Quick Fix (7 page)

“You can’t do that,” James said.

Billy backed him up. “He’s right. If James isn’t there, our mothers will be suspicious—they know there’s no way in hell any of us would do it two years running. We can’t risk it.”

“But…” I looked from one to the other. No getting around them.

“Fuck!”
I said under my breath so little Miss Big Ears wouldn’t hear.

*   *   *

It’s a very intimate thing, wearing somebody else’s aura. Lets you know everything there is to know about another person, physically at least, and there is only so much I want to know about any of my brothers. I had changed into James’s clothes before switching to his aura for the express purpose of avoiding an unintentional glance at his naked body. Somehow that would seem like even more of an invasion of privacy in his case, since he was incapable of doing the same in return.

It was my parents’ turn to host the infamous Come As You Aren’t party, though in reality Dad had little to do with it. Mom and Auntie Mo were equally in charge every year; only the venue alternated. Dad and Uncle Liam stayed as distant from the details as any two hapless husbands could, no matter where it happened to be set. Whoever wasn’t hosting the party provided a hiding place for the husband of the one who was. Right now I suspected Dad and Uncle Liam were sharing a Guinness in Uncle Liam’s man cave, probably playing a friendly game of darts and commiserating over the latest economic crisis on Wall Street. Lucky bastards.

On the front porch of my parents’ familiar Upper West Side brownstone, I inhaled deeply and plastered a distracted look on James’s face. I thought I knew my brother well enough to pull this off, but I’d never been him in front of our mother. She had a nose like a terrier when it came to her kids hiding behind fake personas—with three of us capable of looking like anybody we wanted at any given time, she’d had to develop other ways of discerning our true identities. She claimed we all had “tells,” but of course wouldn’t dream of letting us know what they were.

I was banking on the fact that she had no reason to suspect I was anybody but James. First of all, she knew none of us was a willing helper, nor were any of us so altruistic we’d be likely to sub for each other. Second of all, she had no reason to suspect I would be anywhere near New York until the day before the party at the earliest.

The front door was locked.
Crap.
I patted my pockets—empty. I’d forgotten to get the key from James.

Relax
. No big deal. Surely it wouldn’t be the first time he’d forgotten his keys. I’d just knock—

The door swung open.

“James. You’re late.” My mother grabbed me, barely looking at me as she dragged me into the foyer. “I was just about to call you. You know we have a hundred things to do today. Are you okay?”

She came to a full stop and looked at me sharply. “James? What’s wrong?”

I felt my eyes widen as I looked down at her. Aurora Halligan. She was my mother, but I still thought of her that way whenever I first saw her after I’d been away for a while. An imposing entity, bigger than the word “Mom”—or her diminutive size—can contain. She’s me in thirty years, only with brown eyes, bigger boobs, and a much lighter sprinkling of freckles. On her they look good.

“Uh, nothing. Nothing is wrong. What makes you think something is wrong?” Thank God James’s voice didn’t squeak under maternal interrogation the way mine did. That would’ve been a dead giveaway.

“You look pale. Are you sick?” Her hands flew to my forehead, where they paused briefly before she grabbed my chin and pulled my mouth open.

“Let me see your throat.”

I came
that
close to complying before I remembered James didn’t put up with Mom’s nonsense. Me, I just stick my tongue out and let her look. I’ve found going through a quick physical is easier than balking, because she’ll usually settle down once she figures out I don’t have the bubonic plague.

I jerked my chin away and deflected her with a kiss on the cheek, something James was known to do in desperation. Since he wasn’t normally the most demonstrative of fellows, it tended to derail Mom’s obsessive concern.

“Mother, I’m fine. I just got busy at work. Now, what do you need me to do?”

She smiled up at me, her eyes the swirling light and dark brown of pecan shells, happy now that she was assured death wasn’t lurking over my shoulder. Tucking her hand into the crook of my elbow, she guided me toward the living room, a cavernous space by city standards. It was furnished with good, solid pieces: oversize and overstuffed sofas and chairs upholstered in brocades and velvets. The tables (coffee, end, and occasional) were dark, heavy pieces, impervious to children. Somehow Mom had managed to marry hideously expensive with ugly as sin. But I loved it. It was home.

