Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
She hurried off before I could ask any probing questions.
I plucked another canapé from a passing tray and let my eyes wander over the room, homing in on Gerard and Colin, deep in conversation with Penelope. Alistair was nearby, chatting with a sophisticated gentleman in a tuxedo. I watched the three men while sipping champagne, looking for clues to their past, like a paparazzi dropout arriving at the scene of a crime a few years too late.
Pathetic. And very un-me.
Later, at the hotel that night, I changed my clothes in my room, and opened one of the emergency packages of Jammie Dodgers Raine had packed. I nibbled on the corners, lifted the top cookie, and licked jam from the center as I pondered the state of affairs.
Dr. Creighton was a big fucking deal.
I’d known he was brilliant and sought-after, but it was something else to see him in action, surrounded by fellow scholars who hung on his every word. To me he was Alistair, the professor, the geeky hunk who told stories about people who’d lived thousands of years ago and knew the history of practically every major city around the globe. He was the guy who lost his phone on the regular and had no concept of popular culture.
And he was from a world I would never in a million years be part of.
Damn it, I wished I’d taken French in high school. I wished I’d liked school more and had more than a passing interest in history.
I wished I had more time with Alistair…away from his adoring fans and anything that might remind him that I really didn’t belong here.
I choked down another Jammie Dodger and told myself to snap out of it. I had to keep my head in the game and my heart out of the equation.
The conference officially began the next day.
Alistair dressed, as per usual, in khakis and a matching sweater. He also wore one black sock, one navy sock, forgot to shave, and couldn’t find his phone.
“Here’s your phone,” I said, slipping it into his back pocket. “Shave first. And just a suggestion…lose the brown sweater, wear your new blue one instead, and let’s go with navy socks.”
“Right. Good thinking.” Alistair smiled hesitantly. “You don’t have to stick around for this part. You’ll be bored to tears. Go explore, have fun.”
“Are you kidding? Who’s gonna make sure you remember that King Tut was the most famous pharaoh in ancient times?”
“That’s historically inaccurate. King Tut had a rather insignificant reign, and his death brought an end to his bloodline. His successors did their best to tarnish Tutankhamun’s name. Little did they know that King Tut’s burial site would make him a household name centuries later and—” Alistair dragged his razor along his jaw as his gaze flitted to me. “You knew that didn’t you?”
“I’m smarter than I look,” I bluffed.
Yep, I was a new man this morning. I’d had my internal pity party for one last night and officially moved on. This conference was not about moi. I was here to support Alistair, and damn it, I was going to do my job.
He chuckled lightly. “You’re brilliant.”
“So are you, and you’re going to be awesome.”
And he was.
I’d been a DragCon regular every year for almost a decade, but that was the extent of my foray into conferences. Thousands of queers and allies celebrating drag culture and self-expression with a chance to see your favorite queens was too juicy a ticket to pass up—club music, rainbow-infused everything, and discussion panels highlighting topics like fashion, makeup, wigs, and queer activism. Loved it.
This…was nothing like that.
The atmosphere in the conference room was serious with a capital S. The speakers’ names, the topics they were covering, and the times were listed on a teleprompter and on an embossed program in the lobby.
The air of excitement was palpable.
But geez, it was…b-o-ring. I wasn’t sure how anyone could make the topic of museum funding exciting, but the new dig in Egypt sounded promising. Unfortunately, the speakers lacked pizzazz. No snappy one-liners and no jokes to lighten the mood.
I sat through three speeches, fell asleep in my chair before lunch and pressed repeat in the afternoon.
Until Alistair took the stage at the end of the day.
In a twist, my man was the Mick Jagger of Egyptology. The room went bonkers. They stood for the professor as he made his way to the podium, applauding with gusto.
I overheard whispers of the time he’d given the Prince of Wales a tour of some important king’s tomb at the British Museum and the award the duke of fuck-knows-where had presented him at Oxford. Alistair was the best of the best. He was the guy every archeologist wanted on speed dial. He was well-connected, brilliant, ebullient, and had an uncanny ability to retain thousands of years’ worth of obscure history in his brain.