“Some guy named Andrew Quentin. He says he’s my biggest fan,” Nally answered with a wary look.
“Bollocks,” Jude snorted in return. “I’m your biggest fan.”
“No, no, I’myourbiggest fan,” Nally said, relaxing and slipping his hands into his pockets.
“No, I’myourbiggest fan,” Jude teased him, trying not to laugh.
The two of them dissolved into laughter together, then Nally stopped halfway down the pavement, grabbed Jude’s upper arms, and said, “I’m about to walk a red carpet! And not by accident.”
Jude was so proud for his friend he could have burst. “I always said you would make something of yourself someday,” he said, then reached up to straighten Nally’s badly-tied tie. “But, uff, you should have called me sooner. You, my friend, are not camera ready.”
“But I went to so much trouble,” Nally protested, tilting his chin up when Jude tapped it. “Ow!” He winced as Jude tore away the small plaster hiding a spot where he’d obviously cut himself shaving earlier.
“Why were you going to take that Sam person to this big event anyhow?” Jude said, licking his thumb then wiping away the remaining dried blood. “I’m the one you call when you have to be in public.”
“I thought things were going somewhere with Sam,” Nally said with a shrug, letting himself be molded and modeled by Jude. “They aren’t, by the way.”
“I could have told you that,” Jude said, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket and taking out a small tube of concealer from among the supplies he’d stashed there. “Sam was too much like Timothy. They’re the sort that’s good for a laugh, but you could never count on him for truly important things," he said as he dabbed Nally’s face with concealer, then blended it with his fingers.
It still hurt to think about Timothy and how a few weeks of mediocre dick had nearly trashed his friendship with Nally. It also hurt to remember how much it had sucked to lose Tim as a friend, too. He had actually liked Tim, which had made what happened infinitely worse than if it’d been any other break-up.But that was in the past. He still had Nally, and he wasn’t ever going to take that for granted.
“You’re right, of course,” Nally said. “Dad even asked why I didn’t just bring you along tonight.”
“And why didn’t you?” Jude asked with a pretend scathing look.
Nally shrugged. “You’re my best friend, not some sort of rent-a-date.”
“I would absolutely be your rent-a-date,” Jude said, putting the concealer away and bringing out a kohl pencil. “Just don’t expect dessert at the end of dinner, if you know what I mean.”
“What?” Nally teased in return. “Is my pudding not good enough for you to take a bite of?” Before Jude could figure out how to banter back, or what to do with the too-warm feeling that kind of teasing from Nally gave him, Nally snapped, “No! No eyeliner. I can’t get away with wearing make-up the way you do.”
“Nobody can get away with wearing make-up the way I do,” Jude said with a smirk, then clasped the side of Nally’s face with one hand and raised the pencil. “But yes, you need it.”
“No,” Nally pulled away.
“Yes,” Jude leaned into him.
Nally laughed and squirmed to get away. Jude kept after him, wrestling and eventually pressing him against the wall of the theater.
“You need eyeliner,” he said, laughing and acting like he would poke Nally in the eye with the pencil. “You’re about to be under who knows how many lights with flashes going off. You need definition.”
Nally whined as Jude pinned him to the wall and quickly outlined his eyes lightly with kohl. Jude caught a whiff of what was either soap or cologne, and for some insane reason, it sent his blood to all the wrong places.
“There,” he said, letting go at last and stepping back to observe Nally. “You look much better.”
In fact, Nally looked flushed and a little breathless. Maybe they shouldn’t have joked around like that right before they would have to walk a red carpet. Nally did look good, though. Amazingly good. He just seemed to be getting more attractive the older the two of them got. Or maybe Jude was just noticing it more now that…now that what?
Whatever. He’d just been noticing the way Nally looked more.
“Now your suit is all mussed. Let me fix it,” he said, offering Nally his hand and pulling him closer to one of the streetlights as the natural light faded.
It didn’t take long for Jude to brush Nally off and to straighten his look. They’d been friends for so long that Nally’s excitement felt like his excitement, and the pride he felt in his friend’s appearance was as strong as what he felt for his own appearance when he filmed a particularly important video.
“There,” he said at last, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “That’ll do, pig, that’ll do.”
“Thanks, Babe,” Nally said with a wink.
A shrill whistle sounded from farther down the sidewalk, and when they both turned to look, Janice Hawthorne was waving at them.
