Darren turned slowly to stare at me.
“Wow,” I said, immediately regretting my existence. “That was really awkward. I’m not saying you’re a naughty schoolgirl who dances for money from adoring men like I do. Oh shit, did that make me sound like a stripper? I think that made me sound like a stripper. Holy fuck, I swear to god I’m not a stripper. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just not for me. I don’t even
know
any strippers. Okay. That was a lie. There’s a gay strip club in Phoenix called Dick’s that I’ve been to. Multiple times. I know, like, everyone there. But
I
haven’t stripped. No. I don’t see the point in full nudity on stage. I’m okay with partial nudity, though. I mean, you have to be, right? When you’re performing on stage for money. But not for stripping! I’m a drag queen! I believe Darren might have mentioned that?” I glanced at Darren to save me, but he was still staring at me, jaw dropped, offering
nothing
in the way of rescue, that asshole. I looked back at his mother. “Well, I am! So. That’s… why I dance for men and money. God, I really wish I would stop
saying
it like that. I don’t just
dance
. I lip-synch too. For men. And money. But your skirt! I have that one. Except mine is shorter. Like,
shorter
. Like, any shorter and it’d probably be considered full frontal. Not that that’s legal at Jack It, ha-ha-ha. Which, I mean, usually isn’t a problem.” My eyes went wide. “Not that we do anything illegal at Jack It! No. No, no, no. Nothing illegal at all. Why, that would just be crazy.” To show her how crazy it would be, I laughed. Crazily. “Darren here would never allow any illegality. He’s such an upstanding citizen. So… pure and innocent and upstanding. You did good, so. You know. Good job. On that. And in case you’re wondering, no, I absolutely do not do bathroom crack, no matter what Darren might say. Because he’s a liar and fat mouth. But I assume he got that from his father. Not from you. And I really wish I hadn’t brought up his father right now. Because awkward. So. To recap. No bathroom crack, we don’t do anything illegal, I’m not a stripper even though I dance and men give me money, and we have very similar tastes, even though mine tend to be a bit more… slutty.”
Sherry turned to her son and said, “Okay. You weren’t kidding.”
“Kidding about
what
?” I asked, glaring at Darren.
“Just about how you’re the light of my life,” Darren said easily, pushing me out of the way and letting his mother into the house like he lived there, what the hell. “And also that you would be nervous and would probably ramble a little bit. I just didn’t think it would go that far that quickly.”
“I’m not
nervous
,” I retorted. “And I don’t
ramble
.”
“Oh, so you always sound half-crazed?” Sherry asked me.
I gaped at her because
now
I knew where Darren got his
attitude
from. It was apparently genetic, which meant there was no hope for him.
“It’s okay,” she said, reaching up and patting me on the shoulder. “I was prepared for it. It was really rather breathtaking.” She then moved around me, walking around the living room, looking at anything and everything she could lay her eyes on. I couldn’t tell if she was liking what she saw or judging me completely. I prayed for the former and expected the latter.
As she moved through my house, I stepped closer to Darren. “You told her I
ramble
?” I hissed at him.
He arched an unfairly attractive eyebrow at me. “Of course. Because you do. I blame Paul. Or, I blame you for doing it to him. It’s kind of your thing, the both of you. If you’re not prepared for it, it can be kind of scary.”
“I’ll have you know that
every
word I say is well thought out and on point.”
“You basically told my mother she dresses like a drag queen stripper.”
“I’m not a
stripper
.”
“I never would have guessed,” he whispered back, bumping his shoulder against mine, and there it went again, that fucking
flutter
in my heart like I was
swooning
. “But you also told her you didn’t do bathroom crack. Like she needed to know that.”
“I don’t do bathroom crack! And you said it first! I wouldn’t have even
thought
about that if you hadn’t said it in the first place. So technically, this is all your fault. As usual. Why don’t you
think
before you speak?”
“Aw, boo,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If I’d known you hung on to every single word I say, I’d have censored myself a little bit more.”
I sputtered brilliantly at him.
