by K. L. Noone
“You let me worry about what I want.” Kris touched his cheek; that single touch blossomed into gardens of desire, devotion, apprehension, fidelity, empathy, hope. “I’m here for whatever. Whenever you feel like you can. I can wait. If you want that.”
“I want to—”
The door crashed open. The gathered-up passionate concern of the Moore-Bautista family flooded in, along with drips of oncoming rain. Words collided with coats and scarves and damp boots.
“Justin—”
“Kris, did you get my texts—”
“Ow, that was my foot, James—”
“Family meeting, kids, right now!”
They ended up in the kitchen, huddled around the long table. Wind blew rain-showers sideways, colliding with tall glass and closed shutters. The twins were still wearing coats, and James came over to Kris and Justin before sitting down, anxious. “Did you see any of it?”
“Most,” Justin answered before Kris could. “Don’t be mad at him. I would’ve found out anyway; my office called. I don’t have a job.”
“Oh gods of field and stream,” James muttered, borrowing Justin’s dismayed old-fashioned oath from earlier. “Okay. Um, okay. We can—are you okay? As much as you can be.” He’d’ve seen some of those lurid stories, Kris realized. The kinky but true ones as well as the twisted falsehoods.
“I don’t think,” Justin attempted, weak attempt at older-brother comforting firmly in place, “that okay is on the table yet. But we’ll see.”
Little Isabella gazed up at her oldest sibling, then said brightly, “Hug!” and attached herself to Justin’s leg. The entire family, as one, stared at her, then at Justin. Kelly mouthed hug??? And Kris recalled Justin’s introductory comment about their youngest sibling and conversations with cats, never people.
Justin, wide-eyed, picked her up, settled her on a hip, and said, “Thanks, Belle, that’s what I needed, how’d you know?” and booped her nose with a finger. “Perfect as usual.” With flawless solemnity, she booped his nose right back, then squirmed down and crawled under the table, in pursuit of Ariel’s tail.
“Well,” Bill said.
“Well, indeed,” Kelly said, after a quick check under table-legs, “we’re going to talk about that one later, Justin, don’t think we aren’t. But right now—”
“I’m as surprised as you are!”
Kris leaned in and murmured, “Rescuing babies…” Justin gulped back a laugh, emotions right at the surface and easily stirred, and clutched his hand.
James was scrutinizing his arm, he noticed. Interested eyes. Attention to detail. “Did you always have that? Like a tattoo?”
“That—” He yanked down both sleeves. “No. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine, we’ll tell you later, promise.” Justin’s family did not need a reminder of demon-marks, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t love having it there.
“Hmm.” James let this non-explanation slide for the moment, and sat down on Justin’s other side.
Justin’s stepmother, forceful as a plump and curving river, glasses glinting, announced, “We’re going to deal with this as a family, of course, whatever happens—”
Kris kept holding Justin’s hand—he wouldn’t let go, not now, not for anything—but bit a lip, glancing up. Family. Closing ranks.
“—and anyone we bring home is family too,” Kelly finished, with a stern glance at him to underscore the point.
Kris felt himself relax, at least on that front. Consciously let self-doubt drain away. Justin hadn’t let go of his hand.
“Oh,” said the twin in blue, “in that case, what if, hypothetically speaking, we brought home a wyvern—”
“Wyverns later,” said Bill, “Justin now.”
Although he didn’t mean to compare his first-born son to a mindless magical elemental, the words landed. Loud. Like missiles.
Justin flinched. Not terribly perceptibly. Concealed.
“People were talking,” Bill said, “at luncheon. Checking the news, you know, as one does during a faculty event…between student end-of-term awards…”
“No one knows it’s you,” James said. “Not yet. I mean, not you you. Our you. But your name, your job, pictures of you—at least, human you—that’s out there.”
“Yes,” Justin said. “Pictures…”
“The New York Demon,” put in a twin. “Could’ve been catchier. Did you really save a baby? Or try to eat him?”
