by Allie Therin
“How’d you break your specs?”
“Let’s see, how was it?” Rory tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, right. None of your business.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. The cute ones were always little shits.
A waiter came by their table and looked at Rory expectantly. Rory bit his lip and turned his pretty eyes on Arthur, wide and helpless, and Arthur couldn’t bring himself to make the prickly brat scramble to remember what he used to drink.
“Try the Brandy Alexander.” They were good here, made with French cognac and real cream, so sweet they’d go down like dessert.
“Oh.” Rory still hesitated. “Is it—how much—”
“On me. No, no,” he said, waving a finger as Rory started to protest, “I insist.” Springing for drinks was a laughable bargain. Arthur would have paid a small fortune for the information Rory might hold.
Arthur ordered the cheapest whiskey for himself, vile panther sweat he’d have to have been dared to drink. From the stage, Stella had noticed Arthur—and noticed he was with someone. She tossed him a wink, and a moment later the band struck up a scandalous version of “The Man I Love.”
Clever. She thought he was on a date.
Not hardly. This was an interrogation.
The waiter left their drinks and Rory picked his up, hesitation written all over him, and suddenly he didn’t look prickly, he looked young and vulnerable.
As much as Arthur needed that tongue loose, he found himself blurting, “You have had a drink before, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have,” Rory said with a vicious snap. “It’s just—been a while. Still not your business.”
Sheesh. “Cheers to you too,” Arthur muttered, and clinked his glass against Rory’s.
He pretended to sip as Rory took too much at once and coughed like his throat was on fire. “Need something tamer?” he said sweetly. “Glass of juice? Warm milk?”
“Go chase yourself,” Rory predictably snarled, and took another drink. And then another.
Right, then. Let’s find out what you know about Mrs. Brodigan’s magic. Arthur snagged a passing waiter.
“Bring as many brandies as he wants, on me,” he said, eyes never leaving Rory.
* * *
“The thing about antiques. The thing.” Rory waved his glass emphatically, sending Brandy Alexander number three sloshing up the side to splash his wrist. “They have to actually be old.”
Arthur rested his elbow next to his untouched whiskey and hid his smile behind his hand. He really was cute, there was no denying that. “Rather by definition.”
His companion’s surliness had melted away somewhere around the second sugary drink, and without the porcupine quills Rory was softer, pink-cheeked from the drink and warm room, and as chatty as Arthur had hoped.
“No, but—” Rory paused. Slurped from his glass. “What was I saying?”
“That antiques have to be old,” Arthur supplied. “It’s groundbreaking.”
“Right, thanks,” Rory said sincerely. Was he already too zozzled to catch sarcasm? “They gotta be old, and people want us to tell them they’re old.”
Arthur’s pulse jumped a beat. “That’s why they hire Mrs. Brodigan,” he said carefully.
“Exactly!” Rory raised his glass, drank again. “But sometimes, see, sometimes the thing isn’t old. Sometimes it’s a counter—counterfo—fake. Counterfake.”
“Counterfake.”
“And no one wants to hear that, right? They get all out of sorts. No one wants to feel like a fool, even if the blame belongs on the perp—the perptray—the bad person who took advantage.”
The bad person who took advantage. Something in Arthur’s chest twisted, and he heard himself say, “That brandy is going to your head very fast.”
Oh, well done, Arthur, alert him to your whole scheme. You can’t afford to be soft with the bleeding world at stake. He’s plenty old enough to handle his drink and he has information you need. Use this moment. Ask him questions.
“Did you eat?” Not that question!
“Cookies.” Rory waved his glass. “Up all night, late breakfast. Missed dinner. Lost, for all those hours...” He trailed off from whatever that drunken haiku was, and Arthur realized the hand holding the glass was trembling. “You’re not going to open that ring up, are you?”
Arthur blinked at the non sequitur. “Certainly not.” He wasn’t about to give poor Pavel Ivanov on the Lower East Side an unwanted vision. Hell, if Mrs. Brodigan was what Arthur thought she was, she’d pick up on it too, and who knew if there were others hiding in Manhattan? No, an unbound relic was no good to any subordinate paranormal, and Arthur would be keeping the ring box firmly shut.
