Bat Out of Hell

by Bernadette Franklin

  “I’m surrounded by shoes all day. Please don’t take me shoe shopping.”

  “Hey,” Juliette protested.

  We both glared at her.

  “I like shoes.”

  “You’re a fashion designer, Juliette. You’re supposed to like shoes. However, that’s no reason to make shoes the star of one’s evening life.” Christopher maintained his glare, and to my amazement, Juliette threw her hands up in the air.

  “I think you won that round, Christopher.”

  “I do enjoy every time I win against her, and my victory is all the sweeter, as she has already committed to dressing me in her finest suits. I have no idea why, but I’m no fool. If she wants to dress me in her suits, so be it. I’m just not going to think about how much I’ll owe her when I’m finished. And no, Juliette, if you don’t bill me fairly, I’ll go to your billing department and make sure it’s sorted properly.”

  “Cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional.”

  “I’ve purchased your clothes before, Juliette. You may be able to trick Lee, but you can’t trick me. And you, sly woman that you are, know I’m on your waitlist for new suits. All you’re doing is fulfilling your contract early rather than making me wait.”

  I decided it didn’t matter if I understood Juliette Carter or not; she needed babysitters before she did something everyone, except her, would regret. With that in mind, I could approach my new job aware she needed help moderating her generosity.

  I could do that.

  “It did help I already had these pulled aside for you,” the woman confessed. “I am an opportunist, and I will not say no to this opportunity.”

  “I’m still paying for the clothes.”

  “Why does everyone insist they pay me while I’m busy trying to arrange their marriage?”

  “Do I really have to explain this to you?”

  “No, no. That’s all right. I’ve heard it before. Apparently, I only try to marry off good people to each other, and good people pay their bills, which makes them good clients. It’s not my fault!”

  “Did you take your medications today, Juliette?”

  “I would answer that, except I really don’t know. Probably not,” she admitted. “I had to go rescue Lee, and rescue missions are more important than the stupid pills.”

  “The pills aren’t stupid, Juliette. We’ve talked about this before. You need the pills because your brain is broken, and the pills make your brain not broken. What did you do to help Felicity forget your pills?”

  “I didn’t do anything to help her forget. I just left the office to rescue Lee; it’s not like I did it on purpose.”

  “Lee, would you mind keeping Juliette amused while I call and find out who has her medications and if she’s taken them? The world might end if she’s missed a dose.”

  Juliette sulked, and I wondered if she had missed a dose. If she had, why hadn’t everyone at the office mentioned something? Then, with growing dismay, I realized they had discussed her medications. Had it been a hint? I struggled with the possibilities, including accepting she seemed fine enough, and it wasn’t worth creating a fuss when she wasn’t behaving distressed or causing anyone real harm. “I can do that. What should I do with her?”

  “Introduce her to the zombie game and show her the beer bottle. That should do the trick.”

  I snagged the older woman’s arm and dragged her to Christopher’s entertainment room, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

  Chapter Twelve

  Juliette loved everything about the broken beer bottle, and I didn’t need to play the game to keep her amused. Watching her dish out violence to the undead provided enough entertainment, and while I killed any zombie stupid enough to approach my character, I left her the lion’s share.

  It took Christopher a rather long time to join us in his entertainment room. “She missed a dose, and her husband will be over in about an hour with it.”

  “An hour?” Juliette abandoned her controller and hopped to her feet. “But you haven’t tried on your suits yet!”

  “You have an hour you can dress me up, but that’s it. Also, I think your husband is about to have a meltdown.”

  “He doesn’t have meltdowns.”

  “He most certainly does when he’s worried about you because you forgot your medications.”

  “Is this normal, Christopher?”

  “It happens. She’s come over off her medications a few times this year so far. I’m willing to bet Juliette gave Felicity new duties when Felicity should only be worrying about Juliette.”

  “Felicity is wasted doing what she does. She has a good eye, and she’s been working on a client’s wardrobe. She hit it off with a difficult client, and she’s on the schedule.” Juliette sighed. “I’m going to get yelled at again.”

  “Maybe we should tell Naomi?” Naomi seemed like the person to talk to.

  “I don’t know Naomi,” Christopher admitted.

  “She’s one of my Human Resources minions.”

  “I’ll make the calls, which will take me five minutes, then you’ll get me for an hour.” Christopher left the room, and I narrowed my eyes, crossed my arms, and tapped my foot.

  “I recognize that look. That’s the look of a minion about to get uppity with me.”

  “You deserve to be healthy and happy, too. I know medications are a pain in the ass and hard, but you need to take them. You have a phone. Set alarms to help make sure you take them on time. You hurt yourself most of all when you don’t take them, so you really need to take them.”

  “I left them at the office when I went to meet you,” she admitted.

  “Then you need to make a checklist of everything that needs to leave the office with you, and your medications need to be on that list.”

  “You’ve managed medications before.”

  “We all had to help my father, especially near the end of his life. Those medications are important, and I don’t care what anyone else says, but you need them for a reason, and if your body doesn’t produce whatever the hell chemical you need, it’s fine that it comes out of a bottle.”

