“Stick it in your eye, Julie,” said Christian, staring deep into his own phone.
Julian pulled Christian’s chair closer so that they were both in-frame. “What were you saying, Rafi, about your friend’s concert?”
“Well, not exactly a concert,” Rafi said. “Sort of a comedy show, at the Renaissance Faire.”
“Seriously?” Christian looked up, glaring at Rafi as if he’d suggested attending a baby-roasting.
“Ren Faire! I’ve always wanted to go,” Julian said, with enough brightness to his eyes that Rafi wasn’t sure whether he was teasing Christian, or completely sincere.
“I knew it,” Christian said, “I knew you were secretly a nerd. I could smell it on you.”
“I’ll have to adjust my deodorant,” Julian said. “We are, of course, going in costume.”
“Of course,” Rafi said.
Christian slumped over, making retching sounds.
“So,” Rafi said, “pick you up Saturday morning, nine o’clock? They open at ten.”
“Will we be back in town by five?” Christian sounded disgusted and resigned, but the screen of his phone had gone dark without him noticing. “Uncle Eddie’s taking me to this important dinner thing.”
Julian smirked into the camera. Rafi winked at him.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m sure we can manage that.”
* * * *
On Saturday morning, Rafi pulled up in front of Julian’s apartment building, texted Julian to come down, and turned to Amber in the passenger seat. “You’re in my boyfriend’s spot.”
“Seriously?” Amber grumbled under her breath, slamming doors as she slid into the back. “What happened to the bro code?”
“Think of it this way. Do you really want your back to Julian?”
“Point.”
The door to the building was already opening. Out came Julian, resplendent in something with lots of ruffles and laces, a prop sword (at least he assumed it was a prop), and most eye-catchingly, a big feathery cavalier hat.
Well, no. The hat was eye-catching, but the way the buckskin breeches hugged his backside and thighs was even more amazing.
Behind him, Christian was dressed in a gauzy white tunic and monarch butterfly wings that he was going to have to take off to get in the car. Something sparkled on his ears, jewelry pieces that clipped over the tops and brought them to false-but-beautiful elfin points.
The third man behind them was a surprise, though the dark suit and sunglasses made his purpose clear. Eddie’s blond bodyguard—Luke? Lyle. Rafi couldn’t help wondering if Uncle Eddie really thought his boys needed protection, or if it was just a way to keep tabs on them.
Julian opened the passenger door and swept off the feathered hat in a deep bow. “Good morrow, sirrah! May we trouble thee for a ride in thy carriage?”
Rafi plucked his tricorn pirate’s hat from the dashboard and put it on his head. “That depends on how ye plan to pay for it, ye great landlubber!”
Julian’s eyes sparkled. “I’m quite certain we can work something out,” he said, climbing into the seat and then past it, long enough to plant a quick kiss on Rafi’s cheek.
“Perhaps we can, at that. Hark, now, what’s all this foolery?” An argument had erupted in the vicinity of the backseat.
“You work for me, and I’m telling you to sit in the middle!” Christian sounded indignant.
Lyle had his arms crossed. “I work for your uncle—”
“Supposedly. Don’t think I don’t know you and Julian have something on the side.”
“—and in any case it’s common sense for you to sit in the middle, you’re the smallest.”
“What do you and Julian have on the side?” Amber was scowling.
“Nothing! Not like that.”
“Don’t take this badly, Lyle, but you’re not my type,” Julian drawled.
“Apparently your type is giant dirty pirates,” Christian sniffed.
“Correct. Christian, we’re blocking traffic. I’ll buy you ice cream if you’ll just get in.”
Christian only crossed his arms and glared at Lyle.
Lyle threw his hands up in defeat. “Will you buy me ice cream?”
“Of course,” Julian said, and finally they were all in the car.
“Keep those wings down where I can see,” Rafi said as he pulled into traffic. “And everybody better be wearing a seatbelt.”
“Yes, mother,” Christian muttered.
“We’re in this car because he wrecked the other one,” Julian said.
