Midwinter Night's Dream
Loose Id Titles by Whitley Gray
MIDWINTER NIGHT’S DREAM
Whitley Gray
www.loose-id.com
Midwinter Night’s Dream
Copyright © December 2013 by Whitley Gray
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Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
eISBN 9781623006532
Editor: Venessa Giunta
Cover Artist: GD Leigh
Published in the United States of America
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One
“It’s your call, Joe, but maybe you should wait until morning.” Gretchen Fillmore propped herself against the doorjamb between the condo’s garage and kitchen and waved toward the garage door. It was December twenty-second. “It’s snowing.”
At fifty, Gretchen looked a decade younger, face framed by expensively cut and colored hair and dressed in the latest high-end winter fashion. With a knack for picking out raw talent, she’d made a career out of taking unknowns and making them stars. For Joe she’d made a career out of keeping secrets, and he trusted her. The only thing he’d miss about getting out of the modeling and acting business was Gretchen.
Joe threw his overloaded duffel on top of the cooler in the back of his Jeep Cherokee. He’d been lucky the snow had held off until his flight had landed at Denver International. Otherwise he might have spent the weekend in LAX, waiting for a flight. “The Jeep can handle it. And if I’m snowed in, I’d rather it be somewhere the media vultures can’t find me.”
The paparazzi were everywhere. After finding a photographer in his window well at Thanksgiving, he’d decided they were as pervasive as weeds in the garden—and twice as noxious and unwelcome.
“You’re going to miss Escalade’s Christmas party.”
“It’s not in my contract.” He slammed the rear tailgate closed and turned. “Two years is enough of LA for this guy.”
“You’re the best spokesmodel they’ve ever had. Sure you don’t want to re-up?”
“No, Gretch.” Nothing she said could convince him to keep living that superficial existence. He couldn’t take any more manufactured happiness, and he wanted—needed—his life back. In two hours, he’d have relief from the fishbowl of Hollywood. His phone buzzed, and he dug it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and groaned. Christ almighty. This was it. After this call, the phone was off.
“This is Joe.”
“Darling, where are you?” Cosmo’s soprano voice was too bright, too full of conjured enthusiasm. This most recent pseudo-girlfriend the studio had arranged had gotten too caught up in make-believe and wanted more than being his one-plus at events.
“I’m busy, Cosmo. Why?”
“I’m standing on your doorstep, holding a fabulous bottle of Malbec. I thought we could have a drink.”
What the hell?
“Why are you there?”
“Visiting you, silly. You can’t spend Christmas alone.”
Watch me
. “Sorry you wasted your time. I’m not in LA. I decided to take a vacation after all, and I won’t be back until after Christmas.”
“I can come to you.” Cosmo’s voice had gone low, sultry.
Sometimes plain language was the only thing the woman understood. “No.”
She gave a put-out sigh. “I could make you happy if you’d only let me—”
“Sorry, you’re…can’t hear…sorry.” He hit End and then turned the phone off.
Gretchen gave a wry smile. “Let me guess.”
Joe shook his head and headed for the door to the kitchen. “I never should’ve agreed to be seen with anyone who named herself after a fruity drink.” Thanks to Cosmo, he knew the ingredients, even if he’d never had so much of a sip of the concoction. Joe stuck to drinks perceived as macho, like beer and whiskey on the rocks. Throughout his adult life, he’d been around men who didn’t tolerate anything remotely seen as gay. “The woman doesn’t understand the concept of being seen and nothing else. It’s been hard to put her off. She expects… Well, you know what she expects.”
“You’re going to leave her hanging?” Gretchen moved into the kitchen, and Joe followed.
“I told her after the Emmys there’s nothing between us, and that we’re done. What else can I do?” Joe poured coffee into a thermos bottle and capped it. The cold of Colorado was a shock after the mild December weather of LA.
“You know what the ultimate solution would be.”
“And you know why I can’t do that.” Last year Christmas had been very difficult. After imbibing too much at Escalade’s company party on Christmas Eve, he’d spent the holiday with Gretchen, christening her commode with recycled whiskey and beer and christening her ears with the news that he was in mourning for Bryce—and gay.
One more reason not to go to the party—bad memories. At least it had been Gretchen; she’d turned out to be a staunch supporter and trusted confidante.
“Sure you want to go? That it won’t be too much alone?” Gretchen asked.
“Yes, I want to go, and no, it won’t be too much. I need to do this. I appreciate you picking me up at the airport tonight. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
“Thanks. I’m staying with friends in Denver for the holidays. Sure you won’t join us?”
Joe grunted, shrugged into his alpine parka, and retrieved the thermos from the counter. “Thanks, but no.”
