Nights 'Round the Table (4/14)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen
“Good morning,” Leon greeted, his eyes never leaving the large flat-screen monitor on his desk. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the thermos on your desk, and your first meeting is in an hour.”
“Cancel it,” Arthur told him dropping his coat and satchel on the chair just inside his office door. “Cancel everything today, for me and for you. I’ve got an emergency on my hands.”
Leon looked up from his work, concern written all over his face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Morgana happened, and now I rather desperately need your help.”
“Of course,” Leon said, more wary than concerned now. “Just let me make a couple phone calls.”
“You are a saint,” Arthur told him.
“I am.” Leon’s voice followed Arthur into his office. “That’s why you’re planning to give me a sizable raise when reviews come up in January.”
“Are you sure?” Arthur asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “I was thinking maybe just an extra nice bouquet for your desk come Administrative Professionals Day.”
“I shudder to think what your idea of a ‘nice’ bouquet would be.”
Arthur just grinned, and kicked back in the chair behind his desk.
Hiring Leon had been, without question, one of the best decisions Arthur had ever made. He’d heard other executives say their personal assistants were worth their weight in gold, but Arthur didn’t think all the gold in the world could even come close to what Leon was worth. He anticipated Arthur’s needs with almost uncanny precision, and managed to keep Arthur’s schedule from getting unreasonably full without ever letting anyone feel even the tiniest bit slighted.
And, over the years, he’d come to be a good friend. Not that Arthur would ever tell him that, of course.
“Your schedule for the day is now completely free,” Leon said just as Arthur drained the last of the coffee from his cup.
Leon fixed Arthur with a serious gaze as he closed the door to Arthur’s office behind him. “What’s the emergency? Am I going to have to bribe another amateur would-be photojournalist with Giants tickets again? I would have thought you’d learned to check your blinds before showering by now.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Arthur reassured him. “I need your help with shoes.”
Leon nodded as though this were a perfectly normal thing for Arthur to be asking about. “Just tell me what event you’re attending, and I can find you something appropriate. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour or two, really. And there was no need to cancel any of your appointments.”
Arthur shook his head. “Not for me. I need you to help me find women’s shoes.”
Leon’s eyebrows climbed almost to his hairline.
“I went to a club with Morgana. There was this band. And this obscenely hot drummer, and this woman in pink. And did I mention Morgana?” Arthur was not whining. He wasn’t. He was just... explaining. Yes. Explaining.
“And you’re sure no amateur photojournalists were involved?”
Arthur gave Leon a withering look.
“Right,” Leon said. “So, now you owe Morgana a pair of shoes?”
“Not Morgana. The woman in pink.” Arthur pulled a photo up on his phone and handed it to Leon. “These shoes, to be precise.”
Leon studied the picture, which Morgana had so kindly texted Arthur twenty minutes before his alarm went off that morning. He didn’t even want to know why Morgana had snapped a picture of Gwen’s legs that night at the club.
“Nice shoes,” Leon said. “What happened to the pair in the picture?”
Arthur winced. He’d really been hoping that subject wouldn’t come up. “I sort of... vomited all over them. According to Morgana, anyway.”
“Ah,” Leon said. “If you need to make up for that much of a blunder, I know exactly the place to find a replacement. Grab your coat. You can tell me along the way how you came to be clubbing with Morgana and throwing up on unsuspecting women with fantastic fashion sense.”
By the time he led Arthur into a small boutique in the Haight, Leon was quite obviously stifling laughter.
“I’m going to start hiding little notes in your wallet,” Leon told him. “Like ‘Don’t accept drinks from your sister.’”
“I didn’t hire you to leave me notes,” Arthur said acidly. Although, come to think of it, that sort of was what he’d hired Leon for, more or less.
“Leon!” A slender, dark-haired woman greeted them at the entrance of the boutique, leaning in to kiss Leon on each cheek. “Darling, it’s been ages. Where on earth have you been hiding? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and let those hoity-toity bastards you work for keep you too busy for us common folk, hmm?”
Arthur threw Leon a betrayed look, but Leon was quite pointedly not looking at him.
