“Yes?” I said, cursing myself that it came out as a question rather than a statement of fact.
“So, Mike isn’t going to lose the bar.”
“Of course not. Why, even such a notion is ridiculous.”
“Then why bring up Andrew Taylor?”
“Were you eavesdropping on me?” I asked, jostling his head from my shoulder.
He rolled his eyes. “You were bellowing.”
“I don’t bellow. I get my point across.”
“You bellow all the time.”
“Rude.”
“What are you doing?” he asked curiously. “What’s all this for?”
I sighed. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. And I mean that. I’ve got this all taken care of, okay?”
He frowned at me. “But—”
“Corey.”
“Fine,” he said, clearly annoyed. “But you do have friends, you know. People you can depend on. You can tell us anything. It’s kind of why we’re here.”
“I know,” I said, rather touched, but trying to keep it from my face. I didn’t have time to sit around a campfire and sing songs about love and friendship and braid each other’s hair and talk about feelings.
“And you have Darren,” he added.
The doorbell rang before I could even begin to formulate a response to that pile of bullshit. Corey looked annoyed for a second at the interruption. He stood to answer the door and I grabbed his hand. He looked down at me.
“Keep this to yourself,” I said. “Just for now. I don’t need Paul or Vince on my ass about this.”
“Sandy—”
“Please.”
He nodded slowly. “But when this is finished, you’re telling us everything.”
I grimaced. “Fine.”
“This had better be good, Sandy.” He pulled away and moved toward the door.
“You have no idea,” I muttered.
“NOW,” I said, eyeing the queens in front of me as we stood in the Queen’s Lair. “The homo jocks will be on their way up here shortly. I don’t think I have to tell you that you ar
en’t allowed to make them feel more uncomfortable than they already are, but since Summer Zeeve is here and tends to fall on whatever cock is around, it needs to be said. There will be no inappropriate handling of the homo jocks. If you do, I’ll shove a flashlight so far up your ass, your tonsils will be able to perform shadow puppets.”
“I’m not scared of you,” Summer said with a sniff. “You asked me to be here. You need me.”
“I think you’ll find your necessity is something greatly exaggerated,” Sofonda Cox said, her voice light and melodious. She was an old friend of mine who performed up in Phoenix. I’d asked her to come down, because her abilities with makeup were almost unparalleled. If anyone could turn the homo jocks into respectable queens for the night, it’d be her. She’d learned the queendom under one of Vaguyna’s best friends. She was Arabic, with the most beautiful skin and eyelashes. She worked as a concierge at a resort in Scottsdale during the day under her given name Tariq al-Fulan and performed as Sofonda four times a week, the resident queen at two separate clubs. And in all of Arizona, she probably would be my biggest competition should she choose to enter Miss Gay America. Of course, she’d been coy about it so far, fluttering her eyes at me whenever asked. I loved her dearly, but she wouldn’t know what hit her if she tried to go up against me. Keep your drag sisters close, but keep your drag competitors closer.
“People adore me,” Summer said, batting her eyelashes. “They say, ‘Summer, you are just divine and one day, you’ll rise above the squalor of your beginnings that is Tucson to make yourself a star—’”
“That’s quite enough,” I said, Helena-deep. “I suggest you keep that trap shut before I shut it for you.”