  “People get so damned judgmental about it.”

  “That sounds like a them problem and not a you problem. Also, is an hour enough time for him to try on those suits?”

  “Probably, assuming you don’t drool all over him each time he struts for us.”

  “Is he going to strut?”

  “I hope so. He’s quite handsome in a suit, and watching handsome men show off is one of the perks of my job. He’s a quick changer, and he trusts me to do my job, so he won’t dawdle unless you’re drooling, then he’ll dawdle because he will want to impress you. He struggles with the basics.”

  “He does? He seems like he’s doing quite well for himself.”

  “Yes, but he hasn’t figured out how to get you to date him without help. A lot of help.”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, given a week, I would’ve wanted to see his paintings again, and then I would’ve asked Jonas to arrange a coffee date so I could admire the artwork and play that damned zombie game.”

  “See? I spared you a week of anguish. Now, come along before he gets impatient because there are other things he’d rather be doing than trying on clothes.”

  I wondered what those other things might be, but rather than ask, I decided I’d wait and find out for myself.

  Christopher didn’t need to strut. Walking into the room while wearing a suit was sufficient to capture my attention. To keep from making a complete fool out of myself, I admired his paintings while stealing peeks at him.

  I liked him in black suits the best, although Juliette dressed him in one gray one that almost convinced me otherwise.

  “Which one do you want him to wear tonight?” Juliette asked. “I bet I can steal the rest of his clothes.”

  “You’re not stealing his clothes, Juliette. He should wear whatever he wants. All of the suits are a good look on him.”

  “Of course all of
the suits look good on him. I designed them. I do not design a bad suit. What color shirts did you like best?”

  “The pale blue with the gray, and white or cream with the black. The others aren’t bad, but I guess I prefer the classic look,” I replied.

  “Considering your taste in art, there’s a reason for that, I suppose. I could use him to experiment with period wear.”

  “No codpieces,” I announced. “I don’t care if they’re correct for the period, but I’m drawing a line there. No. I won’t have you torturing Christopher with a codpiece.”

  Christopher laughed. “I have spent an unfortunate number of hours wondering why men wore codpieces. I can’t tell if it’s a matter of ego, if their trousers lacked a crotch, or what other motivation they had for doing such a thing.”

  “I’m sure some historian figured it out, but I’m happier just not knowing.”

  “I agree.”

  The doorbell rang, and Christopher, dressed in the last black suit of Juliette’s collection, went to answer it. He chuckled and let an older gentleman in. “Your wife has mostly behaved herself.”

  “Juliette, I swear, you do this to cut years off my life sometimes. What have you done now?”

  Juliette pointed at me. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “That’s a trick question, and I’m not answering it. Also, that would be the young lady you swooned against at the Halloween party. I have received so many pictures and videos of that incident my phone is going to run out of space. I apologize for her, miss.”

  “Lee. Please take her home before she steals the little clothes I have left.” I gestured to the dress. “Which is this, because she already stole everything else.”

  “Juliette, again?”

  “I’m helping them discover their chemistry!”

  “Juliette, they’re adults. They don’t need chemistry lessons.”

  “They most certainly do need chemistry lessons leading to marriage. Look at them. They’re perfect together. They complement each other. Anyway, my mission here is done. I’ve got them living together.”

  Juliette’s husband sighed. “I’m so sorry for this, Chris.”

  “Lee recommended Naomi as someone to talk to; Juliette’s bumping her personal assistant to a different department again.”

  “Tattler!” Juliette stomped a foot.

  Juliette’s husband snagged her by the back of her neck and dragged her out the door. “I’ll give Naomi a call. Thank you for watching her.”

  “Traitors, all of you!”

  Before I could hear any more of Juliette’s rant, Christopher closed the door. Then he locked it. And, because he could, he engaged the deadbolt. “That might keep her out.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Don’t be. He’s used to Juliette’s insanity. Mr. Carter is usually retrieving her several times a week. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but he loves it. It gets him out of his home or office, and she keeps life interesting. But he will call Naomi because while she’s fine tonight, she might not be fine another night.”

  “I’ve had a lot of people warning me about her medications tonight. Why?”

  “I found out because she had an episode during my first fitting. After that, it spread around because a lot of people like her, and nobody knows how to handle her during an anxiety attack. She almost never has them when she’s on her medications. And as for her other problems, when her attention span is shot, she forgets the basics, like looking each way down the street before crossing. That’s actually more of a problem than her anxiety. A few years back, she got hit by a car because she got distracted while crossing the street. Fortunately, she emerged with a few scrapes and a sprained wrist, but now everyone’s on guard about it.”

  “I had no idea that could be an issue,” I admitted.

  “It’s different for everyone. Usually, she just lacks an attention span and gets hyperactive. I don’t have a problem with it, and most don’t, but it’s a coin toss if she’s able to work, and then she gets anxiety attacks because she wasn’t able to work when she needed to, and that’s where the trouble comes in.”