Kris hadn’t seen that version of the story. “David said that?”
The twin favored him with an unimpressed look. “No. People’re morons.”
“He’s done multiple interviews,” Bill said wearily. “Justin, I suppose there’s no chance you’d have media contacts or friends you could call…not that we’re blaming you for this, not in the slightest…”
“You could have better taste in guys,” said the twin in grey, with ghoulish cheer. “Ow, James, don’t kick me. Twice. You didn’t have to kick me twice.”
James retorted, half under his breath, “The second one was for fun.”
“Don’t kick Andy,” Justin said. “He’s not wrong. And, Dad, I could try, but I don’t know if that would—I don’t know if anyone’d even take my calls. And it won’t matter. The story’s out there.”
“Well, that’s true enough, isn’t it…” Bill’s gaze wandered off to ponder historical precedent and international statues of magical equality.
“I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I’m so sorry. Dad. Kells. Everyone. I didn’t—I should’ve known. I didn’t think.”
“And you told him,” Kelly said, not without sympathy. “And he told the world.”
The twins shared a moment of telepathic communion; Eddie nodded, and Andy said, “Mom, Justin also told Kris. And—”
“—and Kris is still here.”
“They’re holding hands.”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“We like Kris.”
Kelly’s eyebrows went up; she visibly took in, maybe for the first time, the fact that her stepson and Kris Starr were holding onto each other. David had told the press; Kris hadn’t, and wouldn’t, even if Justin didn’t want him. Anyway, the fact of Justin trusting someone hadn’t hurt them. David’s reaction had.
“I’m still here,” Kris agreed: to her, to the man he loved, to the family. “Tell me what I can do.”
This got a quick squeeze of fingers, tight and tangible. “You’re always here for me. I said that once before, too, didn’t I…”
“You did. I am.”
“Justin,” Kelly said, “the family—”
Sheer horror landed another blow across Justin’s face; but he drew a steadying breath and struggled for rational thought. “He’s angry with me. Not you. It’s personal. He thinks of himself as the hero. The honorable one. He won’t drag kids into the crossfire.”
“Kids,” said Eddie, with scorn.
“Are you sure?” Kelly was watching her stepson with heartbreaking compassion, and equally heartbreaking practicality.
“No.” Justin’s exhale shuddered with acknowledgement. “But I know him. So. It’s what I think. He could’ve released your names and this address already. He didn’t. Someone else will put it together. Eventually. My last name’s pretty common, you kept yours, and everybody else hyphenated, so it’s not as easy as—someone’ll get there. But he won’t confirm it—David, I mean—so we should have some space. For a while.”
“We can all run away and start new lives and you can live with us,” offered Andy. “We don’t need to stay here and learn algebra.”
“Stay in school,” Justin said, on big-brother autopilot. “But thanks.”
“What are you going to do?” James had a hand on his brother’s shoulder, and the loyalty of a seventeen-year-old engineering genius faced with a demonically challenging problem. “You know we’re here for you. If you need me to stay home, to pretend to be you and totally human, or something…”
A momentary pause, not without humor, limped in: though they looked the
most alike of all the non-twin children, James was eleven years younger and had just unconsciously pushed up his glasses. Justin excavated a tiny grin; the twins made skeptical noises. James shrugged. “Figured I’d offer. We might be able to pull it off.”
“I can leave,” Justin breathed, gazing at him and the proposed sacrifice. “I should—I shouldn’t stay here.”
“The house?” Bill tilted his head at his son, considering. “No one knows you’re here…though we have told some of the faculty that you exist, I mean that you’re my son, not the supernatural part…but no one at Youngstown’s ever met you, I don’t think…”
“Yes they have,” Justin said. “The first year you started teaching here. You brought me to the end-of-year department party because families were invited. That was like eleven years ago and I had different hair but I wasn’t shy. Some of them might…remember.” Knowing him, Kris wondered for a fleeting second if that memory’d have to do with teenage flirtation, handsome graduate students, and an office desk; but now was incredibly not the time to ask.
