Page 20 of Her Drag Barbarian

“You two are nothing but a pair of disgusting unicorn hunters!” she snapped, moving quickly down the hall and away from me.

“We’re not apairof anything!” I yelled at her but of course it was pointless.

I huffed in annoyance. Well, there went a perfectly promising potential date.

“OK, you can let me go,” I told Beau irritably, “She’s gone now.” But he still had his arm draped around me, his tongue still moving up and down my neck, like he wanted to taste me. My skin began to prickle with the contact, and I hoped it was just annoyance at him. I shoved my elbow in his throat and he reluctantly let me go.

“You’re an asshole,” I said, walking back to where the guys had started to pack away all the food.

“If I can’t have sex, you can’t either,” he said, looking down the hall at me.

“No one said you couldn’t have sex!” I yelled back at him. “I just said you can’t suck adickin the middle of yourshow!”

10

ELOWYN

Iwas looking at the death threats the drag club had gotten, trying to see if I could Hercule Poirot some shit out of them. They all looked the same, and there had been a new one this morning. Like all the others, it consisted of neatly-cut letters spelling out all the doom and destruction that the letter-writer wanted to wreak on the drag club. I sighed. My thoughts lingered pleasantly on the idea that it might be Beau and he’d have to flee back to France and get out of my hair. But I didn’t think he had the patience for trimming all these letters into the exact same geometric shapes.

There hadn’t been any disturbances since I had hired extra security, but it would be nice to be able to catch the person writing these letters, so we didn’t have to constantly throw money at security when we didn’t even know where the threat was coming from.

I was learning exactly jackshit when Cody burst into the room.

“You’re supposed to knock,” I said automatically.

I really needed to fucking lock that door.

“I need help, Elowyn, and I don’t know who else to talk to!” he said.

Uh-oh. I was just about to say that that sounded like a job for somebody else, when I realized that that person wasme. I was the one here pretending to be a conflict management specialist.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

His wide, cornfed face looked distressed, and he ran a hand through short blonde hair.

“My brother is threatening to tell my parents that I do drag,” he said. “And I’m afraid that they’ll stop paying for my college. I need it as backup in case this drag thing doesn’t work out.”

“What an asshole,” I said indignantly. “Why is he doing this?”

“I don’t know,” said Cody unhappily. “I guess he’s just a little shit.”

“Can’t you tell him not to?” I asked. “Tell him you’ll beat him up if he does or something.”

Cody looked unhappier than ever. “I don’t want to do that,” he said. “I’m more of your gentle giant type. Can you go talk to him?”

I sighed and got to my feet. I wasn’t getting anywhere with the creepy hand-cut death threats anyway.

“Fine,” I said. “But you owe me, Cody. In return you will clean and tidy the dressing room because Deiondre says you’re all a bunch of slobs and he’s the only one who does it.”

“I will,” Cody said eagerly, running down to the supply closet for the broom and vacuum.

I grabbed my keys and locked my office, and when I turned to go, I ran right into Beau’s chest.

“Stop coming up so close behind me!” I said irritably. “I’m going to get pinkeye from your pecs in my face all the time.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, and I saw a frown flash across his face. “I thought you were going to come to the planning meeting with Muggsy to help find music for the upcoming shows.”

“I can’t,” I said shortly. “I have to go convince Cody’s little shithead brother not to tell their parents he does drag.”

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