The waiter popped by, a fourth brandy in his hand, but Arthur shook his head irritably. “We need some food,” he said. “Canapés, sandwiches, whatever you’ve got.” Hoping that feeding Rory would assuage his annoying soft spot, he leaned forward as the waiter scurried away and tried to get the interrogation back on track. “So when customers learn their antique is counterfeit, they get out of sorts with Mrs. Brodigan?”
Rory nodded, eyes still lost to some emotion Arthur couldn’t place. “She handles it. Never makes me deal with them.”
Why would she? Arthur cleared his throat. “So how does Mrs. Brodigan know an antique is really old?”
But Rory didn’t seem to hear him. “I can’t walk back to Hell’s Kitchen,” he muttered, like he was talking to himself.
“Walk?” Arthur scoffed. “I invited you here, I’m buying your drinks, and I’ll see you home safe and sound. I wasn’t planning to let you walk anywhere tonight.”
“Oh, good.” Rory licked a stray drop of crème de cacao. “’Cause Harlem spins.”
The words yanked Arthur away from where he’d been unthinkingly following Rory’s tongue as it traced the rim of his glass. His stomach did a sharp, unpleasant twist, the kind that said something had gone very wrong but Arthur’s brain hadn’t yet figured out what. “Spins?”
“Like a twister.” Rory made whirly motions with his free hand. “Can you make it stop?”
On closer look, Rory’s cheeks might have been too flushed and the rest of his face was mottled with gray. A weight settled uncomfortably in Arthur’s stomach. “Were you always a lightweight?”
“Dunno. I never drank before.”
Arthur went still. The weight sank his stomach to his shoes. “You said you had.”
“I did say that,” Rory said, with an emphatic nod, and Arthur almost felt better until he added, “But I lied.” Arthur’s eyes widened, but Rory went on, “Like when I said I was—” He squinted behind his glasses. “Twenty-six? Also lie.” He held up two fingers and waved them around. “Twenty.”
Twenty. And only fifteen when Prohibition started.
Of all the blasted fibbers—Arthur took a breath, trying to keep his temper. “Why on earth would you lie about that?”
“’Cause I’m a counterfake too.” Rory held up the glass, turning it back and forth as he stared at it intently. “Been lying for years.”
“About Mrs. Brodigan?”
“About me.”
Arthur went very still.
A lightweight.
Up all night. Lost, for all those hours.
You’re not going to open that ring up, are you?
And Arthur’s brain finally caught up with his stomach. “Rory,” he said hoarsely. “Put the drink down.”
“Did y’know this was made in a factory?” Behind the spectacles, Rory’s overly glossy eyes glittered like onyx. “It buzzes, like a bee, like a big machine—”
“Put the drink down now.” Arthur’s body was ahead of him again and he was already on his feet, physically taking the glass out of Rory’s hand. He’d had it all wrong—
Rory’s other hand closed over Arthur’s
wrist and the sleeve of his jacket, the touch unexpected, his hand warm even through fabric. “But this was handmade.” His eyelashes fluttered and he listed to the side. “A tailor, here, New York, careful stitches at night while the couple in the apartment above shout—”
Too far sideways, and Rory tumbled from his chair. Arthur lunged, fast as he could move, catching Rory just before he hit the floor.
“Rory.” He held the back of Rory’s head in one hand. “Look at me.” The broken glasses were askew on his face, the newsboy cap on the ground and Rory’s unruly waves unexpectedly soft in Arthur’s fingers. “Rory.”
The big brown eyes were staring blankly into space. “He’s screaming. Says she cheated. It’s awful, but the tailor ignores it.”
Christ. “Come back.” Arthur grabbed Rory’s hand in his own and squeezed, hard, hard enough to hurt. “Come back now.”
Rory gasped. His eyes widening and he looked at Arthur like he was seeing him for the first time.