“Oh,” Bill said, “I do recall that, now you mention it, but they don’t know you these days, nor that you’d have anything in common with—”
“I meant,” Justin clarified, simple and solitary and frightening as a drifting iceberg in deep water, “that I should leave for good. This dimension.”
“No,” Kris said, instant, instinctive. Multiple voices echoed his answer a heartbeat later.
“It’s a better idea than me staying.” Justin stared down at the kitchen table: smooth dark wood without answers. “I am a demon. We all know that. Everyone knows that now.”
“No,” Kris said again, holding his hand, feeling the ground start to slip away, imagining Justin’s hand already slipping away. “That’s not—that isn’t an answer, Justin, please.”
“What kind of a life am I going to have?” Justin turned to look at him, but the looking must’ve proved painful; those bonfire eyes drifted over Kris’s shoulder, then back down. “Who’d ever trust me not to drink souls or seduce humans? And if I stay here I’m dragging all of you into it. They’ll say Dad made a deal with my mother for academic tenure or something, or that James got into Columbia because I tempted a dean with demonic power, or that you, Kris—your career—” His voice broke, and fell apart, and everything hurt. The world, the rain, the dreadfully ordinary kitchen table and countertops and rice cooker, all howled in voiceless agony.
“Don’t run,” Bill said gently, when Kris could think of nothing to say, no argument that’d heal. “I won’t tell you it’s not one option. It is. If we have to. But not yet.”
“Then what do I do,” Justin said, pleading. Belle reappeared under the table and sat on his left foot: a mute anchor in pink tights and a green-striped winter dress.
“You’re my son,” Bill said, certain and proud, “and you’re part of this family. We’ll stand by you. And—you know, historically speaking, rumors don’t go away if you run; in the mid-fifties, when the warlock hunts were getting so out of—”
“Yeah,” Justin said, “I know, Dad,” but he’d found that shaky smile again, and they shared a nod.
Kris’s mobile phone, forgotten and wanting back into the action, hummed at him. He took it out onehanded; he guessed it’d be Reggie checking in, since he’d not answered the earlier text. And of course Reg would’ve figured it out; they’d discussed Justin, so long ago, joking about unrequited passion and improbable magical resistance to empathic persuasion…
Reggie’s newest text said TELL HIM TO CHECK HIS EMAIL
wtf does that even have to do with anything, Kris sent back. Justin was mid-conversation with his father, listening grimly to ideas about university safe-havens and sanctuary spaces.
TRUST ME
Are you seriously cracked do you know what’s going to be in his email right now???
ok fine one sec
Kris waited. Justin either hadn’t noticed or wasn’t prepared to comment on the texting, likely assuming Kris would tell him when ready. Assuming, as ever, the best in people.
ok it’ll be everywhere in a minute but here’s the official link she posted it for you just show him
Kris sighed, clicked—Reggie clearly wouldn’t leave him alone—and read. And then read it again. And then tried to believe it. “…Justin?”
His voice hadn’t come back yet. He tried again. “Justin?”
Every pair of eyes turned his way. Including the ones he cared most about, wide and scared and seeking his.
“You, ah.” He had no idea how to even start. “Do you…you never knew whose baby it was, did you? That you rescued?”
“No?” More confused than any other emotion. “Does it matter?”
“Oh gods yes it matters.” The rest of the table’d gone quiet. Listening. An audience. Kris cleared his throat. “You sort of. Um. You saved Wilhelmina Randolph’s grandson. Um. Here. Read this.”
Justin accepted the phone. “What…oh, you have a text, it says…Willie comes to our private tasting events every month and she’s out here now?”
“Oh,” Kris said. “That’s—ignore that for now.” That explained a few things, namely how his former bassist knew the wealthiest media magnate in America. Willie Randolph had both inherited and built her fortune on the glittering backs of newspaperman fathers and grandfathers; she owned magazines, publishing imprints, the Randolph television network, all flowing through the vast editorial buildings under her flinty gaze. He guessed she also liked good wine; he guessed he’d probably been undervaluing Reggie’s talents as a vintner for years. “Read it. Just—just read it.”