“Bettina, you wound me,” Leon said. “You know I would never let anything keep me from basking in the light of your charm.”
Bettina let out a very unladylike snort of disbelief. “I see your flirting hasn’t gotten rusty, at least. Now what can I do for you today, sweet?”
“Oh, not for me, dear lady,” Leon said. “My friend here is looking for a replacement for a pair of shoes that got ruined. But,” he added at the sight of Bettina’s (quite put on, Arthur was sure) pout, “that doesn’t mean I can’t have a look around myself.”
Bettina looked Arthur up and down. “Well, I don’t know that we carry much that’ll fit your style, but I’m willing to do my best for a friend of Leon’s. What’s your name, honey?”
“Arthur Pendragon,” he answered, “hoity-toity bastard at your service. And I’m not looking for myself.”
Bettina laughed. “Well, then, Hoity-Toity, why don’t you tell me what you are looking for, and we’ll see what we can do.”
“I’m looking for a replacement for these,” Arthur told her, pulling up the photo on his phone. “Do you have anything like that?” He thought maybe some of the shoes in the front window display might be close, but his knowledge of women’s shoes was pretty much limited to categorizing them into “professional wear,” “athletic shoes,” and “other.”
A frown line appeared between Bettina’s brows as she studied the photo. “I don’t know if we have anything quite like that,” she said with a dubious glance at Leon.
“Arthur threw up on that pair,” Leon said.
Arthur closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Maybe when he opened them, he would be in a world where he wasn’t constantly being humiliated by friends and family.
“I see,” Bettina said, nodding in understanding. Arthur wasn’t entirely sure that he understood, but if the woman could help him find a replacement for Gwen’s shoes, he didn’t really care what he might be missing. “What size are you looking for?” she asked Arthur.
“Size six and a half.”
“Let me see what options we’ve got, then,” Bettina said. “You boys feel free to browse.”
“You didn’t have to mention the vomit,” Arthur muttered under his breath as Bettina disappeared into what was presumably a storeroom.
“I really did,” Leon said. “Tell me about this drummer.”
“What drummer?” Arthur tried for innocence, but the look Leon gave him told him he’d failed miserably.
“Back at the office, you said something about a hot drummer,” Leon said, examining a pair of rhinestone-bedecked stiletto heels. “‘Obscenely hot,’ I think you said. And yet, your story was sadly lacking in hot drummers.”
Arthur shrugged, all nonchalance. “He was just the drummer for Gwen’s band. And he is kind of obscenely hot, but they all are, really. The whole band is like some sort of ad for unbelievably attractive people.”
“So, like our office, then?” Leon asked, moving on to a pair of dainty heeled sandals.
“That’s different,” Arthur said, waving a dismissive hand. “We’re in media. Attractiveness is practically a job requirement.”
“And here I thought that was only for people in front of the camera,” Leon said. “And stop trying to change the subject. You wouldn’t have brought up Sir Obscenely Hot if something about him weren’t bothering you, and I’d rather hear about it now than when you worry yourself into a mental breakdown over it. No one wants to see you go through that again.”
Arthur fiddled with the zipper on a pair of bright orange platform boots, not really seeing them. He was grateful that Leon at least hadn’t mentioned Vivian’s name, but he really hadn’t needed any reminder of that particular disaster.
“She’s getting married, you know,” he said after a few moments. “To a doctor. I saw the engagement announcement in the paper. There was a quarter-page spread of pictures.”
“I saw,” Leon said. “She looked happy.”
Arthur looked up from the shoes, a faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess she really did, didn’t she?”
“She did,” Leon confirmed. “Very happy.”
“All right,” Bettina said, returning with a stack of boxes. “Like I said before, we don’t have anything that’s an exact match, but I found six pairs in a size six and a half that are stylistically similar and, from what I could see in the picture, would work with the outfit your friend was wearing with the shoes that got ruined.”
Arthur eyed the boxes warily. He’d been hoping Bettina would bring him a single pair of shoes and tell him that hey were precisely what he needed. Maybe two pairs to choose from... but six was a bit more than he was prepared to handle.
