The Harlequin

"Oh, thanks, and with that cheery message, I'll have no trouble going to the movies and enjoying myself." Truthfully, I felt a little silly about the whole date tonight. Nathaniel wanted to celebrate our a

Jean-Claude sighed, and it wasn't sexual this time, just frustrated, I think. "I wanted this almost-a

"And what date would you pick as our a

"The first night we made love, for that is the night that you truly let yourself love me."

"Damn it, you've thought about this."

"Why does sentiment make you so uncomfortable, ma petite?"

I'd have loved to answer him, but I couldn't. Truthfully, I wasn't sure. "I don't know, and I'm sorry that I'm such a pain in the ass. I'm sorry that I don't let you and the rest of the guys do all the romantic gestures you want. I'm sorry that it's so hard to be in love with me."

"Now, you are being too hard on yourself."

"I'm scared, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, and I don't want to fight with you, because it's not your fault. But now, thanks to what you just said, I don't feel like I can cancel the date with Nathaniel tonight." I thought about what I'd just said. "You bastard, you did this on purpose. You manipulated me into keeping the date with Nathaniel."

"Perhaps, but you are his first real girlfriend, and he is twenty. It is important to him, this night."

"He's dating me, not you."

"Oui, but if all the men in your life are happy, you are happier, and it makes my life easier."

That made me laugh. "You bastard."

"And I did not lie, ma petite, I would love to celebrate once a year the first night you came to me. If your first attempt at a modest celebration fails, then the larger, more romantic gestures will never come to pass. I want them to come to pass."

I sighed and leaned my head against the phone receiver. I heard him saying, "Ma petite, ma petite, are you still there?"

I put the receiver back to my mouth and said, "I'm here. Not happy, but I'm here. I'll go, but there won't be time to change now."

"I am sure that Nathaniel would much rather you go on this almost-a

"Spoken from the man who most often dresses me in fetish wear."

"Not as often as I would like." Before I could think of a comeback, he said, "Je t'aime," and hung up. I love you, in French, and he got off the phone while the getting was good.

Chapter Three

I WAS RUNNING too late to even go home first. A phone call and Nathaniel agreed to just meet me at the theatre. There was no reproach in his voice, no complaint. I think he was afraid to complain, afraid I'd use it as an excuse to cancel the almost-a

He was five foot six and a half now. He'd grown half an inch in the last month. At twenty, twenty-one in the spring, he was growing into the broad shoulders, filling out in the way that most men do at a slightly earlier age. I actually got carded more at clubs than he did now, which irritated me, and pleased him. But it wasn't height that made me stop and stare.

I stood in the midst of the Friday night crowd hurrying around me, and for just a few minutes I forgot that something bad enough to scare Jean-Claude and Malcolm had come to town. Yeah, Jean-Claude had told me we were safe, but still, it wasn't like me to be careless in a crowd.

Nathaniel wore a leather trench coat and a matching fedora. The hat and coat hid most of him, and still managed to emphasize the body underneath. It was like hiding and asking for attention at the same time. He'd added the hat to his winter gear because without it, he had gotten recognized a few times. Customers from Guilty Pleasures had spotted him as Brandon, his stage name. Once we covered the hair, it didn't happen again.

His hair was in some kind of tight braid, so that it looked like his auburn hair was cut nice and standard short. It was illusion. His hair fell to his ankles, totally impractical, but God, it was pretty.

It wasn't just the standard ooh, isn't he pretty that made me stop. It was that suddenly in his new leather trench coat and hat, with his hair all covered, he looked grown-up. He was seven years younger than me, and I'd felt vaguely like a child molester when he first hit my radar. I'd fought long and hard to keep him out of the boyfriend box, but in the end, it hadn't worked. Now I looked at him like a stranger might, and realized that the only one who still thought he might be a child was me. Standing there looking like a fetish version of Sam Spade, he didn't look twenty. He looked very over twenty-one.

Someone bumped me, and that made me jump. Shit, that was too careless. I started moving, dressed in my own black leather trench coat, but no hat. I didn't do hats unless it was freaking freezing. Even with Christmas only weeks away, it wasn't that cold. St. Louis in the wintertime: freezing one day, nearly fifty the next.

My trench coat was unbuttoned from the waist up, only belted in place. It was colder that way, but I could still reach my gun. Going armed in winter was always full of fun choices like that.

He spotted me before I'd gotten through the outer doors. He gave me that smile that made his whole face glow, so happy to see me. Once I would have bitched, but I was too busy fighting off my own version of the same smile. One of my other boyfriends said I hated being in love, and he was right. It always felt so stupid, like your insurance rates should go up, because you're impaired. Romantically handicapped.

The face under the hat was too pretty to be handsome. He was beautiful, not handsome. Apparently, no matter how tall he got, or how much he muscled up, that wasn't going to change. But it wasn't a delicate face, the way Jean-Claude's was, or Micah's was; it was stronger boned than that, higher cheekboned. Something a touch more male in his face—I couldn't put my finger on it, but something—and when he looked full at you, you never thought feminine, but always male. Had that changed in the last few months? Had I not noticed that, or had it always been like this and I just was so determined to marginalize him that I couldn't let his face be more masculine than Jean-Claude's or Micah's? Did I still equate strength and being a grown-up to being male? Me, of all people? Surely not.

His smile had faded around the edges. "What's wrong?"

I smiled and went to hug him. "Just wondering if I'm paying enough attention to you."