Library

Chapter 9

A bell rang, and Mike frowned. “Do we have a visitor?”

Jim chuckled. “It’s just the bell at the front desk. It does that sometimes. I’ll go check if you want, but I’m tellin’ ya, ain’t no one there. And right now I’m more interested in what Ashley has to say.”

“You sound like a woman with a plan,” Elliott remarked.

“That’s because I am.” She gave Mike a pointed stare. “What was my degree in? Hmm?”

“Marketing.” He huffed. “Why d’you ask? Do you think I’ve just developed amnesia or something?”

“I’m simply reminding you. So… put me to work.”

“Doing what?” He frowned.

Ashley rolled her eyes. “Marketing the Velvet House, of course. I can think of five ways off the top of my head that would put this place back on a paying basis.”

Anthony chuckled. “Well, go for it, honey. As long as one of them isn’t me selling my ass on Commercial Street.”

“Yeah, five dollars won’t go very far,” Jim quipped.

“Five? He’d need to give ’em change, don’t forget.” Elliott grinned.

“Bitch.”

Elliott blew Anthony a kiss. “But you love me.”

“Will you all shut up? I want to hear Ashley’s ideas,” Sam groused.

She gave him a warm smile. “Okay. The first one is easy. This is a hotel. So change the name, give it a lick of paint, and have a grand reopening. I can think of plenty of places in Boston where I could advertise it.”

“What would you call it?” Mike could think of a couple of flaws in her plan, but he was willing to hear her out.

Ashley smiled. “Nick’s Place.”

Anthony placed his hand over his heart. “Oh. All the feels.”

Mike liked it too, but he had to be the practical one in this conversation. “It’s a sweet idea, I agree, and I really hate to burst this bubble, but paint costs money. Not to mention whatever else we might need.”

“I’ve thought of that. I know how we can raise money to fund it.” She beamed. “We could do a drag brunch. Several brunches. We’d sell tickets, except we’d need to make sure the price covers not only the cost of the food but also gives us a decent profit margin.” She glanced at the others. “Well? What are your talents?” Anthony opened his mouth, and she added, “that aren’t sexual.”

He closed his mouth.

“I can play the violin,” Elliott offered.

“Excellent. Are you any good?”

He preened. “Used to be first chair in the gay man’s orchestra.”

“Because you were blowing the director,” Jim fired back.

“I don’t think it matters how I got the job!” Elliott protested. “It’s still a skill, isn’t it?”

“Depends if we’re talking about you playing the violin or something else,” Jim said with a leer.

“Wait a minute. Ashley might be onto something.” Sam’s eyes gleamed. “What about a Thanksgiving brunch? That would give us time to advertise it, sell tickets… We’ve got the tables and chairs. They’re stored in the shed. And it’s a commercial kitchen, for God’s sake. We could cope with feeding a lot of people.” He grinned. “We could pack the theater space.”

“I think it was a restaurant in the past,” Mike told him.

“See? We’re on the right track. It would be a sellout. How many guys in this town do you think would love the chance to have someone else slave over a hot stove? All they’d have to do is show up, mingle, flirt, and eat. They even get to leave the dishes to us.”

Mike smiled. “You might have something there.”

“ I have an idea. Not sure if it’s a good one, but…” Elliott flushed.

“Let’s hear it, then.” Sam nudged Elliott’s arm.

“Well, it’s also about the theater space. What if we offered classes?”

“In what?” Mike asked.

“Well, art, for one thing. I mean, come on . Look under a rock in this town and you’ll find an artist. So… we find some willing artists, we charge for a two-hour class, and we take half the proceeds. Win-win.” He widened his eyes. “Life drawing classes. That could be real popular.”

Jim struck a pose. “I’m ready.”

Anthony snorted. “Are you kidding? Your dick would take up the whole canvas.”

Jim leaned closer. “Jealous much?”

Mike grinned. “Okay, I like this. Elliott, you really think you can persuade some artists to come on board?”

There was that flush again. “Oh, I can think of one or two who’d be keen. One in particular.”

“And we all know who that is,” Anthony said before giving a loud cough.

“What about workshops?” Jim interjected.

“What kind of workshops?”

Jim bit his lip. “Okay, Nick had this friend, Kris. He’s what you’d call a leather daddy. Into BDSM, kink, stuff like that. Suppose we ask if he’d like to run workshops? We could start a poll, find out what guys would be interested in, then leave it up to Kris to work out a schedule.”