Leon, however, took it all in stride. “You are truly a magic worker,” he told Bettina. “Show us what you’ve got.”
Bettina opened the first box and pulled out a pair of heels very similar to the rhinestone-encrusted monstrosities Leon had been admiring earlier, only these were covered in tiny metal studs instead of rhinestones. Arthur shook his head.
“No,” he said firmly. Fashion sense or no, those things were ugly. If he bought Gwen ugly shoes, Morgana would never forgive him. “Maybe something with a little less...hardware.”
“Less hardware,” Bettina said. “For a girl in a rock band.”
Arthur wrinkled his nose. “Less hardware for my sake.”
“Fine,” Bettina said, opening up the next box. “How about these, then?”
The next pair was definitely closer.
“Maybe?” Arthur said. “I sort of like the..” he trailed off, wiggling his fingers at the shoes in the hopes that his meaning would be understood.
“No. Too pink,” Leon said, shaking his head. “And the bow is a bit over the top.”
“Definitely over the top,” Arthur agreed. “But I like the little... toe-hole... thing.”
“I think he means the peep toe,” Leon interpreted for Bettina, who was giving Arthur a pained look.
“Sure,” Arthur said. “The peep toe.”
Bettina pulled the next two boxes off of her pile and set them aside. “So, more like this, then?” she asked, pulling the lid off the box underneath.
The shoes had little silver studs like the first pair had, but only outlining the edges of the black leather. There was a small leather cord tied in a bow at the back of each shoe, with small silver beads hanging from the ends of the cord.
“Bettina, you are, as always, pure genius,” Leon said. “Balmain wouldn’t even have occurred to me. Arthur, you are buying these shoes.”
“That’s why I’m the professional, honey,” Bettina said. “What do you think, Hoity-Toity? Will these suit your friend?”
“I think,” Arthur said slowly, “those will do just fine?” They mostly just looked like shoes to him, but if Leon liked them... “Yes,” he said, more firmly. “Those will do fine.”
Bettina sighed, packing the shoes back into their box with the utmost care. “Some people just don’t have the proper appreciation for fine shoes. I’ll get these wrapped up for you.”
“Thank you,” Arthur told her, then turned to Leon. “And thank you. If I’d have tried to do this by myself, I’d have been at it all day, and even if I’d tried this place, I would have ended up with the pink ones.”
“You can thank me by buying me lunch,” Leon said. “There’s a fantastic pizzeria right around the corner, and I know one of the guys who works the lunch rush, so I may be able to swing us some free coffee.”
Arthur nodded. He’d been planning on treating for lunch, anyway. “I think I want to put him on TV,” he said.
Leon frowned in confusion. “My friend at the pizza place? Don’t you think you ought to at least meet him first?”
“Not him,” Arthur said. “Although...” he paused thoughtfully. “Maybe him, actually. Morgana suggested something like a tour of local hole-in-the wall eateries, and good pizza is a staple food here. Do you think they’d be interested?”
“Possibly,” Leon said. “Let me know after you’ve seen the place if you think it’s a good fit, and I can contact the owner. So, who did you want to put on TV then?”
“The drummer,” Arthur said. “He’s also a chef, and I think he might be really good. Morgana certainly seems to think so. And, like I said, everyone there is sort of unbelievably attractive, so they’d look great on film.”
“I thought you said it was the band that was attractive.”
“They work at the same restaurant,” Arthur explained. “Most of them, anyway. It’s a nice place, too. Cozy, but not too small. Nice atmosphere. The entire staff is practically dripping with charisma. It’s like the place was made to be on television.”
“So, what’s the problem, then?” Leon asked. “You’ve been freaking out all week about finding a restaurant for your focus show, and it sounds like you’ve found one.”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just, that night at the club, we were sort of maybe flirting a little bit.”
“You and Obscenely Hot Drummer-Chef?”
“Yeah. Maybe more than a little bit,” Arthur admitted, “and then I made a complete ass of myself, and it turns out he went to school with Morgana of all people, and I just don’t know if it’s a good idea to try to work with him.”