“You can bring down the folding tables and chairs from the attic. Don’t bother with the tablecloths—the caterer is taking care of the linens—but do see if you can find those globular oil lamps. You know the ones I mean? Good. I think they’ll make splendid centerpieces, don’t you? We can’t use flowers this year. Your great-aunt Helen is allergic, and she claims it isn’t fair that her sneezing gives her away every year, so we’re trying to be accommodating. Not that it will make any difference—she can’t hold an aura longer than fifteen minutes at a time anymore, poor dear. The change hit her hard. So we’ll do the oil lamps surrounded by origami figures from nature—you’ll find the paper in your father’s study, only don’t use the orange. The orange is hideous when it’s backlit by the flames, and besides, it’s too Halloweeny—”

“Mother, slow down. I don’t do origami.”

“Of course you do, dear. You made me lovely origami gifts when you were a child—remember the swan? Or was that a goose? The neck was kind of in between, but whatever it was, it was gorgeous and I loved it, such a shame the dog ate it. Anyway, you made them all the time when your brothers were out playing football. It’s why I thought of using origami instead of flowers. We could go with silk flowers, of course, but that would be tacky, don’t you think? If you use flowers, they should be
real
flowers, not fake flowers, though I suppose, when you think about it, fake flowers are somehow symbolic of us, aren’t they? Wait—no, not really. I mean
we
are realistic fakes, not fakey fakes—”

Damn
. “Mom—Mother! I’ve, um, forgotten how.”

“Don’t worry. I bought a book. Just follow the directions—it’ll all come back to you.”

Not likely. I’d never made an origami figure in my life. I could only hope the directions were clear and my fingers were more dexterous as James than they were as myself.

“Ciel? Is that you?” my aunt’s voice piped in from the kitchen.

“Of course not, Mo. It’s James. Why would Ciel be here?” Mom called back, then ran to answer the phone.

Auntie Mo made an entrance, emerald eyes flashing and auburn hair gleaming. She was named for Maureen O’Hara, and her resemblance to the actress—when the actress was in her prime, of course—was uncanny. I suspect she may fudge a little.

“Why indeed would Ciel be here?” She pierced me with a look. I swallowed hard.

Family rumor had it that Auntie Mo was visited by occasional flashes of the Sight. Billy has tried to reassure me that Mo herself was the one to start the rumors, but I’m not sure they don’t contain a grain of truth.

At last she smiled and held out her arms. “James, my favorite nephew!” She said the same thing to all my brothers. “Come here and give me a squeeze.”

She engulfed me in a warm embrace. I was used to Auntie Mo’s exuberance and normally would have returned her affection with equal enthusiasm. Frankly, I adore her, even if she intimidates the hell out of me. But James was more aloof, so I confined myself to a few light pats on her back.

“So you’re the poor bastard roped into helping us this year. You sure your sister isn’t here with you? I could have sworn … No, I’m being silly. None of you would be here if you didn’t have to be.” But still she held on to me as if she could peek beneath my aura with her fingers.

“Mo, come here.” Mom’s voice, thank God. “The caterer is at it again. Can you handle it while I call the liquor store?”

Mo reluctantly let me go. I headed straight for the attic and started hauling out chairs. After umpteen trips up and down the narrow stairs, I started folding paper. A hundred and ten paper cranes (okay, so they looked more like airplanes; wings are wings, right?) and sixteen paper cuts later, I faked an incoming call from the university and made my escape. Even Mom and Auntie Mo couldn’t argue with a command appearance before one of James’s professors. Everyone in the family was getting desperate for him to actually graduate with a degree in something, so his schoolwork superseded all else.

The cab dropped me at the building that housed James’s lab. I paid the driver and left without waiting for change, praying that James had come up with a solution. Cute as Molly was as an ape, I really missed her human form.

“Jimmy!” a pleasant tenor voice called out. I ignored it. Nobody called my brother Jimmy.

“Jimmy! Hey,
James,
it’s me.”