“She wrote it to me.” Justin read ahead, caught breath, started over. “It’s on their website. Every website. Every media outlet they own. She says…she reached out to me directly but they weren’t sure I’d see it, so she’s making it public and hoping this message reaches me…she says that she knows we don’t know each other but she knows what I did for her grandson, saving him…wait, how’d she know, she wasn’t there!”
“They’re basically the entire media,” Kris said. “News. Gossip magazines. The internet. And also old money. The Randolphs know everything. That’s not the best part yet, go on.”
“She says she’s seen the interviews, the stories about me, and she wants to go on record thanking me.” Justin looked up, looked around at his family. Avid silence awaited his next words. “Because the evidence she has about me is that…I save people. She says they wanted to thank me then but they didn’t know my name, and—and now they do, so…Kris, what does this part mean? She’s aware that saving her grandson might have caused me personal and professional distress, and she’d like to repay me…”
“Let me see that,” Kris said, and after a quick exchange with Reggie informed him, “She tried calling your office. They told her you’d been let go, and then someone named Anna called back and gave her your personal email and also threatened her with bodily harm if she misused it, apparently. Anna the receptionist?”
“Anna my friend, you mean.” Justin went back to reading. “She’s always enjoyed looking out for me. I hope she still has a job. And…she wants to…I’m invited to dinner. At their house. And anything they can do for me, this says, we’ll discuss it then.”
“Yes,” Kris said. “That part.”
“She knows I’m a demon. She wants to invite me in. Socially.”
“She wants to thank you.”
“This is…” Justin read it again. “She knows what she’s doing, right? Elite society. And me. Public allegiances.”
“She knows what she’s doing.” Kris put a finger under his chin, nudged it up. “And you deserve to be thanked.”
“This can’t be real,” Justin said.
“Reggie swears it is. By virtue of, um, wine tastings and awards and…I don’t even know. But he knows her.”
“She wants me to call her.” Even the hair had frozen in confusion: poised ripples of fire. “I can’t—how can I—I can’t let her do t
his. Associating with demons. Voluntarily. I can’t call her.”
Of course that’d be his objection. Not on his own behalf. Trying to protect someone else’s family from rumors. Kris might’ve never loved Justin Moore so much. Nor been quite so exasperated by the niceness.
Before he could come up with an argument, the twins did it for him. “Kris just said she knows what she’s doing.”
“And you don’t.” That was Eddie. “You don’t have any other options.”
“And she wants to say thank you. And feed you dinner.”
“You should dress up. Do you still have that one suit? The purple one?”
“I do,” Justin said. “But…”
“She already made it public. Posted in multiple places. All those media outlets.” James was reading the post on his own phone. “So it’s not as if you not answering would change that. Some of these comments’re interesting…a lot of them are on your side.”
“Some of them want me dead.” Justin had evidently seen those comments too. Kris mentally kicked himself. He should’ve been more assertive about taking the internet away.
“People are dicks online. But, look, this one says we should judge you based on what you personally do, not ancient or secondhand stories…and this one thinks you’re hot, pun intended, and also a hero for saving a baby. And this one says that who cares if you’re a secret demon when you’ve got cheekbones like that.”
Everyone paused. Andy, very slowly, stretched out a finger to poke one of the cheekbones in question. Justin swatted his hand away.
“I like your cheekbones,” Kris said.
Justin sighed, but smiled at him. So that was okay.
Justin’s stepmother said, “I think you should both go.”
“Me?” He’d put an arm around Justin, and he was there for support, of course he was, but he didn’t know the first thing about upper-class society, or publishing empires. He could too easily imagine himself making it all worse. Rock and roll, scruffy leather, profane vocabulary. The younger him would’ve plunged in headlong for exactly that disruptive reason. The person he was today wanted Justin to be safe. “I’m not invited, I think…I mean, Justin, if you…”