Forty-Seven
Queen
Ray came back to me after Bohannan ordered me to “get your ass out of the goddamn alley” and I’d gotten my ass out of the alley.
Megan was at the corner of the block up from me, shouting, “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m coming right back,” I shouted in return.
“You all right?” Ray asked.
He was barely breathing heavy.
I looked up into his sea blue eyes.
Seriously.
He was fabulous.
“Yes. I just need to get back to some classes. I can’t even run a block.”
“Was that him?” he asked.
I knew what he was asking.
Now that cooler heads might be prevailing…
Maybe?
“I don’t…he was watching me, and he was being strange, and now I’m worried that I might have overreacted.”
Ray’s torso swung back.
“I know. I’m sorry. I…you’re worried. About Shelly being safe. And I freaked you.”
“You’ve probably had people watching you and being strange for a long time. I guess it doesn’t get any easier.”
Oh boy.
“When someone’s killing people, though,” he carried on, “it’d freak anybody.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Your friend is coming.”
I looked back up the street to see Megan heading our way.
“She knows.”
I turned again to Ray. “What?”
“It’s nobody’s business, but she knows. Shelly. She knows I’m bi.”
Well then.
That was laying it out there.
“We got an agreement. That’s nobody’s business either, still nobody asked. I don’t…” he searched for a word, “do anyone that means anything to me. He didn’t mean anything to me. And it’s not like I need that all the time. It’s just something I need. And he was a good go-to because he wanted no strings. It worked. No idea some crazy women were taping us. No idea they’d blow up my life.”
This poor guy, caught in someone else’s web.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“She freaked out that day, she was so happy to meet you. She’s a big fan. She loves your show. She watched it with her mom. Not a lot of happy memories with that woman, but that’s one of them.”
Now he was talking about Shelly.
God, I’d been what I hated people being, gossipy and in someone else’s business.
I twisted quickly and Megan was almost on us.
“Can you give us just a sec?” I asked.
She halted, stepped backwards a few steps, and stopped, but didn’t take her eyes from us.
And again, I returned to Ray.
I looked right at him and admitted, “Yes, we were talking about you, and I apologize for that too. However, we didn’t know you and Shelly have a deal.”
He started to look mad. “You of all people know, it’s not your business.”
I, of all people, did know that.
I nodded.
“She knows. Shelly. She knows about it. She’s seen it. I showed it to her. I didn’t want her seeing it somewhere else, but she already knew I’d been with him. People think she’s not very smart, but she is. She’s just a happy person. Desperately happy. She’d been faking that for a long time. I got her to a place she didn’t have to fake it anymore. Now she has to fake it again. She’s just trying to pretend it didn’t happen. Let it blow over. It’s not working.”
“God. Again, I’m so sorry.”
“Now she knows you know and she’s embarrassed.”
So he wasn’t angry for himself we were whispering, he was angry for Shelly.
“Ray, right?”
“Like you don’t know who I am,” he bit.
Definitely getting angry.
“It will blow over,” I told him.
He stared at me.
“It will,” I repeated.
“Parents are taking their kids out of my programs.”
“Small-minded people,” I said. “That’ll pass too. Kids need those programs. They need them more than the parents need to be bigots.”
“I get small-minded people. Lived with that all my life. What about the kids?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
He twisted at the waist and pointed down the street. “Was that him?”
“I really don’t know,” I told him the truth.
I was beginning to feel foolish, so I flipped back to our previous subject, which I didn’t want to talk about further, but he didn’t seem to be ready to leave.
“Those women shouldn’t have done that to you.”
At the very least, they should have cropped his face.
“I didn’t know he was a cheat,” he said, clipped and hostile. “He got what he deserved. But not me. My parents could have seen that.”
“I hope they don’t,” I said quickly.
“I hope they don’t too,” he replied, glanced up and rearranged his face. “Just a sec, sweetheart,” he said over my shoulder.
I turned to see Shelly was approaching Megan.
“Hi, Shelly,” I called.
“Was it the killer?” she called back, fear in her voice.
Now what had I done?
I shook my head. “No, I just—”
“She saw him taking a picture,” Ray lied.
Shelly appeared confused, of course, for I would be used to that, wouldn’t I?
“I’m having a bad day,” I lied too.
One side of her face scrunched in a doubtful look, but I turned back to Ray.
“Thanks for attempting hot pursuit.”
“Did you call Bohannan?”