“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.”
Understanding bloomed on the cabbie’s face. “I didn’t see nothing,” he promised, the wad of cash disappearing into the front seat.
As Arthur climbed out, he found Rory paused on the thankfully deserted sidewalk, staring up the side of his eight-story building with wary eyes. Far above the roof’s high peaks and gabled dormers, the moon was only a waxing crescent. One small mercy, at least; Jade always said full moons were a wild card for magic.
Rory pointed at a balcony. “This ain’t Hell’s Kitchen.”
“No. It isn’t.” Arthur reached for his upper arm, to tug him in the direction of the front door.
But Rory was backing away from Arthur. “You heard me talking bunk.” There was fear on his face, as there had been in the antiques shop, when Arthur had handled the ring box. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
And he turned and began to run.
“Rory!” Arthur darted after him, but Rory wasn’t going anywhere with the brandy still in his magic, making him clumsy as a rummy. He tripped almost immediately over his own feet. Arthur dove, catching Rory in his arms and taking the brunt of the cold concrete with his own knees instead.
“Let me go!” Rory thrashed in his arms. “I’m not going with you!”
“All right,all right.” Arthur clutched him tight around his ribs, like trying to wrestle a frantic cat. Rory’s wiry muscles were stronger than they looked. “You don’t have to come to my flat, I’ll take you to Hell’s Kitchen!”
Rory abruptly stopped struggling. He jerked his head around to stare at Arthur with drunken suspicion. “Why’re we going to your place?”
“Because you’re drunk and sick and it’smy fault,” Arthur said. “The least I can do is watch over you while you sleep it off.” He took advantage of the moment of calm to hoist him up to his feet, holding Rory upright by the biceps. “I wasn’t going to do anything else with you, on my word.”
“Oh.” Rory’s eyebrows furrowed. He tilted his head back to look up at Arthur. In the streetlamp, behind the lopsided glasses, his eyes were lost and confused. “I thought you were taking me back.”
“Back?” But Rory staggered again in Arthur’s grip, and Arthur had to scramble to keep him from crashing to the sidewalk. He got his arms under Rory’s and hefted him up enough to see his face. “Backwhere?”
But Rory’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t answer.
Who are you, Rory Brodigan?
Chapter Eight
A bright winter sun lit Manhattan, bouncing off the snow and through the crack in the curtains like a knife stabbing into Rory’s head.
He groaned loudly and flailed, trying to cover his eyes from the cruel light. He was gonna bury himself under these soft blankets and never come back out—
“Good morning, Rory.”
Rory froze at the woman’s voice. He shoved the covers down, but without his glasses, he couldn’t see anything but a blur. “What’s going on? Why am I—what—”
“Your glasses are on the nightstand.” She had a lovely voice, bright and clear. “Do you want to try sitting up?”
He felt around to the side until his hand landed on a nightstand and blessedly, his glasses. He slid the frames on his face to find his companion was a beautiful Black woman with a pretty smile and a cloche hat in the same gray as her suit. Hersuit—aw geez, she was wearing a man’s suit, withtrousers. Rory had gone for women in trousers since his early crushes on suffragettes with brass balls bigger than any man’s.
His fuzzy tongue and fuzzier head immediately tripped over themselves. “Why, um—where?”
She leaned against the doorway of the—bedroom? Was he in a bedroom?—and tilted her head. “You’re on the Upper West Side, in Arthur Kenzie’s flat.”
Kenzie’s pad? But of course it was. The bedroom had fancy molding and gilded details over the huge window. The furniture was heavy mahogany with intricate carvings, including the huge four-poster bed he’d been tucked into.
He pushed the comforter down and managed to sit partway up, making a face as his stomach turned over. “And—I don’t think I’ve met you?”