Crap.
I turned slowly and locked eyes with the prettiest man I have ever seen. Not handsome. Pretty. Silky, platinum blond hair—looked natural, too—waving above a button-down collar, a killer tan, wide-set violet (I kid you not, Liz Taylor violet) eyes, full rosy pink lips, and an almost-but-not-quite-too-delicate nose. Body like a dancer, long and lithe.
Why
had James never brought this guy home? Would an introduction have killed him?

“Hi,” I said with a neutral smile. Best to keep things middle of the road until I figured out how well James knew this guy.

His mouth curled into a pout. “Oh, come on. Is that all you can say? Haven’t you missed me at all?”

Huh? “Uh, sure. How’ve you been?”

He stepped closer, invading my space. I tried to step back but was pulled against his chest. “Horny,” he whispered. “How about you?”

Chapter 8

I pounded on the lab door, breathless from my run. “James! Where are you?”

I’d ditched Pretty Boy with some excuse about a family emergency, told him I’d call him later. He’d pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket and written a phone number on my forearm, so I wouldn’t forget “this time.” Geez.

“
James.
Open
up
.” I kept pounding until I heard a telltale click, then pushed the door open so abruptly it almost flattened Billy’s nose.

“What are you doing here? Where’s James?” I said.

“I came to pick up Molly. James had an errand. What’s wrong with you?”

I shoved the door closed behind us and dropped James’s aura. His clothes swamped me, but I didn’t care.

“James is—” I stopped short.

But Billy was too good at reading me. “Gay? Yeah. What about it?”

“What? You knew? And you never told me?”

He shrugged. “You’re his sister. I assumed you knew. I mean, didn’t you ever wonder why he never brought a girl home?”

“So? I never brought a guy home. I thought he was shy, like me.”

Billy cracked up. I kicked off James’s shoes with enough force to send them across the lab, lifted the too-long legs of his pants with both hands, and started pacing. “Shut up. I didn’t know, okay? Not until about two minutes ago, when one of his boyfriends stuck his tongue down my throat.”

“He’s seeing someone again? Good for him. He was kind of messed up after he broke up with the last guy.”

I plopped onto the nearest chair. “Jesus. Do Mom and Dad know?”

“Of course they do. He told them officially when he was sixteen, but I think they suspected long before that.”

“Thomas? Brian?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s just
great
. Fucking
fantastic
.”

“What are you so mad about? You have something against gay people?”

“Of course not, you idiot. It’s just … I just…” I stopped, words stuck behind the tears I didn’t want to let fall.

Billy squatted next to me and stroked my cheeks, loosing the stream. “What, then? What is it?”

“Why didn’t he tell me? I thought we were close. Doesn’t he trust me?”

“You
are
close, in all the ways that matter. Maybe he just didn’t feel comfortable discussing his sex life with his baby sister. Lord knows I don’t talk about mine with my sisters.”

I sniffled. Loudly. “Ha. You don’t have to. They can read about it in the papers.” That wasn’t much of an exaggeration, either, considering some of the high-profile models and actresses he’d dated in the past.

“Oh, good. You’re still jealous. I plan to use that to my advantage. Just so you know.” His fingers slipped to my neck and started making little circles there.

“Are you trying to distract me?”

His lips replaced his hand. “Mmm-hmm. Is it working?”

Yeah, pretty much
. I leaned my head to one side to give him better access. “No, of course not.”

He chuckled and nipped my earlobe. “I bought some ice cream while I was out earlier. After we put the munchkin to bed later—”

I pushed him away. “Molly! Where is she? Did James fix her?”

“No, James didn’t fix her. Yet. She’s napping in front of the TV set. Wore herself out with the Wii Fit. I was just waiting for you to come back so we can take her to my place for the night.”

I hesitated. “About that. Maybe I’d better stay with James tonight. I need to talk to him about … things.”

“That can wait. He won’t have time for any heart-to-hearts until he figures out what to do about Molly. Besides, from what you just told me, it sounds like he might have company of his own to consider.”

I pushed up a sleeve and let the number show through. “Yeah. That reminds me—don’t let me forget to give him this.”

Billy grinned. “Guy’s not taking any chances, huh?”

“Nope. He’s serious. Stunning, too. Totally drool-worthy.”

“Did you catch any of his energy? If you want to pass it along to me, I’ll see what I can do for you.” He was teasing. Maybe.