Christian put on his seatbelt. Then he leaned over Lyle to glower at Amber. “Who are you?”
“That’s my best friend and manager, Amber Hernandez,” Rafi said. “Be nice to her or she’ll eat you.”
“‘If you can read this, my invisibility cloak isn’t working,’” Christian read from Amber’s T-shirt. “This is your idea of a costume?”
“Yep,” Amber said. “For Halloween I was thinking I’d fix up that invisibility cloak, drape it over myself and go as Rafi’s brain.”
Rafi made a shocked noise, glaring at Amber in the mirror; she gave a cheerful little wave.
Christian was laughing. “If I can get ahold of one of those, I can go as Julian’s heart!”
“Hold on, does this make Rafi the Scarecrow, and Julian the Tin Man?” Lyle said. “Who’s the Cowardly Lion?”
“If we’re going to talk about cowards,” Rafi said, “I have this old home video of Amber—”
“You wouldn’t.”
“—running from a lizard—”
“Shut up!”
“—and literally peeing her pants in terror—”
“I was four years old!”
“Such a cute little coward.”
“This,” Amber said, “from the boy who tried to hide a bone sticking out of his arm because he was so afraid of getting a shot if he went to the doctor.”
“Hey, shots suck, okay? That was a completely logical choice on my part.”
“Julian’s afraid of bugs,” Christian said gleefully.
“I’m not afraid of them.”
“He found a fly in his coffee last week and threw it across the room. Coffee everywhere.”
“I object to having a filthy little disease-vector in my drink. Hardly irrational.”
“Julian’s afraid of bu-ugs,” Christian singsonged, reaching up to make crawly fingers on the side of Julian’s neck. Julian turned around and swatted at him, provoking shrieks of laughter. Amber gave Christian a high five.
“I’m happy our friends are getting along so well,” Rafi said dryly to Julian.
“Christian’s being unusually sociable,” Julian murmured, glancing at his cousin in the mirror. “I’ve noticed he gets along better with women.”
“You know, that bit about the coffee cup reminds me,” Lyle said, grinning, “of that time on the set of that artsy French film, when Julian dropped a dollar in a hobo’s cup—”
Julian groaned.
“—and it turned out to be Robert Pattinson, his co-star, just trying to enjoy a morning coffee—”
“It’s not as if you recognized him either!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t ruin his drink!”
“You tried to give him money?” Rafi felt a warm spot in his chest. “Julian, that’s really sweet.”
“Oh, yes,” Christian said, “Julian loves to descend from on high and spread his largesse on the peons. I’m sure it gets lonely at the top of Mount Ego.”
Julian grumbled under his breath. “You know, Lyle, they say an honest man is one who stays bought.”
“You should already know I’m a mercenary, sir,” Lyle said with a wide grin. “Anyway, I’m just glad it’s not me Christian is tormenting for once.”
“Your turn will come back around,” Christian said. “Speaking of torment, Rafi, I don’t know what streak of masochism made you start dating Julian. But if you’re gonna do it, you gotta do it properly.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you do not have permission from his family to seek my cousin’s hand. You have not proven yourself worthy.”
From the sound of her voice, Amber wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. “What do you want him to do, lift a magic hammer? Pull a sword from a stone?”
“That’s been done. You’re on the right track with impossible tasks, though. Three of them is traditional. You listening, Rafi?”
Rafi glanced at Julian, who only raised his eyebrows, a smile lurking in his eyes.
“I’m listening,” Rafi said.
Christian raised his fingers one at a time. “First, you have to defeat a giant. Second, you have to squeeze blood from a stone.” Rafi started to protest, but Christian rode right over him. “Third, you have to guess my middle name.”
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Rafi said immediately.
“Good try, but no.”
“I suppose googling it would be cheating?”
“Oh, google away,” Christian said. “You won’t find it.”
“And where will I find a giant? Or a stone with blood?”
“That’s your problem,” Christian said, “not mine.”
Rafi looked at Julian, exasperated. “Does he always do this with your ‘suitors’?”
