[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.But he wanted to.He should probablyplan out what he was going to wear but, really& who cared? In lightof the fact that he was madly, crazily, hopelessly in love, and thatJohn loved him too, who gave a damn about wardrobe?343 He was smiling so hard his face hurt.The crew obviously noticed ittoo.On the trek from John s room back to his own, Ricardo receivedhis fair share of raised eyebrows and knowing looks.And he couldbarely contain himself from blurting out to everyone, I know, isn tit awesome? Though when he rounded the corner of the dorm hall, he felt hissmile slip.Sue s door was just a few feet away from his.He d needto pass it to get to his own room and his own shower.It was only adoor, the same as every other door in the hall.And yet, somethingabout its quiet vigilance made Ricardo feel as if maybe he shouldhave been there for Sue as she dealt with facing her first time onthe chopping block.He was dying to tell her that John had brokenthe L-word barrier& though he supposed he would need to wait for abetter time, now.He paused, made sure he looked appropriately somber, and rappedon her door. Who is it? she called.Startled? Anxious? Crying? Hardto tell. Ricardo. Hold on. Shuffling, and then the door opened a crack.Sue pressedher face through the small gap and said, Hey! Hey. She didn t look like she d been crying at least, not recently.But she looked strange without any makeup on and her hair all indisarray.Young.But still cute. So& how re you doing? I m okay, she said. Uh& you? Me? I m fine.I m not the one who has to go in front of Monty in anhour. Sue dropped her voice to a whisper. What do you mean? You know. Ricardo put on a bad Australian accent, And the344 magician going to the Final Four is&. Oh! Yeah.That. Sue shrugged. I ll be fine, Ricardo.Whateverhappens. Okay&. Before he could determine if she was actually fine, or if she was justreally good at putting on a cheerful face, she said, But I gotta getready now.I ll see you downstairs, and closed the door.Was she angry with him for disappearing after the last challenge andthen waiting until an hour before taping to touch base? He hoped shewasn t.She didn t sound angry, though she did sound somehow&odd.He went into his room and picked out tuxedo slacks, a vest, anda silk shirt with flowing sleeves, hung them by the shower so anywrinkles could steam out of them, and turned on the water& but hecouldn t stop thinking about how strange and distracted Sue hadseemed.She probably hadn t meant for him to give up on talking to her soeasily.Ricardo glanced at the clock.He still had plenty of time.He dsimply go knock again and&.Just as he opened his door, Sue opened hers.Or so he assumed.Untilhe realized it wasn t Sue at all stepping through that door.It was Monty Shaw.He was wearing jeans (Ricardo had never seen him in jeans) andsandals (ditto) and a slinky burgundy T-shirt that made the shadeof blue in his eyes sparkle like a sun-drenched sky and his hairwas wet, as if he d just washed it.They locked gazes, both startled.Monty recovered first.He smiled shyly, and said, G day. 345 Hey. Guess I ll& see you downstairs, too. With that, Monty closed Sue sdoor carefully behind him, turned, and headed off to wardrobe.Sue d been acting weird, all right.What a relief it had nothing to dowith him and that it was good-weird.Once Ricardo had dressed and the stylists were finished with him, hemade his way to the ballroom.The tension there was thick enoughto cut with a knife.The women, each of them up for elimination, satquietly.Kevin Kazan paced by the window like he wanted to escape.Monty, in a snazzy gray Armani and his hair styled, was running lineswith Iain.John was still in makeup.Although Ricardo didn t wantto make anybody cry into their foundation, he couldn t simply saynothing to his girls.Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that Suehad received her fair share of consolation the night before, sinceshe seemed a heck of a lot more collected than he d seen her inquite some time.He wedged himself between Sue and Bev on the sofa and put anarm around each of them.He gave them a squeeze and said, It ll beokay. Although it wouldn t.At least one of them was going home.He glanced up as John strode in, striking in his lean black suit.Johnpaused, framed by the archway, as if he was considering where toplace himself in the room, but before he needed to choose whetherto join Kevin or everyone else, Iain sent them to their marks andthe process of setting up the scene began.John stood center back,between Kevin and Ricardo.Ricardo would have loved to tell Johnhow tempting he looked in that suit (with cufflinks? Oh yes.) Butdoing it with Kevin right there just felt wrong.Still, when John allowedtheir upper arms to brush, Ricardo could hardly keep himself fromshouting at the crew to hurry up already and get it all over with.Because couldn t they see he and John had better things to do?346 Finally, after what seemed like half the morning, tape rolled.Montysmiled at the small group of magicians while Ricardo pondered howstrange it must feel for Sue to be facing her new beau across theroom at least as strange as standing right beside him, unable totouch anything more than elbows.On Iain s go-ahead, Monty began: Greetings, Magicians.I suspectyou re eager to hear who will be moving on to the Final Four
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]