until my mother discovered my “retail” job had to do with the comic books she was trying to divest from my life and forced me to quit.
Without Edward Casey’s comic, I never could have applied to work at that store. I’d never have dreamed of living my own life or had hope that my awkward teenage years could turn into something else.
Lawrence’s eyes are focused on some point in the distance, and he seems lost in thought for a moment too. “Mr. Casey Senior was a good man.”
The bell tinkles above the door as it opens. We both turn to see Ryan step in, his jacket held above his head against the rain spattering the sidewalk outside. I know by Lawrence’s suddenly straight posture that we have to hold our conversation—for whatever reason, L is loath to let anyone else know that he worked for the Caseys. Something I’ll respect, at least until I understand why it is some big personal secret.
Ryan is oblivious. “Hey, L.” He waves, then takes in my foils. “It’s a good look for you, MG.” His own dirty-blond hair is tousled from the jacket over his head, but I’m the bigger person and fail to point it out.
I stick my tongue out at him but smile. “Shut up. And thanks for coming to pick me up. It’s going to be a few minutes. I forgot to text you and let you know we are running late.” L throws me a glance that says it’s my fault for the monkey business.
Ryan looks outside at the driving rain. When it rains here, it means business. “I was going to go to a spin class for cardio day, but . . . I’ll just stay and answer emails on my phone instead.” He settles down on the uneven red pleather sofa in the corner near the ancient register and pulls out headphones. “L, I wanted to check if you still wanted to play in that Assassin’s Creed tournament this weekend.”
And there’s why I love Ryan. He doesn’t pigeonhole Lawrence or me into any box—comic book girl, drag queen, or otherwise. I’m finally free to be myself and am accepted in my own home. My cup runneth over; I really love my strange little family.