“Well,” Julian said, “he didn’t with Ellie Tanning.”
“Because that was fake,” Christian said, staring at Rafi in the rearview mirror. “Also me and Julian hadn’t met yet. But they weren’t really dating anyway. Not like you, right, Rafi?”
Guilt tangled in Rafi’s stomach.
“You actually care about Julian. Or at least have the hots for him, whatever,” Christian added.
Rafi laughed, and let the guilt unknot. “Yes, I do,” he said, “so I will meet your challenges, young taskmaster, and prove my worthiness to court your cousin.”
“Hey, what about Julian’s worthiness to date my best friend?” Amber said.
Julian turned around to look at her. “What shall I do to prove myself to thee, then, lady? Hast thou tasks of thine own to set?”
“Nah,” Amber said. “Just buy me something really expensive. Most expensive thing in the whole place.”
“A bride-price.” Julian nodded. “It shall be so.”
“Meanwhile, can we get some tunes up in here?” Christian said, before Rafi could protest being sold like a melon off a truck.
“I have just the thing,” Julian said, and pulled a very familiar CD case out of his bag. On the cover, a blood-spattered sword gleamed on a silk cushion, haloed in white light, over the word Warrior.
“Holy crap, that’s us,” Rafi said. “Distant Kingdom. That’s our first EP.”
“If this is anything like me watching myself in an old movie,” Julian said, sliding the disc into Rafi’s player, “it’s going to be excruciating for you.”
Rafi groaned. Amber was laughing and pounding the back of Rafi’s seat.
“Shh, I want to hear!” Christian leaned past Lyle to smack Amber on the arm.
The production values on the EP were actually decent, and the guitar bit that opened the first song still sounded good. It wasn’t until Rafi’s voice flowed from the speakers, reedy with youth, trying way too hard to sound growly and dramatic, that Rafi considered running the car into a ditch.
“So this was before the singing lessons, huh?” Christian said.
“Amber, please eject that child from my car.”
Amber rolled down her window and reached for Christian, who shrieked and fought her off with the butterfly wings. Lyle, caught in the middle, tried to curl into a ball.
“Some bodyguard you are! Protect me!”
Julian, Rafi realized, was staring ahead with a distant expression, tapping the armrest with one finger and mouthing the lyrics.
“You know this song,” Rafi said, stunned.
“I know this entire album,” Julian said. “I haven’t listened to it in…a long time. I didn’t think I’d remember it so well.”
“You couldn’t have been, what, ten when it came out?”
“Twelve. I’m not that much younger than you.”
It was more that producing the EP felt like much longer ago. “I think my entire reality is bending. You were a Distant Kingdom fan at age twelve?”
Julian’s next words seemed to hurt on their way out. “My brother was.”
Oh.
“This disc was his. He listened to it over and over. He said you guys had a lot of potential.”
Rafi, gaping, forced his gaze back to the road. The song changed, Bo’s silvery voice taking the lead. Bickering continued unabated in the back.
“Leo would have been so excited to meet you,” Julian said. “I think he would have liked you.”
Rafi glanced in the rearview mirror. Their passengers were now thoroughly distracted by a group of dancers on the sidewalk, advertising a carwash, so he dared to ask a personal question. “You two were really close, huh?”
“He was a lot older than me. It would have been easy for him to consider me a pain. Instead, he carried me around everywhere. He never treated me like an inconvenience, or even like a child, more like a friend who happened to be little…a best friend.” Julian wiped his eyes irritably, his face trying its best to turn to stone and unable to manage it. “I didn’t expect it to affect me this way. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” I wish I had a brother like that, he thought, but didn’t say, because this wasn’t about him. “Do you want to turn it off? I don’t—I don’t want you to be sad.” A lame thing to say, but the truth.
“Maybe after this song,” Julian murmured.
“Okay.” Hesitantly, Rafi reached for Julian’s hand, which was clenching the fabric of his pants. Julian took a deep breath, and allowed it, his fingers uncomfortably tight. Rafi didn’t mind.
