Yeah. And maybe I felt slightly bad about that. For fuck’s sake. “He was playing me.”
“How?”
“I don’t know! I’m not one to understand the deviousness of the mind of a homo jock, much less their king. But he was up to something, I just know it. And I’m going to get to the bottom of it, mark my words.”
“He would have gotten away with it too,” Vince said, “if it hadn’t been for you meddling queens.”
“I’m teaching him sarcasm,” Paul said as I gaped at Vince.
“I’m learning to be a bitch,” Vince said proudly.
“You’re definitely learning from the right people.” Kori patted his hand.
“And it’s just brunch,” Paul said. “He’s Vince’s brother and he doesn’t have family here aside from him. Well, not that counts, anyway.” And I had to give Paul credit for that. And Vince too. Because Vince and Darren came from the loins of evil that was the Republican mayor of Tucson, Andrew Taylor. Andrew Taylor, who had backed the anti-immigration bill SB1070 and was one of the architects of a LGBTQ-phobic bill disguised as a religious freedom act that got all the way up to the governor before being vetoed last year. Mike, the owner of Jack It, had told me there’d even been some rumblings about a revitalization project of downtown Tucson where the club was located that didn’t seem to include Jack It at all. He already had his attorneys looking
into it just in case the city council tried to fuck him over or worse. Since Jack It was part of the historic district, the lease was owned by the county. Mike had to tread a very thin line between backing his community and kissing red-taped ass.
And Darren, while disagreeing with his father completely, wasn’t out to him and wasn’t a recognized member of Taylor’s family, given that he was the product of an affair. And to make matters worse, Darren worked for his father, though not in any official capacity. He was employed by the city as an actuary, and even though he didn’t report to Taylor directly, just the fact that he worked for the government and knew the same people his father knew was enough to make me despise him just a little bit more.
And feel slightly bad for him too. Whatever.
But I didn’t see what that had to do with brunch. I told Paul as much.
Paul shrugged. “I just thought it’d be nice, is all. You know, you could stand being nicer too.”
“I’m the nicest person you know,” I retorted. “And when have I ever needed to be nice?”
“Drag queens are contradictions,” Vince told Kori.
“It’s just in their nature,” Kori said.
“Just brunch,” Paul said.
I growled at him. “Fine. But he’s not getting any of my frittata.”
“Heh,” Kori said. “That sounded dirty.”
“Darren wants all of Helena’s frittata,” Vince said.
“Control your boyfriend,” I barked at Paul.
“Yeah,” Vince said. “Control me, Paul.”
“Not in front of Helena,” Paul said. “We don’t want her to get confused when her sex dream starts coming to life.”
“It’s not the first time someone has had a sex dream about me,” Vince said. “When I was in my senior year of high school, my Spanish teacher, Señora Gomez, told me that she’d had dreams about my thighs in Spanish.”
“Wait,” Kori frowned. “The dreams were in Spanish or she told you this while speaking Spanish?”
“Both,” Vince said. “It was very uncomfortable.”
“Did you sleep with her?” Paul asked, sounding scandalized.
“She was seventy-four,” Vince said.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Paul asked.
“No, Paul. I didn’t sleep with her.”