Page 8 of New Orleans Rush

Was that a hint of innuendo in his voice? He had called her beautiful last night. Something else she remembered. His eyes darkened slightly as she studied him, and their colors, plural, took her aback. The left was a sky blue with brighter flecks. The right was brown, darker and more serious. “Heterochromia,” she said.

She’d learned the term from researching the world’s ugliest dogs. That Google search had produced an onslaught of Mexican hairless dogs, oddly followed by Siberian husky puppies with two-toned eyes, fluffy fur, and a whole lot of adorableness. She’d also gotten a face full of horse-on-horse porn.

Huxley blinked. “Most people don’t know the name of the condition. They also don’t know what a kerivoula kachinensis is.”

She licked more sugar from her fingers, ignoring the paint caked under her nails. His two-toned eyes followed the movement. “With a name like Bea, I had to defend myself against insect insults. Calling someone a kerivoula kachinensis or banana slug or mole rat, or anything to throw them off, proved helpful.”

“Why not go by your full name?”

“Beatrice?” She wrinkled her nose. “Beatrice is a ninety-year-old woman who removes her teeth at night, wears massive sunglasses, and drinks Metamucil instead of martinis. No thank you.”

Huxley’s half-eyebrow twitched and his light blue eye sparked with…mirth? “Or maybe Beatrice is a feisty redhead who moans when she eats fried dough, can’t handle her liquor, and likes to scratch misspelled insults into strangers’ cars.”

That hit below her high-waisted belt. Shame turned her voice into a whisper. “I’m sorry about your car. I can’t believe I did that.”

He stepped closer. “I’ll make sure to work you extra hard, Beatrice.”

Again with the possible innuendos, but he didn’t smile. He studied her as if waiting for some kind of reaction. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing or angry. It was hard to focus with the fuzziness in her head. The sugar melting on her tongue distracted her further, as did the way he’d said her name: Beatrice. Slowly, with a sensual roll to the syllables. No one in the history of ever had made “Beatrice” sound sexy. Until one Huxley Marlow tried her name on for size.

Unsure how to process her strange circumstances, she popped the last bite of beignet into her mouth. She moaned again while cataloguing the framed pictures adorning the walls, all featuring the title: The Marvelous Max Marlow. They seemed dated, a series of older posters. Huxley’s father, maybe? She wiped her sticky fingers on her pants, only to realize Huxley’s cape was still scrunched on her lap. A cape now covered with her sugary fingerprints.

She cringed and held out the defiled garment. “I’m sorry about this, too.”

Brow furrowed, he took his cape. He didn’t accept her apology or offer an understanding nod. He simply folded the garment delicately over his forearm, like it was a precious thing. “Do you need to get home? Let anyone know where you are?”

“No.” The harshness of her reality swiftly sank in. There was no home to go to, no one who would miss her. Just as quickly, she realized sharing this fact with a virtual stranger wasn’t in keeping with any stranger-danger rules. “Actually, I’ll send a text to my friend. She’ll be wondering where I am. I’ll tell her I’m at the…” She waited for Huxley to fill in the blank as she moved to the bed and found her purse. Her wallet and EpiPen were still safely inside.

“The Marlow Theater. On Decatur Street.”

She tried to power up her phone, but the screen remained dark. The more she charged the battery these days, the fewer hours it functioned. Another fact Huxley didn’t need to know. Keeping the device angled away from him, she typed nonsense and pretended to hit Send. Spying a charger on the makeup table, she made a mental note to use it once he left.

She returned her defunct cell to her purse and fixed him with a pointed stare. “My friend knows where I am now.”

Translation: if she went missing, her invisible friend would raise hell.

Unconcerned by her proclamation, he said, “Good. We’ll start right away.” He walked to the glitzy, shiny, velvety closet and pulled out a garment. “This should fit. You’ll wear it tonight.”

The miniscule outfit looked like an ice-skating costume. “So you’re not a pimp, but you did sell me to an ice show to cover the cost of your car and the cape dry-cleaning? Now I’ll be forced to skate as an extra in the ice performance of Pretty Woman. Am I close?” Bea may owe this man money and would avoid his calling-the-cops threat like the plague, but a woman of the street she was not.

He lay the sequined bodysuit and micro-skirt on the bed beside her. “I didn’t sell you to a circus or an ice show. No prostitution is required. You’re now a member of the Marvelous Marlow Boys magic ensemble, along with me and two of my brothers. Five nights a week, you’ll perform on stage as our assistant.”

“Whoa there, magic man.” She would have laughed, but the beignet in her belly was searching for an eject button. “You must be mistaken.”

She hadn’t performed in public since the sixth grade Chrismukkah assembly where she’d frozen so badly someone had physically carried her off stage.

Panicked, she sneezed. Twice. Her nervous tic.

Huxley paid her freak-out no mind, but he did bless her, so quickly she didn’t have time to thank him. “There’s Advil in the drawer,” he went on, a bit more irritation in his tone. “I suggest you take a couple. There’s a shower and bathroom across the hall. I left a toothbrush in there for you, and my former assistant stocked it with womanly essentials. In your few coherent moments last night, you mentioned something about a car parked near Club Crimson. If you give me your keys and tell me what make it is, I’ll drive it over.”

“I can’t perform,” she squeaked again, twitching her nose to keep from sneezing. “I have stage fright.”

Exasperation pulled his features tight, especially his scars. She wanted to ask about them, touch them, paint them. Imperfections made people unique, each story and flaw mixing the colors that mapped their lives. She wondered what colors had shaped Huxley’s past. Until he said, “If you want me to call the cops, just say the word.”

Now she wanted to flick his funny bone. Blackmail, that’s what this was. He was blackmailing her to stand on stage in front of a crowd, where she would no doubt turn into a petrified statue. He had her number, and he knew it. That was okay. She’d agree for now, then she’d find a way to out-blackmail his blackmailing.

He took her silence as an agreement. “I need your keys.”

She stuck her hand back in her purse, delaying as she reassessed her situation.