Quick Fix (13 page)

“You were pissed as hell, and I don’t blame you. I should never have—”

“That’s okay. I’m all over it. Really. No problem. It was the situation. I realize that now.”

“And what about Billy? Are you all over him, too?”

An image of me “all over” Billy popped into my head, along with the treacherous thought
Not yet, but soon.
Which kind of worried me. I mean, it was one thing to succumb to Billy’s legendary charm while I was with him—there probably wasn’t a straight woman alive immune to it—but I was standing not six inches from the man who had occupied my adolescent fantasies for years, who
still
made my heart race, and Billy was sticking his face in? That couldn’t be good. What if whatever I was feeling for Billy was more than could be gotten rid of by scratching the itch?

Not that it was any of Mark’s business. He wasn’t the boss of me. “And what if I’m not?” I said. “What if I don’t want to be over him?”

I recognized the irritated look. Mark had very little patience with people who didn’t do what he thought was best for them.

“We had this talk in Sweden.” As if that was that.

“You talked. I gave it careful consideration”—yeah, right—“and decided my private life is not your concern.”

He narrowed his eyes, going hard-ass on me. “You decide that all by yourself? Or did your cousin help you come to it?”

“
Honorary
cousin
,
” I said a little too quickly. It sounded defensive even to me.

“I don’t give a damn if he’s your twenty-seventh cousin twice removed. That’s not why he’s no good for you.”

“That’s not for you to say!”

“Isn’t it?” He took my shoulders and leaned in.

I almost let him kiss me. I came
that
close. But then part of me stepped up and said, uh-uh, no way. If he wanted to kiss me, he could damn well do it when he wasn’t trying to manipulate me.

I pulled back. “
Stop.
I know why you’re doing that, and it won’t work.”

“Oh, yeah? Why am I doing it?”

“Because you know I’ve had a crush on you since I was thirteen years old, and you think you can use it to distract me from Billy. And it isn’t very nice of you, either!”

“Is that so?”

“You know it is. You expect me to believe you’re all of a sudden attracted to me after years of treating me like a kid sister? Just when Billy starts paying attention to me? Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think? Well, I’m not buying it, and it’s not going to work.”

He didn’t back away from me physically, but he pulled into himself, retiring behind eyes as gray and chilly as an arctic afternoon. When he spoke again, his voice was remote. “If that’s the way you want it. Be careful, Ciel.” He turned and headed for the elevator housing.

Why did I just feel like I’d stepped in it?
Damn.

“Mark?” I said softly.

He stopped but didn’t look at me. “Yeah?”

“You’ll still help Billy out of this mess, won’t you? I mean, you wouldn’t … just because…” I trailed off, unable to think of a good way to ask if he’d sabotage a friend because of me.

His shoulders stiffened for a second before he relaxed them with a roll. “Yeah, Howdy. I’ll still help Billy.”

*   *   *

Mark saw me safely to James’s lab, where Molly slept soundly on the sofa in the alcove, crazy orange tufts of hair framing her still-simian face. James listened with only half an ear while Mark gave him the rundown on Billy, Brian, Thomas, and Laura. It was plain my brother was anxious to get back to whatever experiment we’d interrupted with our arrival. I only hoped he was close to a solution.

After Mark left—without even ruffling my hair, I thought with a pang—James excused himself to get back to work. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge if you’re hungry. There’s a cot in the supply closet if you want to get some sleep. Or, if you like, you can go over to my place. I can keep one eye on Molly while I’m working.”

I wasn’t really hungry, and I was far from sleepy. “Can I just keep you company, or will that disturb you?”

His eyes were distracted but gentle. “You won’t disturb me. I’m at the point of making sure the proverbial pot doesn’t boil over—not much to do but wait and watch.”

I pulled up a high stool. “Think you’ll be able to fix Molly?”

“I’d better. Can you imagine Mo if I don’t?” A tiny, almost wicked smile appeared on his face, and for a second I saw the brother who used to play with me when the other boys wouldn’t.

I grinned with him, sharing what I was sure was his mental image of Auntie Mo going berserk.

“So, care to explain to me how you’re going about it?” I asked, more to pass the time than anything else.