  “I’m really sorry you got dragged into this.”

  “I’m not. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone actually willing to talk to me about my paintings?”

  “Apparently not. I figured a lot of rich people did things like talk about art.”

  “They prefer to talk about their latest work acquisitions or cars.”

  Ew. I wrinkled my nose at that. “I’d rather get stung by a bee, and I’m allergic.”

  “How allergic?”

  “Allergic enough that I need to go to the hospital but not allergic enough that I need to carry allergy pens. It takes about an hour before I start going into anaphylactic shock. That’s a good thing, as I can’t afford the allergy pens.”

  “You can afford the allergy pens now. What do you do if you get stung?”

  “I head to the nearest hospital, wait around in the emergency room while they tell me it’s not that bad and I’ll be fine. Then, when I can’t breathe, they realize I was telling the truth and they deal with it.”

  Christopher closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed. “You’re like Juliette, but with allergies.”

  “That seems like a fair and warranted statement.”

  “Okay. I have a friend who is a doctor, and he lives near where I have to run an errand to tonight. We’ll stop somewhere on the way to get you clothes, so you’re not forced to wear a Carter dress, if that’s all right with you?”

  “That’s all right with me. I’m really sorry for making a mess of your evening plans.”

  “The only thing I’ve missed was my shower, but it’ll be fine. I’ll get changed, and then we’ll go. If you’d like, you can try on a pair of my sweats. You’ll swim in them, but it might be better than going into a twenty-four-hour store dressed up like that.”

  “Do you have a safe I can put the jewelry in?”

  “I was thinking you could still wear those. They’re beautiful on you, and they were worth every penny spent.”

  My cheeks warmed. “Thank you. They are lovely. No one has ever bought something like this for me before.”

  “That’s why I did it. Jonas told me a little about you, and I thought you deserved something special. That was all I could get on short notice, especially after hearing he’d made a wager with you about playing in the park. You’re tenacious, and I regret I hadn’t gotten something better for you after hearing you play.”

  “Something better?” I lifted my hand and touched the necklace, my eyes widening. “You got me two paintings and this. How could it get better?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, but it’s on my list of things to do in the near future. Juliette is right, though. I’m awkward and rather useless at meeting women. I was getting a play by play from a few of her minions, as they didn’t want me to be caught off guard.”

  “You came to the door shirtless on purpose?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I figured if you didn’t run away screaming, that would be a good sign, and I hoped to embarrass Juliette. It turns out I encouraged her instead. Oh, well. That said, I had really meant to take a quick shower before you showed up. I thought I’d have a few extra minutes.”

  “You were trying to plan the dripping wet and shirtless look, then?”

  “Guilty as charged. I figured if it worked on television, it might work in real life.”

  “We can experiment later with the dripping wet and shirtless look. Me? I’ll spare you. I look like a creature from a horror flick when my hair gets wet and dangles in my face. It’s thick, it makes a mess, and it takes forever to dry. There is absolutely nothing sexy about my hair when wet.”

  “I may be awkward, but I have a sister, and I used to brush her hair growing up. Please don’t tell her this, but I actually enjoyed my hair-brushing duties. Now my sister is a demon in disguise out to marry me, too.”

  “You prefer Juliette’s ma
rrying ploys over your sister’s I take it?” I hoped so, considering my presence in his penthouse.

  “The last time my sister attempted such a ploy, she tried to hook me up with a porn star. While I’m not about to judge a woman for working in pornography, I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who has sex with other men and women as part of her career. Jonas wouldn’t mind that sort of thing, but I do. That was my last blind date. Honestly, I’ve been hiding from my sister ever since.”

  “Do you need to be rescued from your sister?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes.”

  I regarded the dress I wore with a frown. “Well, I’m dressed appropriately. So are you. Is a meeting with your sister possible?”

  “My errand, ironically, involves my sister. It’s something we’ve done together since high school, so I see her multiple times a week.”

  “I guess that means we’re not dressed appropriately for whatever you’re doing, then.”

  “Yeah, we need to be dressed casually.”

  “I feel like we should call Juliette back and ask for help.”

  “She would go overboard, we’d be late, and there’s a store down the street from our destination if you’re okay with wearing my sweats until we get there.”

  Why not? What was a little embarrassment? I’d already been seen with Clarissa while she’d worn an inflatable dinosaur costume. “Bring me your sweats and a belt of some sort. A sash from a bathrobe will work if you have one. Are you really sure you want me to wear the jewelry?”

  “Beautiful things are meant to be worn and seen, and on you, it’s a piece of art. But I do have to admit, they pale in comparison to those pearls you were wearing in the park. They suited you.”

  “They’re cheap.”

  “So was the winter landscape painting you like so much. Cheap isn’t a word for bad, Lee. I like expensive paintings—that’s true—but I like cheap ones if they’re beautiful. I care less about the name on the canvas and more about the art, anyway.”

  “Can I ask how much a cheap painting is? Because the winter one is my favorite.”