“Did somebody step on this lady’s foot? Is that why she won’t stop screaming?” Christian called.
“Like you’d know good music if it slapped you in the face,” Amber said.
“I think it is slapping me in the face.”
“Yeah? Does it feel like this?” Amber tried to reach past Lyle and swat at Christian.
“Give my client some space, ma’am.”
“Oh, now I’m your client, now that I’m armed—”
“Put that fork down! Where did you get that?”
“Kids, don’t make me turn this car around,” Rafi said, and all three of them stuck their tongues out at him.
Julian laughed, his hand in Rafi’s relaxing just a little bit. No longer clutching, just holding on.
* * * *
Through an entryway of Old Europe architecture—latticed beams and whitewashed walls, hung with welcoming banners—they crossed the threshold of the New York Renaissance Faire.
Julian climbed out of the car and ran his hands over his costume, tucking every fold carefully into place, and tucking all extraneous and embarrassing emotion behind the folds. He’d learned this trick years ago, of walling everything off behind The Role. Today he played a role within a role, carefree boyfriend playing at Renaissance nobleman, and that ought to make it even easier. Easier to button everything away.
Though the Faire had barely opened, there was hustle and bustle in every direction. Patrons and staff were hard to differentiate at a glance, almost everyone dressed for the setting, some quite extravagantly; Amber stuck out in her jeans and T-shirt, not to mention Lyle in his suit. Folk were juggling, selling wares, dancing and singing and playing. Rafi seemed entranced by the competing waves of music as they passed drummers, pipers, fiddlers, lutists, and singing voices on all sides.
“A pleasure to all the senses, is it not?” Julian said beside him, clinging to The Role with an adopted accent and archaic phrasing that fell rather flat. The happy chaos around them was too distracting.
Rafi’s tight pirate breeches were also distracting.
“A pleasure,” Rafi said grandly, offering Julian his arm, “made more pleasurable by your compa
ny, my lord.”
“I am not fooled by your courtly gestures, sirrah, I know you for a scallywag.”
“Then come along, and know me better!”
The first area they passed was a gaggle of colorful little shopfronts and booths, selling clothing and food, but Rafi urged everyone along.
“Too much to see to get bogged down in buying stuff!” he said. “We can come back and give them too much of our money later. Ugh, I just sounded like my father, but I’m still right.”
They didn’t make it far, however, before falling in with a little group of fairies—lovely young women in wings and delicate face-paint, bedecked with leaves and flowers. They cooed over Christian’s costume and welcomed him to their ranks; he looked almost drunk with happiness, and Julian didn’t hesitate before paying for the flower crown they offered him. It took some effort to draw him away.
“I wonder if we’ll be recognized,” Rafi murmured to Julian as they entered a section of the Faire holding games and contests.
“I may have been already,” Julian said, pulling out the phone number one of the fairies had slipped him.
Rafi laughed. “No one has to know you’re famous to know you’re cute, Jules.” He dropped a quick peck to Julian’s lips, which surprised him more than it should have. But not all surprises were unpleasant.
The vast majority of them, perhaps, but not all.
“Hey, archery,” Amber called out. “Come on, fairy boy, let’s test the strength of those arms.”
They might well not be recognized—no one would expect to find a celebrity under Julian’s feathered hat, Christian’s flower crown, or Rafi’s piratical tricorn. They might skate by, and if not, they had Lyle to run interference…
It wasn’t until halfway through the archery contest that Julian remembered that they ought to be courting recognition. Rafi, he noted, hadn’t mentioned it either.
Julian won at archery, thanks to training for a Robin Hood film that hadn’t worked out, and Rafi at the Test O’Strength, surprising no one. And then—
“Is that a camel?” Christian said in a hushed, almost reverent voice.
“It is,” Julian said, just as stunned. “Rafi, we are about to ride a camel.”
Lyle insisted that his duties compelled him to watch from the ground; Christian rolled his eyes and let the excuse stand. Amber, however, did not escape so easily.
Star Bright Page 17