“You won’t stay until morning? Get an early start?”
A perfectly reasonable suggestion. But he needed to be at the cabin and by himself by December twenty-third. That anniversary required solitude. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I need to get going.”
Gretchen nodded. “If you change your mind, I’ll be in Denver through New Year’s.” Her eyes were too shiny, and she let her hair fall forward. When he headed for the garage, she followed him and watched as he slid behind the wheel.
“Thanks. For everything, Gretch. I’ll be in touch when I get back.”
“Call if you need anything.”
Joe nodded and started the motor. His phone was off, and soon there wouldn’t be cell service anyway. He didn’t plan on talking to anyone until after New Year’s. No one alive, that is.
Chapter Two
“This one pays extra,” Smitty said, rolling the soggy cigar stump to the other side of his mouth.
“How much extra?” Errol asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.
He and Smitty were the only ones left at Pour Vous at five o’clock on Friday, three days before Christmas. At one time, the building had been an upscale theater but had gone the way of the dinosaur in the age of the multiplex. Smitty purchased the building at auction and set up his costume rental shop.
Outside, the streetlights illuminated the snow falling from the sky. In the lobby of the defunct theater, frost had formed in the tired storefront windows, diffusing the color from the Christmas lights into blurry blobs. The frost camouflaged the lower half of the life-size Marilyn Monroe cutout and the scraggly aluminum Christmas tree in the window display. Scratchy speakers filtered canned holiday music. Bing Crosby was dreaming of a white Christmas, and apparently it was a dream come true, judging by the street.
Errol eyed his boss. “Are we talking a couple of bucks? It’s not worth it if—”
“Twice the usual rate.” Smitty chomped the cigar and grinned, going back to counting the register on the former concessions counter.
Errol frowned. “Why? Do they expect the full Monty? Because I don’t do that—”
“No. They expect the usual. But this is the Friday before a holiday weekend, they want delivery after dark, and it’s out in the toolies. Plus it’s snowing. The guy paid cash.”
Errol turned and looked out the storefront. The white stuff had been coming down off and on all day but hadn’t amounted to much. Now the fine flakes had turned to fat feathers and were accumulating on the sidewalk and the cars parked outside. He could ask Andrew, but the loan would come with a price. Older, kinder, jollier Andrew with his affable ways and his art gallery and his love of younger men. A connoisseur of younger men, really.
Are you really willing to sink that low?
“I can give it to Pete if you don’t want it,” Smitty said. He leaned back in his chair, and it squeaked as he eyeballed Errol over the tops of his reading glasses.
Rent was overdue, and the landlord had left a note this morning that was more than a nudge. Errol took a deep breath. “How far out is it?”
Smitty waved his hand in the air, vaguely pointing to the west. “Outside of town. There are directions.”
Errol’s share would be seventy-five dollars. That would pay up the rent and leave enough for gas and groceries. “What do they want?”
Smitty smiled and shifted the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “A pretty boy dressed as a construction worker. It’s a birthday. You know the drill, smart guy.”
Errol grimaced. Yeah, he did. He had a college degree, for Pete’s sake. Why was he doing this?
Because you want to eat, idiot. The economy sucks, remember?
“What’ll it be, Errol? ’Cause if it’s a no, I need to get ahold of Pete.”
Errol forced a smile. “I’ll take it.”
“Got your 501s and your boots on already, so that’s handled. The stubble and the shaggy hair are good. They like that rough look.” Smitty’s lecherous up-down look had everything to do with business and nothing to do with a come-on—there was a Mrs. Smitty at home—but the thought of Walter Smithwick playing on Errol’s team was enough to make him slightly nauseated. “Go get a shirt and hardhat from the back.”
The storeroom smelled like stale sweat, the remnants of fabric freshener, and old wood, almost like a theater minus the scent of greasepaint and sawdust. Errol shoved his way through the costumes to the plastic bins that held various hats and found one that was clean.
How Pour Vous managed to do any business as a costume shop, Errol had no idea. The few times he had assisted someone with a rental, it’d been like hacking through the jungle. Most of the time it seemed the telegrams constituted the main source of income.
The costume gig had its monetary moments. At Halloween, Smitty had jacked the rental prices up by double, and it had been a rental bonanza, despite the odiferous and worn appearance of most of the selection. When Smitty had heard about Errol’s acting and theater background, he was thrilled to get him for the minimum-wage part-time job of costume attendant, figuring he could somehow entice the customers into more extravagant outfits. Smitty had never heard the stories, never heard of Carson Malachek—emphasis on the “mal,” in Errol’s opinion—and it wasn’t likely Smitty would have cared.