Leon fixed him with a sober look. “Listen to me. You are Arthur Pendragon. I have seen you face down some of the world’s most powerful and terrifying executives, including your father, who is easily one of the most formidable men alive. You’re a damned fine businessman, and I can’t believe you’re honestly considering passing up an opportunity like this because it might make your personal life a little sticky. That’s not you, Arthur. You’re braver than that.”
“And what if my father finds out?” Arthur asked in a quiet voice. “About me. How exactly do you think Uther Pendragon, media god, is going to react to finding out his only son is queer?”
“Honestly,” Leon said, “I don’t think you give your father enough credit.” He held up a hand to forestall Arthur’s objections. “But even if he did freak out, even if he disowned you, you know I’d be right there to help you pick the pieces up, and so would Morgana. She’d probably kick your ass for not telling her yourself, and so would your entire staff... There’s a reason we all stick around, Arthur, and it isn’t Pendragon Broadcasting’s generous employee benefits package.”
Arthur didn’t really know what to say to that. He knew that his staff liked him well enough, and he worked hard to do right by them, even if Morgana sometimes teased him for worrying about it so much. But he’d never imagined they held him in the high esteem as Leon was suggesting.
“You can’t live your life in fear, Arthur,” Leon continued. “You know that. That’s what you told me the night you broke off your engagement. You said you couldn’t live your life being afraid of who you were and you couldn’t let fear stop you from going after what you really want. Are you really going to let fear stop you from making this show?”
Arthur stared at him for a long moment, then said, “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. About the show, anyway. I’m meeting Morgana tomorrow to check out another possible restaurant for the focus show, but even if they’re somehow a better fit, I’m going to offer Ambrosia a spot. In a tour show, maybe. Because they’re good at what they do, and I’m good at what I do, and I am going to make this the best damned television station on air.”
“Glad we got that sorted out,” Leon said, patting his shoulder. “Looks like Bettina’s got your shoes wrapped for you.”
“You really are a saint, you know,” Arthur told him as Bettina rang up his purchase. “I’ll even buy you two slices of pizza, if you want.”
Next
“Good morning,” Leon greeted, his eyes never leaving the large flat-screen monitor on his desk. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the thermos on your desk, and your first meeting is in an hour.”
“Cancel it,” Arthur told him dropping his coat and satchel on the chair just inside his office door. “Cancel everything today, for me and for you. I’ve got an emergency on my hands.”
Leon looked up from his work, concern written all over his face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Morgana happened, and now I rather desperately need your help.”
“Of course,” Leon said, more wary than concerned now. “Just let me make a couple phone calls.”
“You are a saint,” Arthur told him.
“I am.” Leon’s voice followed Arthur into his office. “That’s why you’re planning to give me a sizable raise when reviews come up in January.”
“Are you sure?” Arthur asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “I was thinking maybe just an extra nice bouquet for your desk come Administrative Professionals Day.”
“I shudder to think what your idea of a ‘nice’ bouquet would be.”
Arthur just grinned, and kicked back in the chair behind his desk.
Hiring Leon had been, without question, one of the best decisions Arthur had ever made. He’d heard other executives say their personal assistants were worth their weight in gold, but Arthur didn’t think all the gold in the world could even come close to what Leon was worth. He anticipated Arthur’s needs with almost uncanny precision, and managed to keep Arthur’s schedule from getting unreasonably full without ever letting anyone feel even the tiniest bit slighted.
And, over the years, he’d come to be a good friend. Not that Arthur would ever tell him that, of course.
“Your schedule for the day is now completely free,” Leon said just as Arthur drained the last of the coffee from his cup.
Leon fixed Arthur with a serious gaze as he closed the door to Arthur’s office behind him. “What’s the emergency? Am I going to have to bribe another amateur would-be photojournalist with Giants tickets again? I would have thought you’d learned to check your blinds before showering by now.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Arthur reassured him. “I need your help with shoes.”
Leon nodded as though this were a perfectly normal thing for Arthur to be asking about. “Just tell me what event you’re attending, and I can find you something appropriate. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour or two, really. And there was no need to cancel any of your appointments.”
