Flirting With Disaster (Camelot 3)

Do you even want to?

When the story ended, she laughed on cue and coaxed Judah into telling another one, but she couldn’t keep her head in the game.

It irritated her, because she needed to be good at this, for Judah’s sake and her own. Sean was the last thing she should have been thinking about.

She just couldn’t stop.

“Excuse me,” she said after a few minutes. “I’ll be right back.”

She walked over to the minibar and poured herself a refill on the G&T. Raising it to her lips, she looked at Sean and banished Fretful Katie to the dungeon where she belonged. You are twenty-eight years old, and you haven’t had sex in twenty-one months. This is not rocket science. This is car maintenance. This is a freaking oil change. Now shut up and do your damn job.

Fretful Katie shut up.

“Sorry,” she said to Judah when she returned. She handed him a fresh drink. “Where were we?”

“I was telling you about my first dog. You were pretending to be interested.”

“I’m totally interested. I just needed to fortify myself for the serious stuff coming up.”

“You think there’s serious stuff?”

“I know there is. Serious stuff always comes after the dog.”

“My dog got hit by a car.”

“Sometimes it comes during the dog.”

Judah smiled and told her a story about how the dog had eaten his birthday cake when he was ten and puked on the carpet in the middle of his party. Katie told him how her brother had crashed his car into their dad’s truck during her eleventh birthday party. They kept swapping stories, making each other laugh, polishing off their drinks and a couple of pizzas Judah had asked Ginny to order.

They talked until it had grown dark outside and the wind off Lake Erie began lashing the windows, rattling them in their panes and sending icy slivers of air through the cracks. Gradually, she took the conversation deeper, and Judah told her what it had been like growing up as a closeted gay kid in Family Values, Iowa. Knowing from a very early age that he didn’t fit, that he’d never fit, and not knowing what to do about it.

He told her about his first crushes, about the camp counselor who’d taught him how to kiss and how to give a hand job, the high school best friend who’d become his lover the summer after graduation.

He told her about the months he’d lived in Louisville and the show he’d played at the High Hat with Paul in the audience. How he’d moved out to L.A. and made it big within six months.

He told her a lot of things she was fairly sure he’d never told anyone. But he didn’t say a word about the messages.

Sean ate and typed out of earshot on the far side of the room, ignoring both of them except for the occasional obscure question for Judah:

“When did you last play a show in Minneapolis?”

“Are you a Beatles fan?”

“How long did you live in Louisville?”

He didn’t stutter when he asked the questions. He hadn’t stuttered since they’d entered the suite. Because of Judah? Because the work took his mind off his speech? She didn’t know.

Finally, around eight, Sean closed up the laptop and stood. “I’ll give this back to you tomorrow,” he said to Judah.

“No problem.”

“See you,” he announced to no one in particular before walking from the room without a backward glance.

Katie watched him go. Judah started singing “Man on the Run” under his breath.

“Maybe I shouldn’t sleep with him,” she said, not sure whether she was joking or serious. “He’s kind of strange.”

“No, you should,” Judah said. “But you’re going to have to catch him first.”