A shiver shot down Arthur’s spine and over his skin, like static electricity, leaving goose bumps in its path. “That’s right, sweetheart,” he said, through clenched teeth, holding on despite his prickling skin. “You come out of the past and you stay out.”
Rory screwed his eyes shut. “What’s the year?”
“You’re in 1925.” Arthur squeezed his hand until Rory’s eyes flew open with another pained gasp. “And you’re going to damn well stay here.”
He stood, pulling Rory upright with him, and kept a vise-like grip on that hand as he maneuvered them until his arm was around Rory’s waist. The slight body was almost dead weight against him. Don’t think the d-word. You’re going to fix this.
Benson was hurrying over. “Help,” Arthur said baldly. “A private exit, a private car, and no one asking questions.”
Benson’s gaze flicked over Rory. “Lightweight?” he said easily, but his eyes belied the concern. Is he like Jade?
Arthur gave a quick nod. “And young,” he said, worry making his voice sharp. “You hear that, Rory? You’re young and foolish and—”
And a bad person tried to take advantage.
Arthur gritted his teeth. “I need to take him somewhere safe.”
Benson grabbed Rory’s hat off the ground and Arthur’s briefcase from under the chair. He said a word to a passing waiter, then he was leading Arthur to the back. Arthur practically had to carry Rory, feeling the stares as they awkwardly staggered through the club. He ought to throw Rory over his shoulder, it’d be easier than all this stumbling—
But being carried would also make it easier for Rory to slip away again. As if to prove the point, his head lolled against Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur shook him. “Tell me who and where you are,” he ordered Rory, as Benson took them through a door and past the dressing room.
“You’re very strong,” Rory said instead. “Strong and bossy.”
“Strong and bossy enough to handle a mouthy brat who defies the laws of man and nature.” Arthur had to believe that was true. He had to make it true. He yanked Rory closer with their interlocked hands. “Now stay out of those visions and tell me your name.”
Rory blinked up at him, brown eyes hazy and shiny with drink. “Which one?”
What?
Chapter Seven
Arthur had no time to follow up on Rory’s strange statement as Benson opened the Magnolia’s side door and led them into the snowy alley. A freezing wind sliced between the buildings as Arthur squinted into the headlights of the cab coming their way.
“Jade wasn’t hiding in there, was she?” he asked Benson, who shook his head.
Damnation. The car pulled to a stop in front of them, and Benson held the back door wide. “If she turns up,” said Arthur, as he took the cap and briefcase from Benson, “will you ask her to come see me?”
“Right away, Ace.”
With a tight nod of gratitude, Arthur half lifted Rory to stuff him into the back seat, awkward as hell because he couldn’t let go of Rory’s hand. He scrambled in after him, hunching to fit in the small space and still managing to knock his head on the roof.
“Upper West Side,” he told the cab driver, and gave his address. Rory had slumped into the seat and closed his eyes, so Arthur gave the hand he held another vicious squeeze. “Don’t even think of going back into that head,” he said, over Rory’s indignant yelp.
“Ow,” Rory said, drunk and sulky, and tried to squirm away to the other side of the back seat. “Screw off.”
“Not a chance.” Arthur had an advantage of six inches, forty pounds, and a head not addled by brandy and paranormality. “You’re going to hold on to yourself.”
Rory made a broken sound. “I dunno if I can.”
Arthur’s heart lurched. “Then you hold on to me,” he snapped, “because I won’t let go. I’m going to anchor you to the present and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
Christ, Rory looked so vulnerable, glasses askew, blond curls tumbling around his face. Arthur held his hand tight and tried to think.
A few ounces of wine were enough to sabotage Jade’s telekinetic control and send every glass in the Magnolia soaring. But that put only objects at risk, not Jade’s mind, not her sanity. Under the influence, Rory had touched Arthur’s jacket and gotten lost in its creation. When would he have come out of that vision? In another moment? When he sobered up?
Ever?
Rory’s free hand suddenly looked like a time bomb to Arthur. He grabbed that one too, holding both tightly in his own.