His eyes lit with a happy professorial gleam.
Gaaah.
I’d done it now. Given a captive audience, he could go on for hours.

“Well, you see, gene regulation in mammals uses a mechanism of protein recognition of short DNA sequences called enhancers…”

He said something about hormones and chemicals that regulate gene expression. About the only word I recognized was “tetracycline,” and that only because it had been prescribed for me once when I had pneumonia. Then, when he started in on some gibberish about hemoglobin and transgenic mice, and extrapolating the proper thingamajig construct into one of Molly’s chromosomes … well, my eyes kind of glazed over.

“Have you always known?” I blurted out as soon as he stopped for breath. Didn’t blush, though. This was my brother, and he was used to my ill-mannered tongue.

He froze but didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about—he knew me too well to think I’d really been listening to his genetics lesson. After a moment, he took a deep breath and said, “Yes. Always. For as long as I can remember.”

I reached over and slugged him affectionately. “You could’ve told me, you know.”

He relaxed, but not completely. His guard was still up. “Didn’t think it mattered.”

“It doesn’t, you goof. But it might’ve been nice to know I wasn’t the only one checking out guys while we were growing up. We could’ve, you know, compared notes.”

“I somehow doubt we go for the same type,” he said with a wry bend of his lips.

“I dunno. I met one of your friends earlier when I was you. I thought he was pretty cute.”

“Really? Who?”

I pushed up my sleeve and allowed the barely faded Sharpied-on phone number to show. When they say indelible, they mean indelible. “This guy.”

He actually blushed. “Ah. Well, you’re in luck then. He swings both ways.”

Was that a trace of bitterness I heard?

“James?” I waited until he looked me in the eye. “It doesn’t make any difference to me, you know. Not a bit.”

He hugged me then, both arms around me in what for him was a major display of affection. “Thanks, sis.”

“As long as you don’t try to borrow my clothes.”

He shoved me away from him and laughed out loud. “I’m gay, you idiot, not a transvestite. Your wardrobe is safe.”

Feeling confessional myself, now that we had that settled, I said, kind of offhandedly, “Hey, James—what do you think of Billy?”

He looked confused. “Our cousin?” After my nod, he shrugged. “Bit wild, but a great cousin. Why?”

I cleared my throat. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Not so much as a cousin. More as, say, a guy.”

“Not my type.” James grinned bigger than I’d seen him do in a while. Guess it was a relief not to have to pretend around me anymore.

“Do you think he might be my type?” I asked quietly.

Pause. Was that concern that flashed in his eyes? Then it was gone, and it was his turn to sound offhanded. “You guys got something going on?”

“No. I dunno. Maybe. I’m confused.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought you were kind of hung up on Mark.”

Geez.
I coughed. “I’m a grown-up. I should be getting past childish crushes.”

He studied me for a moment, then nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced. “Billy … dates a lot of women,” he said hesitantly, like maybe I wasn’t aware.

I blew out a breath. “Yeah. He claims he’s done with that. Is that even possible?”

He messed with some lab equipment, making minor adjustments to knobs and pushing a few buttons on Lord knew what kind of machines, all while holding his face in neutral. The classic James thinking look. I waited.

After a few minutes he reached some sort of conclusion and stopped fiddling with the test tubes and beakers. Looked at me. “Ciel, if Billy is expressing an interest in you that way, I think it must be genuine. As impulsive as he is—or was—with the opposite sex, I don’t
think
he’d be reckless with your feelings. He cares too much about you to risk hurting you that way.”

Something in my chest floated free. “Really? You don’t think this is just another way for him to tease me? He does like to tease me.”

“And, gosh, you never tease him at all.”

I squirmed. “Well, I have to defend myself.”

“Right. But, Ciel, one thing—are you sure he isn’t more deeply involved in this”—he searched for the word—“problem with Laura than you think? Because
that
kind of trouble you don’t need.”

“You mean, could he have done it? God no, of course not. He couldn’t have.”

“But he might know more than he’s letting on?” he pressed.

“Well, that’s a given with Billy,” I said.

“Then don’t you think it might be a good idea to wait until everything has settled down before you pursue a relationship with him?”