“Would there be enough guys interested?” Mike asked.

Four men stared at him, their lips twitching. As one, they all said, “Yes.”

Ashley laughed. “Well, that was unequivocal.” She glanced at Jim. “Could you contact this guy?”

Jim coughed. “Yeah, I could do that.”

“I might have an idea,” Anthony murmured. “I know we couldn’t find a replacement for Frank—our pianist—but what if we took a different tack?”

“What did you have in mind?” Mike hadn’t expected such an enthusiastic outpouring of ideas, but listening to them set his mind racing.

This might work.

“Well, I was thinking… What about music recitals? Concerts? P-town has musicians too. Same idea as the art classes—we split the profits with the performers. Hell, even a night of show tunes would bring people in.” He smiled. “We could set up a projector and have a sing-along with The Sound of Music , The Wizard of Oz , Frozen , whatever.”

Sam bit back a smile. “ Frozen ?”

Anthony gave him the finger. “We could move the baby grand piano into the theater. Or leave it in the lobby for more intimate evenings.” He peered at Mike. “What do you think?”

Mike grinned. “I think all your ideas are amazing. But there is one question I have to ask. If you can come up with all these awesome suggestions now, why haven’t you implemented any of them already?”

Sam sighed. “Three reasons. First, I think once the downhill slide began, it was too much effort to climb out of the hole we found ourselves in. Nick was… well, he’d lost all interest. Second, after Nick died, we couldn’t have done any of these things because it wasn’t our space. And third…” He gazed at the others. “We didn’t have the heart. Losing Nick… we lost a part of ourselves.” Sam met Mike’s gaze. “But you brought back the memories of how good it was. You walked through that door and brought a little piece of Nick with you.”

“Can we go back to the original idea for a second?” Jim gazed at his fellow queens. “I’m the oldest one here, and to tell the truth, I’m feeling a little… jaded. I think my drag days are almost up.” Three voices rose in protest, and he held up his hands. “Hey, it comes to us all, okay? I’m just being honest. But …” Jim focused on Mike. “If you decide to relaunch the hotel, consider me for the post of manager. I’d run the whole shebang—reservations, maintenance, supplies, housekeeping…And I’d do a great job.”

Mike smiled. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“If all of these plans work, and we have money again, then I think we should go back to how it used to be.” Elliott’s eyes sparkled. “The week leading up to Christmas, we used to have a show every night. We’d spread the word, and pull out all the stops.” He cocked his head. “What do you say, Mike? Wanna give P-town a week of drag shows they’ll never forget?”

Mike beamed. “I think that’s a great idea. I also think Nick would have loved it.” The front desk bell rang, and he chuckled. “And there it goes again.” He peered at Jim. “What about you? Think you’ve got a few performances left in you?”

He smiled. “If we do a run of shows, of course I’ll be a part of that. For Nick.”

Sam coughed. “Not so fast. You haven’t read the small print yet.”

Mike blinked. “What small print?”

“Well, if we do this, we’re short a drag queen.”

“You mean because Polly left?”

Sam shook his head. “No, sweetie—Nick.”

Ashley cleared her throat. “You saw the contents of his closet, remember?”

“My uncle took part in drag shows?” Mike tried as hard as he could, but he found it difficult to visualize Nick in a dress, especially the ones he’d seen hanging in Nick’s former bedroom. And those heels…

“Only the Christmas shows,” Sam replied.

“Did he have a name?”

Anthony smiled. “He sure did. Dirty Diva.”

Mike laughed. “Okay, I didn’t expect that .”

Sam looked Mike up and down. “The good news is the costumes will probably fit. You and Nick are of a similar size.” He leaned to one side to glance at Mike’s feet. “Even the shoes might fit. And you’d totally rock that blue and purple wig.”

It took a moment for Sam’s words to register.

“Wait—you want me to take part in the shows?” His heart pounded.

Hell. No.

“Of course not,” Elliott said with a wave of his hand.

Mike gave his brow an exaggerated wipe. “Thank God for that.” His pulse was still racing.

“Just one of them, that’s all.” Sam grinned. “That was all Nick usually did. It would be a pity for all those costumes to go to waste. None of us could wear them. Anthony’s too tall. I’m too short. Whereas you?”

“What about me?” Mike’s heart hammered.

There was an evil gleam in Sam’s eyes. “Goldilocks, you are just right.”

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