Arthur shook his head. “Not for me. I need you to help me find women’s shoes.”
Leon’s eyebrows climbed almost to his hairline.
“I went to a club with Morgana. There was this band. And this obscenely hot drummer, and this woman in pink. And did I mention Morgana?” Arthur was not whining. He wasn’t. He was just... explaining. Yes. Explaining.
“And you’re sure no amateur photojournalists were involved?”
Arthur gave Leon a withering look.
“Right,” Leon said. “So, now you owe Morgana a pair of shoes?”
“Not Morgana. The woman in pink.” Arthur pulled a photo up on his phone and handed it to Leon. “These shoes, to be precise.”
Leon studied the picture, which Morgana had so kindly texted Arthur twenty minutes before his alarm went off that morning. He didn’t even want to know why Morgana had snapped a picture of Gwen’s legs that night at the club.
“Nice shoes,” Leon said. “What happened to the pair in the picture?”
Arthur winced. He’d really been hoping that subject wouldn’t come up. “I sort of... vomited all over them. According to Morgana, anyway.”
“Ah,” Leon said. “If you need to make up for that much of a blunder, I know exactly the place to find a replacement. Grab your coat. You can tell me along the way how you came to be clubbing with Morgana and throwing up on unsuspecting women with fantastic fashion sense.”
By the time he led Arthur into a small boutique in the Haight, Leon was quite obviously stifling laughter.
“I’m going to start hiding little notes in your wallet,” Leon told him. “Like ‘Don’t accept drinks from your sister.’”
“I didn’t hire you to leave me notes,” Arthur said acidly. Although, come to think of it, that sort of was what he’d hired Leon for, more or less.
“Leon!” A slender, dark-haired woman greeted them at the entrance of the boutique, leaning in to kiss Leon on each cheek. “Darling, it’s been ages. Where on earth have you been hiding? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and let those hoity-toity bastards you work for keep you too busy for us common folk, hmm?”
Arthur threw Leon a betrayed look, but Leon was quite pointedly not looking at him.
“Bettina, you wound me,” Leon said. “You know I would never let anything keep me from basking in the light of your charm.”
Bettina let out a very unladylike snort of disbelief. “I see your flirting hasn’t gotten rusty, at least. Now what can I do for you today, sweet?”
“Oh, not for me, dear lady,” Leon said. “My friend here is looking for a replacement for a pair of shoes that got ruined. But,” he added at the sight of Bettina’s (quite put on, Arthur was sure) pout, “that doesn’t mean I can’t have a look around myself.”
Bettina looked Arthur up and down. “Well, I don’t know that we carry much that’ll fit your style, but I’m willing to do my best for a friend of Leon’s. What’s your name, honey?”
“Arthur Pendragon,” he answered, “hoity-toity bastard at your service. And I’m not looking for myself.”
Bettina laughed. “Well, then, Hoity-Toity, why don’t you tell me what you are looking for, and we’ll see what we can do.”
“I’m looking for a replacement for these,” Arthur told her, pulling up the photo on his phone. “Do you have anything like that?” He thought maybe some of the shoes in the front window display might be close, but his knowledge of women’s shoes was pretty much limited to categorizing them into “professional wear,” “athletic shoes,” and “other.”
A frown line appeared between Bettina’s brows as she studied the photo. “I don’t know if we have anything quite like that,” she said with a dubious glance at Leon.
“Arthur threw up on that pair,” Leon said.
Arthur closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Maybe when he opened them, he would be in a world where he wasn’t constantly being humiliated by friends and family.
“I see,” Bettina said, nodding in understanding. Arthur wasn’t entirely sure that he understood, but if the woman could help him find a replacement for Gwen’s shoes, he didn’t really care what he might be missing. “What size are you looking for?” she asked Arthur.
“Size six and a half.”
“Let me see what options we’ve got, then,” Bettina said. “You boys feel free to browse.”
“You didn’t have to mention the vomit,” Arthur muttered under his breath as Bettina disappeared into what was presumably a storeroom.
“I really did,” Leon said. “Tell me about this drummer.”