“Look at you,” Sherry called from the other side of the room. “Whispering quietly to each other like you’re the only ones in the room. Ah, young love. It’s adorable. Also, Sandy—can I call you Sandy?—I must admit to being slightly disappointed. I thought the house of a drag queen would be decorated a bit more… loudly.”
“Yes, sorry,” I said, unable to stop the snark. “I just got rid of the bedazzled couch and shag carpet last week. I also sent the go-go dancers on vacation for the holidays. Bummer on the timing. Usually it’s feather boas and unnecessary nudity in Casa de Sandy.”
She waved me off. “That’s all right. I suppose that one’s on me for having unrealistic expectations. After all, I’m not here to see the couch. I’m here to see
you
. And also maybe the go-go dancers.”
“By here to see me, you mean judge me, right? Just to clarify, I’m not hip to the mom lingo. Not that I would ever be a mother. Or if I were, I’d be the booze-soaked kind who drank wine out of boxes at the kid’s lacrosse games.” I frowned. “How the hell do I know what lacrosse is? I’ve never even
seen
lacrosse before. And now you’re judging me.”
She grinned. “Maybe. But if you’re anything like Darren’s been describing for years, then I don’t think you have too much to worry about. In fact, you’re probably even better than he described. One of those you have to see it to believe it.”
“
Mom
,” Darren growled.
“Aww,” I said, rather pleased at the turn of events. “That’s so adorab—did you say
years
?”
“Oh no,” Darren said, tugging on my arm. “Look at the time. We don’t want to be late. We should leave now.” He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me toward the door.
The nine times I’d done yoga in my life paid off, and I was able to bend and twist out of his grasp with only the barest of twinges to my back. I landed the dismount (though, why there was a dismount, I had no idea), and turned back to Sherry. “
Years
?” I repeated in such a way to portray my incredulity and also to encourage her to tell me everything.
“Years,” she agreed. “It was always Sandy this, Helena that with him. For a while there, I was a little concerned at how creepy it was getting. I was waiting for the day that I’d get a call from the police because he’d kidnapped you and put you in a hole in his basement.”
“Mom,” Darren said, sounding wounded. “Why the hell would you even
say
—”
“You wanted to kidnap me and put me in your hole?” I demanded. Then, “Wait. That didn’t come out like I wanted it to.”
He buried his face in his hands.
“I told him it was about time he grew a pair and asked you out,” Sherry said. “Because either he needed to nut up or shut up.”
Nut up or shut up
, I mouthed rather aggressively at Darren, who responded with another of his dying moose sounds.
“And apparently he did and here you are,” Sherry said. “I never would have thought he had it in him.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh
really
. Is
that
what he told you happened? Because if he did, then he didn’t nut up at all. Maybe nutted up with his
lies
.”
“I
knew
he was lying,” Sherry crowed. “I’ve told him to get over himself for
years
and just ask you out already. But he was always like, ‘Mom, you don’t understand.’” Her voice had dropped in an approximation of her son and it was
glorious
. “Sandy’s not like everyone else. He’s too perfect. You just don’t get it. God. Just let me sit here and stew in my man pain.’” She rolled her eyes fondly. “Always the drama queen, that one. One time, when he was nine—maybe ten?—he came home from school crying that his life was over because the girl he liked in his class told him she thought his nose was too big. I told him he’d just have to grow into it. And look! He did. Mostly. And now he has a boyfriend. It’s like all his dreams came true.”
“Oh my god,” Darren moaned from behind me. By the tone of his voice, I thought it was possible he was dying. “This can’t be happening.”
“This is seriously the greatest day of my life,” I said rather breathlessly. Because even though I knew maybe things weren’t quite the way they’d been when we’d started, I didn’t know it’d apparently been
years
that he’d been—“He was
pining
over me!”
“Pretty much,” Sherry said. “Trust me when I say I pretty much know every detail of your routines at the club.
Excruciating
detail. Especially when you apparently did this backward crabwalk thing? According to Darren, it was amazing to watch, but I think that was just a euphemism for things no mother should ever hear from her son.
Sexual
things.”
“Maybe we should just—” Darren tried (and failed miserably).