Rory flexed his fingers in Arthur’s grip but didn’t try to pull away. “You’re holding my hands.”
“I don’t think I want you touching anything but me.”
Rory gazed at him through half-lidded eyes and criminally long lashes. “I can live with that.”
Was he—flirting? No, surely not, the boy was out of his preternatural head. “Focus on the present, on your own identity,” Arthur said. “What did you mean, which name?”
“My name’s Rory now.”
“Now? If that’s your name now, what was your name then?”
Rory didn’t answer, eyes fluttering shut.
“No sir,” Arthur snapped. “You’re not sleeping until I’m certain you’re going to wake in the right year.” He gave Rory another shake. “Hello, Rory.”
Rory cracked an eye. “Ciao, bello.”
Hello, handsome. Heat reflexively shot through Arthur. He’d had been abroad enough to know the phrase, had said it himself to more than one handsome Italian. He’s a drunk Irish boy parroting Little Italy, Arthur told himself, trying to shake off the desire Rory had inadvertently stoked. He’s not flirting with you, he doesn’t even know what it means.
Jade’s loss of control wore off with the alcohol. Fine. Arthur just had to ride this out until all the brandy was out of Rory’s system. Just keep him awake, keep him from touching anything—and, oh yes, ignore accidental innuendo in a sultry foreign tongue. Arthur could do that. He would do that.
“Talk to me,” he ordered. “Do you know where you are right now?”
“A dream.”
Arthur’s stomach plummeted. “Dream?”
Rory tilted his head back invitingly. “A fella good-looking as you’s gotta be a dream.”
Arthur caught his breath in surprise as the cab driver made a choked sound in the front seat. “You shit,” Arthur said, with feeling. “Did you just take ten years off my life for some half-under mocking?”
Rory gazed at his mouth. “’S best dream I ever had.”
Arthur raised his eyes heavenward. “Not the worst line I’ve heard,” he grudgingly admitted, pitching his voice low enough the cabbie wouldn’t hear. “Try it on a pretty girl when you’re sober.”
“It was for you.” Rory, devil take him, was still staring at him. “Bellisimo,” he said, as if to himse
lf. “Are your lips soft as they look?”
Arthur’s heart stuttered. Drunken nonsense, he reminded himself. Nothing but fiendishly charming drunken nonsense. You should hope to be so eloquent the next time you’re trying to pick up a man. A sober one. Older than twenty. Who likely won’t be half as cute as the man you’ve got pinned under you—
“You must spend a lot of time in Little Italy,” he blurted, desperate for distraction.
“I never been—” Rory’s intent gaze suddenly shifted to discomfort as he went an alarming shade of green. “I don’t feel so good.”
Oh no. “Pull the cab over!”
* * *
On the back seat of the cab, Rory leaned heavily into Arthur’s side, still peaky. “I threw up.”
“Yes you did,” Arthur muttered.
“’Cause I drank.” Rory’s head lolled against him as he looked up with glazed eyes. “No one’s supposed to drink. Did the bulls see?”
“The police didn’t see.” Arthur resisted the urge to wrap his arm around Rory. “You feel better now?”
“Copacetic.” Rory moved their joined hands to rest on Arthur’s thigh and pressed his face against Arthur’s arm. “You smell good.”
That was just unfair. Arthur had never taken someone home in America. Now he had an adorable paranormal almost in his lap and he had to stay a gentleman. It’s penance, Ace. You deserve to suffer—you’re the one who got him drunk.
The cab driver—whose eyes were fixed unnaturally forward—mercifully pulled up in front of Arthur’s building a minute later. Arthur had to let go of Rory’s hands then, which he didn’t like, but couldn’t exactly hold a man’s hand and parade through the lobby in front of the doorman and anyone else still up.
“Don’t touch a thing,” he told Rory, as he pushed him out the open door with one hand and passed the cabbie twice the fare with the other. “Your tip,” he said, when the cabbie blinked. “For the excellent service of not telling New York’s finest that my friend’s ginger ale was a little strong.”