“What drummer?” Arthur tried for innocence, but the look Leon gave him told him he’d failed miserably.
“Back at the office, you said something about a hot drummer,” Leon said, examining a pair of rhinestone-bedecked stiletto heels. “‘Obscenely hot,’ I think you said. And yet, your story was sadly lacking in hot drummers.”
Arthur shrugged, all nonchalance. “He was just the drummer for Gwen’s band. And he is kind of obscenely hot, but they all are, really. The whole band is like some sort of ad for unbelievably attractive people.”
“So, like our office, then?” Leon asked, moving on to a pair of dainty heeled sandals.
“That’s different,” Arthur said, waving a dismissive hand. “We’re in media. Attractiveness is practically a job requirement.”
“And here I thought that was only for people in front of the camera,” Leon said. “And stop trying to change the subject. You wouldn’t have brought up Sir Obscenely Hot if something about him weren’t bothering you, and I’d rather hear about it now than when you worry yourself into a mental breakdown over it. No one wants to see you go through that again.”
Arthur fiddled with the zipper on a pair of bright orange platform boots, not really seeing them. He was grateful that Leon at least hadn’t mentioned Vivian’s name, but he really hadn’t needed any reminder of that particular disaster.
“She’s getting married, you know,” he said after a few moments. “To a doctor. I saw the engagement announcement in the paper. There was a quarter-page spread of pictures.”
“I saw,” Leon said. “She looked happy.”
Arthur looked up from the shoes, a faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess she really did, didn’t she?”
“She did,” Leon confirmed. “Very happy.”
“All right,” Bettina said, returning with a stack of boxes. “Like I said before, we don’t have anything that’s an exact match, but I found six pairs in a size six and a half that are stylistically similar and, from what I could see in the picture, would work with the outfit your friend was wearing with the shoes that got ruined.”
Arthur eyed the boxes warily. He’d been hoping Bettina would bring him a single pair of shoes and tell him that hey were precisely what he needed. Maybe two pairs to choose from... but six was a bit more than he was prepared to handle.
Leon, however, took it all in stride. “You are truly a magic worker,” he told Bettina. “Show us what you’ve got.”
Bettina opened the first box and pulled out a pair of heels very similar to the rhinestone-encrusted monstrosities Leon had been admiring earlier, only these were covered in tiny metal studs instead of rhinestones. Arthur shook his head.
“No,” he said firmly. Fashion sense or no, those things were ugly. If he bought Gwen ugly shoes, Morgana would never forgive him. “Maybe something with a little less...hardware.”
“Less hardware,” Bettina said. “For a girl in a rock band.”
Arthur wrinkled his nose. “Less hardware for my sake.”
“Fine,” Bettina said, opening up the next box. “How about these, then?”
The next pair was definitely closer.
“Maybe?” Arthur said. “I sort of like the..” he trailed off, wiggling his fingers at the shoes in the hopes that his meaning would be understood.
“No. Too pink,” Leon said, shaking his head. “And the bow is a bit over the top.”
“Definitely over the top,” Arthur agreed. “But I like the little... toe-hole... thing.”
“I think he means the peep toe,” Leon interpreted for Bettina, who was giving Arthur a pained look.
“Sure,” Arthur said. “The peep toe.”
Bettina pulled the next two boxes off of her pile and set them aside. “So, more like this, then?” she asked, pulling the lid off the box underneath.
The shoes had little silver studs like the first pair had, but only outlining the edges of the black leather. There was a small leather cord tied in a bow at the back of each shoe, with small silver beads hanging from the ends of the cord.
“Bettina, you are, as always, pure genius,” Leon said. “Balmain wouldn’t even have occurred to me. Arthur, you are buying these shoes.”
“That’s why I’m the professional, honey,” Bettina said. “What do you think, Hoity-Toity? Will these suit your friend?”
“I think,” Arthur said slowly, “those will do just fine?” They mostly just looked like shoes to him, but if Leon liked them... “Yes,” he said, more firmly. “Those will do fine.”
