My t-shirt. My boyfriend.
And this was my life, now.Really,trulymine. No one could ever take it away.
I owed Logan for that. Evenif he’dstumbled on the answer mostly by accident.
Hugging the t-shirt close, Igrabbed my phone again.
Lunch tomorrow. I have aboyfriend to wear out today.
THIRTY
LOGAN
“After a two-month absence,it’s the queen you’ve all been waiting for! Please welcome to the stage MissArizona Tease,” Gabe said, andthe crowd burst into cheers and wolf whistles.
I’d never gotten the hang ofthinking of Ashley’s drag friends as anything other thanthemselves. Even in a poundof makeup and glitter, wearing a wig heavy enough to inflict blunt forcetrauma, Gabe was stillGabeto me, the sweetheart who’d found me abetter pain specialist and gave me endless crap about my wardrobe choices.
Ashley, even as he—she?—walkedout on stage in a floor-length, figure-hugging sequined gown, was stillAshley.Or he was still Ashley tome, anyway. I had the same response to him asI always did.
Wow, followed by,Ilove him.
“Good evening, Twinklers!Did you miss me?”
Another round of cheers andwolf-whistles from the crowd. Theyhadmissed him, and he looked sohappy about it, grinning ear to ear, bright red lips shimmering with glitterylipgloss I’dpicked up for him last week that he’d worn every day since.
The dress did incrediblethings for his ass, too. That probably helped his reception in here.
But there wasn’t even a twingeof jealousy to go with knowing half the room was into him. Not when the tasteof mango lip balm was still lingering on my lips from the good luck kiss he’ddemanded before he disappeared into the dressing room.
“He’s incredible, isn’t he?”Grandma asked from beside me, tearing me away from staring at my perfectboyfriend like a lovesick idiot.
“He is,” I said, lookingstraight back at Ashley as he started his routine, hitting every markperfectly. When I had time, I came to his rehearsals—or at least picked himup—so I’d seen most of this before.
But it was different with thecrowd here.Theyloved him, and I loved being surrounded by people whothought Ashley was amazing.
“Always wanted to see himperform in person,” Grandma said.
She was my grandma now, too.I’dtold her everything by now, about my own parents, about my life, and she’d toldme I’d make a wonderful grandson and I could always come to her.
I had a family of my own, afamily I’dpicked, but it wasalways nice to add to it. There was no such thing as too much family.
Ashley—Arizona—winked at mefrom the stage, and my face hurt from grinning back at him.
I wasn’t an excitingman. Not like Ashley was.
But between the two of us,it worked. He was the exciting, magical, glittering thing I needed in my life,and I gave him something warm and comforting to come home to.
Food, snuggling on thecouch, someone warm to press his hellishly cold feet against in bed.
Other things in bed, too,but that wasn’tthe most important part. I’d known, I guess, but I’d never reallyunderstoodthat sex was atiny part of what made a good relationship really great.
It was all the other things.Turning up to drag shows and putting up with weird hours and time away.
Less time away now, though.No more international trips. I’d walked into Gray’s office to tell him I wanted towork closer to home more often, and he’dgrinnedat me.
Fox still winked at me fromtime to time, but I laughed it off now. Even when Quinn and Ashley got togetherto tell us that they thought we should kiss.
He’d kissed me on the cheekand I couldn’t pretend I didn’t kind of like it, but Ashley was right there.