“Well, geez, if you’re gonna be all sensible about it…”

His lips curved, all tender big brother again. “Go to my place. Get some sleep.”

“But Molly—”

“She’ll be fine here with me. By the time she wakes up, I may have something that will help her. Now go.”

I
was
exhausted, all of a sudden. “Call me if you fix Molly? Or if you need anything?”

“Yes. Now go on and let me work.”

“Okay already.” I stopped at the door and turned back to him. “What do I do if Mr. Hottie shows up?”

“Tell him I’ll call him later. And keep your hands off him.”

Chapter 13

James’s apartment is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in Manhattan’s Academic Acropolis, Morningside Heights. It looks like a stereotypical absentminded professor’s place. Every inch is full of books, curios, gadgets, and gizmos, strewn about in a seemingly haphazard fashion, but that’s deceptive. There’s never a speck of dust anywhere, not a smudge or fingerprint to be found. It’s fastidiously clean, but in a totally you’re-welcome-to-put-your-feet-on-the-coffee-table way, and he does it all himself. I love it.

Since he has it fixed up with a biometric doorknob, I pulled up a partial aura of his hand for a second when I got there, and let myself in. I went at once to check on Herbert, James’s pet chameleon.

I’m not overly fond of reptiles as a rule, but (naturally) I feel a certain kinship with Herbert. I think he likes me, too. It could be my imagination, but I’m pretty sure my willingness to grit my teeth and offer him mealworms from James’s stash every time I come over has won Herbert’s heart. The brief moment of squirming ickiness on the palm of my hand before his tongue whips out and grabs his snack is a small price to pay for the chameleon equivalent of undying affection.

Herbert’s habitat took up a whole corner of the living room, floor to ceiling. It was equipped with a high-tech sunlamp, a mister to provide water droplets for him to drink, a living tree, and several crickets on death row. Herbert liked the crickets well enough, but the mealworms were his favorite. Or perhaps he was just entertained by the way I shuddered, holding them while he ogled them with his googly eyeballs, until he deigned to rid me of them. Who really knows what gives a chameleon its jollies?

Once Herbert was seen to, my own stomach sent me an SOS. The plain white fridge in my brother’s sunny kitchen (fake window, with amazingly realistic artificial daylight shining through) was full of food put there by our mother. Risky, but I decided to assume James had already weeded out the more outrageous failures, and grabbed something that looked like leftover macaroni and cheese. Sniffed it. Not bad. Nuked it and took a tiny bite. Mmm … yummy. Tasted like it was made with some sort of mild, smoky goat cheese. Gourmet comfort food.
Way to go, Mom!

I gobbled the rest. There was a crisp Pinot Grigio in the fridge, which I sipped while I flipped through cable channels until I found something suitably mindless on the Food Network. While I can’t cook worth beans myself (I seem to have inherited the wrong half of my mother’s skill in the kitchen), I am strangely fascinated by watching other people do it. And at least it might keep my brain occupied enough not to dwell on Laura.

Or on where Billy went.

Or on Mark, and whether I was being a total idiot not to try to fan his ember of interest into something more substantial. I mean, I’d been crushing on him for years.
Years.
And here I was, about to throw that opportunity away for my
cousin
?

I sighed. My really hot, not-real cousin, whom I’d loved and hated platonically since toddlerhood, who’d now walloped my stupid hormones with a two-by-four. And I couldn’t even talk myself out of it on the grounds of it being pervy, since it wasn’t pervy because we weren’t related. Right?

Geez, the timing in my life
sucked
.

The Julia Child retrospective wasn’t doing it for me. I turned off the TV and dragged my confused ass back to James’s bedroom. He wouldn’t be needing it tonight, and he had a supremely comfortable bed. I knew this because when I still lived with our parents, I stayed with him as often as I could. Being the considerate older brother he was, he always insisted I take his bedroom while he slept on the futon in his guest room-slash-study. When I got old enough, I realized it was probably more because he didn’t want me pawing through his desk than out of concern for my comfort. As if I would have.

(Okay, I totally would have. But I would have felt guilty about it afterward. What I lack in impulse control I make up for in remorse.)