“Fancy,” Cort said. “God, I love hotels.”
“Girl, same,” Henri said.
The Ritz-Carlton had a large, elegant lobby, all golds and browns and beiges, with comfortable modern furniture and sensual amber lighting.
Shivonne Sharpe, Joel’s beautiful, sharklike PR manager, met them in the lobby. She wore a wine-red blazer over a white blouse, and her blonde hair was twisted up in a simple chignon.
“Hartley,” she said with a curt nod when she saw him. “And these are?”
“Henri Bellancourt and Cort Styleton. Henri is one of my teammates, and Cort is his boyfriend. They’re joining me for the concert.”
Shivonne surprised him by smiling at Henri and Cort when she shook their hands. So, shewascapable of smiling. “Fans of Joel’s?” she asked pleasantly.
“Absolutely,” Cort said.
“Would you like to meet him?” she offered.
“I might piss myself,” Cort whispered to Henri, loud enough for Quentin to hear. If Shivonne heard, she politely ignored it.
“We’d love to,” Henri said, hiding a smile.
Quentin hadn’t had the heart to warn Cort that Joel was kind of a dick, and he hoped Joel would make nice for a bit.
“Come on up,” Shivonne said. She talked quickly as she led them to the elevator. “Just a quick meet and greet, and we’re going to get a photo of you and Joel, like you’re friends.” She fixed Henri and Cort with a steely gaze. “Do I need to make the two of you sign NDAs?”
Cort held one hand to his heart and the other in the air. “Absolutely not. I’m very good at keeping secrets. For twenty-one years, I hid the secret of my bisexuality from everyone in the world, even myself.”
Thatmanaged to get a small smile out of Shivonne. “Understood.”
Harlan entered Joel’s room. “Are you decent?”
“I think you’re supposed to ask thatbeforeyou enter someone’s room,” Joel observed. “I don’t know if I’d call this decent. How do I look?”
He was wearing his first costume of the night: a sparkling silver jumpsuit that left his arms bare and was open all down the front to show his lean chest and rippled abs. The jumpsuit was skintight, except for the lowest parts of the pants, which flared slightly. It left almost nothing to the imagination, especially around his crotch and ass.
“Can you see every detail of my penis?” he asked, “I think each individual pube is outlined.”
“I think I’d need to get an inch or two closer to tell if you have a foreskin, or not,” Harlan said breezily. Nothing fazed Joel’s beleaguered assistant. “So, ifthat’swhat you want your fans to know, I’d suggest you make it a little tighter.”
“Grab a vacuum sealer, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Harlan laughed. “Well, I didn’t come here to comment on the outline of your penis. I came to tell you that Quentin Hartley is here with two hockey player friends. Well, at least one of them’s a hockey player. I don’t know about the other.”
“Jesus, cover me up,” Joel said.
“Just through here,” Shivonne said, leading the way into a large suite. Quentin tried not to stare. He’d stayed in some nice rooms in his life, but Joel’s hotel suite looked like something that belonged inArchitectural Digest. There were signs of his pop star lifestyle: racks of costumes, recording equipment, as well as little things that gave Quentin a glimpse of who Joel was as a person: a journal on the bedside table, a well-thumbed copy of Jane Austen’sEmma, a Nintendo Switch discarded on the bed, a pack of nicotine pouches. It was strange, and strangely intimate, getting this glance “behind the curtain” of Joel’s life. Quentin felt like he was intruding.
There was a thump from behind a closed door, followed by a pained “fuck!” and then the door flew open.
“Hi,” said a young man with dark hair and glasses. “I’m Harlan, Joel’s assistant. Quentin, hi, and you must be the hockey player friends?”
Cort pointed at Henri. “He’s the hockey player. I’m friends. Well, boyfriend. His boyfriend, not Quentin’s boyfriend.”
Harlan’s gaze lingered on Cort and Henri for a moment. Quentin squinted. Was heblushing?
“What was that thump?” Shivonne asked.
“Joel fell.”