Bettina sighed, packing the shoes back into their box with the utmost care. “Some people just don’t have the proper appreciation for fine shoes. I’ll get these wrapped up for you.”
“Thank you,” Arthur told her, then turned to Leon. “And thank you. If I’d have tried to do this by myself, I’d have been at it all day, and even if I’d tried this place, I would have ended up with the pink ones.”
“You can thank me by buying me lunch,” Leon said. “There’s a fantastic pizzeria right around the corner, and I know one of the guys who works the lunch rush, so I may be able to swing us some free coffee.”
Arthur nodded. He’d been planning on treating for lunch, anyway. “I think I want to put him on TV,” he said.
Leon frowned in confusion. “My friend at the pizza place? Don’t you think you ought to at least meet him first?”
“Not him,” Arthur said. “Although...” he paused thoughtfully. “Maybe him, actually. Morgana suggested something like a tour of local hole-in-the wall eateries, and good pizza is a staple food here. Do you think they’d be interested?”
“Possibly,” Leon said. “Let me know after you’ve seen the place if you think it’s a good fit, and I can contact the owner. So, who did you want to put on TV then?”
“The drummer,” Arthur said. “He’s also a chef, and I think he might be really good. Morgana certainly seems to think so. And, like I said, everyone there is sort of unbelievably attractive, so they’d look great on film.”
“I thought you said it was the band that was attractive.”
“They work at the same restaurant,” Arthur explained. “Most of them, anyway. It’s a nice place, too. Cozy, but not too small. Nice atmosphere. The entire staff is practically dripping with charisma. It’s like the place was made to be on television.”
“So, what’s the problem, then?” Leon asked. “You’ve been freaking out all week about finding a restaurant for your focus show, and it sounds like you’ve found one.”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just, that night at the club, we were sort of maybe flirting a little bit.”
“You and Obscenely Hot Drummer-Chef?”
“Yeah. Maybe more than a little bit,” Arthur admitted, “and then I made a complete ass of myself, and it turns out he went to school with Morgana of all people, and I just don’t know if it’s a good idea to try to work with him.”
Leon fixed him with a sober look. “Listen to me. You are Arthur Pendragon. I have seen you face down some of the world’s most powerful and terrifying executives, including your father, who is easily one of the most formidable men alive. You’re a damned fine businessman, and I can’t believe you’re honestly considering passing up an opportunity like this because it might make your personal life a little sticky. That’s not you, Arthur. You’re braver than that.”
“And what if my father finds out?” Arthur asked in a quiet voice. “About me. How exactly do you think Uther Pendragon, media god, is going to react to finding out his only son is queer?”
“Honestly,” Leon said, “I don’t think you give your father enough credit.” He held up a hand to forestall Arthur’s objections. “But even if he did freak out, even if he disowned you, you know I’d be right there to help you pick the pieces up, and so would Morgana. She’d probably kick your ass for not telling her yourself, and so would your entire staff... There’s a reason we all stick around, Arthur, and it isn’t Pendragon Broadcasting’s generous employee benefits package.”
Arthur didn’t really know what to say to that. He knew that his staff liked him well enough, and he worked hard to do right by them, even if Morgana sometimes teased him for worrying about it so much. But he’d never imagined they held him in the high esteem as Leon was suggesting.
“You can’t live your life in fear, Arthur,” Leon continued. “You know that. That’s what you told me the night you broke off your engagement. You said you couldn’t live your life being afraid of who you were and you couldn’t let fear stop you from going after what you really want. Are you really going to let fear stop you from making this show?”
Arthur stared at him for a long moment, then said, “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. About the show, anyway. I’m meeting Morgana tomorrow to check out another possible restaurant for the focus show, but even if they’re somehow a better fit, I’m going to offer Ambrosia a spot. In a tour show, maybe. Because they’re good at what they do, and I’m good at what I do, and I am going to make this the best damned television station on air.”
“Glad we got that sorted out,” Leon said, patting his shoulder. “Looks like Bettina’s got your shoes wrapped for you.”
“You really are a saint, you know,” Arthur told him as Bettina rang up his purchase. “I’ll even buy you two slices of pizza, if you want.”
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