“I asked
him
out,” I said, because it was sort of true. And also sort of not, but still. Mostly true.
“Did you? Because see, that makes more sense.” She looked over my shoulder at her son and said, “I
knew
you couldn’t do it, but like any good mother, I kept my mouth shut. Even though you
lied
.” She looked back at me. “How did it happen?”
I was enjoying this far more than I probably should have. “Well, once upon a time, there was the most beautiful of drag queens—”
“Oh Jesus,” Darren snapped as he came up beside me, his face redder than I’d ever seen it before. He wouldn’t even look at me, the poor man, though I suppose if all my secrets were being revealed, I’d feel the same. “We are
not
listening to that story again. Yes, fine. He asked me out, I said yes because I had nothing better to do—”
“A
hem
,” I said. “Oh, sorry. I just had something in my throat.”
“I said yes because it looked like Sandy was going to cry if I said—”
“
Ahem
. Gosh. I am so sorry. The pollen today is really quite bad. In the fall, even. Who would have thought? Damn you, global warning. Argh.”
“Because he kept
pushing
—”
“A-
hem
.”
“Because I felt sorry for—”
I sneezed, quite pleased with the timing of it. Darren was not pleased if the look he shot me was any indication. “Excuse me,” I said pleasantly. “I have loud sneezes. Like a man.”
“Bless you,” Sherry said.
“I said yes,” Darren bit out, “because I was just so
overjoyed
.”
“Much better, bae,” I said. “Doesn’t the truth feel good? I bet it feels good. Your truth telling.”
He muttered something under his breath that I was sure was essentially confessing his undying admiration for my wit and my body.
“I like you,” Sherry said, eyeing me up and down. “Even if you don’t have a bedazzled couch.”
That shouldn’t have made me feel as happy as it did. “I like you as well. I blame Darren for not introducing us sooner.”
Darren said, “I don’t think this was a good—”
“It’s like he was trying to keep us apart or something.” Sherry pulled out her phone and handed it to me. “Put your number in there so we can talk about Darren behind his back. Matty already gives me updates, but I think they’d be better if they came directly from you. Then I can send you embarrassing photos of when he was younger. Do you know he went through a phase where he liked New Kids on the Block? And when I say liked, I mean obsessed. He had NKOTB lunch boxes and pajamas and posters and underwear. Though, in hindsight, it makes so much more sense now. He was gay for NKOTB.”
“Mom!”
She ignored him, nodding at her phone.
“Sandy!”
“Hush, bae. I’m doing something.” Once the number was programmed, I found the camera app, snapped a selfie that caught the edge of Darren’s glower, and made it the contact photo under my phone number. I sent a text to myself from her phone. “There,” I said, handing it back to her. “Now I can tell you about everything Darren does. Step by step. Ooh baby.”
Darren looked very pale at that.
“Maybe not everything,” I amended.
He looked less pale.
“But most things.”
His level of paleness did not change that I could see. I felt better about that.
She excused herself, briefly, to the restroom, leaving Darren and I alone for the first time since we were in the Queen’s Lair.
And he wouldn’t even look at me, the coward. His neck was still red, and apparently, he’d found something interesting on the wall to stare at.
“So,” I said.
He sighed, as if resigned to his fate.
I decided to go easy on him, because honestly, I was reeling just as much as he was. I was sure he hadn’t wanted it known that he’d basically wanted all up in my junk for years. Granted, I was going to give him so much crap later on, but still. His wounds were still fresh. I didn’t need to rub salt on them. At least not until they’d healed more. “I wasn’t nervous,” I said instead.
He snorted but still didn’t look at me. “Whatever.”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “You can ask anyone. I was the epitome of calm.”
“I went into the wrong doorway,” Sherry called from down the hall. “Why does your bedroom look like a tornado hit it? Did you literally try on everything you owned before we got here? And I can see where all the bedazzling went. It’s like walking inside a disco ball. I feel better about this now.”
Now
Darren looked at me, a bit of the cockiness returning. I refused to be intimidated by it. “Really,” he said. “You tried on everything you owned.”