Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) (14 page)

“Sure.”

The moment we stood up, our empty plates vanished. “That’s handy,” I remarked.

“I wonder how they do that.”

“I’m not sure I want to know. The less I think about how magic works, the less my head hurts.”

“Then never ask Owen a question about something magical when he’s got a marker in his hand and is anywhere near a whiteboard. I had to take an aspirin and lie down afterward.”

I was going to ask him more about Owen’s magical lecture, but I was saved from making the faux pas of talking about one guy while on a date with another by Trix, who stood forlornly at the dessert table, popping one chocolate after another into her mouth. “Trix? I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” I said.

She sighed deeply. “I wasn’t planning to come. I was going to go over to Pippin’s place and try to talk to him. But Ari made me come. She said it would be good for me to get out.” A single sparkling tear trickled down her cheek.

“Nice of her to abandon you after dragging you here,” I commented.

She sniffed. “I told her to go have fun. There’s no point in both of us being miserable.”

Ethan got that helpless expression men tend to develop when they’re around a weeping woman. He awkwardly squeezed her shoulder, then directed a wide-eyed “what now?” look at me.

I put an arm around her, carefully avoiding her wings. “Come on, honey, if you keep eating chocolate like that you won’t be able to fly.” She let me lead her to the table where we’d been sitting. It was only after we got there that I realized I hadn’t managed to get any chocolate for myself. Once the initial shakes from our frightening encounter had worn off, I no longer needed or wanted a drink. I had a feeling I’d need to keep my wits about me. I did, however, desperately need chocolate.

Ethan proved to be the consummate gentleman. With a glance at me, he held his hand out to Trix. “Come on, let’s dance. That’ll make you feel better.” I watched him gently guide her to the floor, then I made a beeline back to the dessert table. I wasn’t a good enough dancer to get on the floor in front of people I might need to respect me later at work.

Ethan and Trix seemed to be having a good time out there. She was even smiling and laughing, her wings perked up instead of drooping sadly like they had been all week. As I munched on a miniature brownie and watched them, I decided I’d found myself a pretty good man. He was prepared for everything, was good in a crisis, got along with my friends (with the possible exception of Marcia) and was kind to people in need. For the first time since I’d met him, I truly wanted it to work out between us, and not only because I doubted I’d ever have the man I really wanted. I was glad I had Ethan as a boyfriend.

When I got up to Merlin’s office suite Monday morning, Trix looked significantly better than she had Friday night. She almost even looked happy. “Thanks again for coming to my rescue,” she said. “It was sweet of you and Ethan to interrupt your date to help me.”

“I think my enemies had already interrupted our date,” I said. “Once a walking skeleton has thrown fireballs at you, it’s hard to get into a romantic mood.”

She fluttered her wings. “Oh, I don’t know. Don’t they say that the response to danger and sexual arousal aren’t all that different? It could have made for some interesting foreplay.”

“Trust me, that was the last thing on my mind when we got out of there.”

“Do you have any idea who it was or what they wanted?”

“No clue. I doubt it was a magical mugging. They were specifically after me. But why me? It’s not like getting me out of the picture will make that big a difference.”

Merlin came out of his office, concern on his wrinkled face. “You’re well, then?” he asked me. “I heard about the incident Friday night.”

“I’m fine. They didn’t do anything to hurt me. I think they just wanted to scare me, and I’m not entirely sure why, unless they’re still trying to make me give up and quit. Fortunately, Sam’s security team was on the ball, even in their off-hours.”

“It would probably be safe to assume you’re closer than you think to the truth about the spy.”

“Or else I’ve managed to piss off the wrong person and this has nothing to do with work.”

He cocked his head to one side, considering that idea. “Possible, but it seems like a great deal of effort for a personal vendetta. Those kinds of bandits don’t come cheap. They didn’t in my day, and I doubt that has changed with time.” He started to go back to his office, then turned back. “I think you should take Wednesday off to be with your family,” he said. “Getting you away from the office might give the spy a false sense of security.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate that.”

I left work early to meet Ethan in front of the building. While I waited for him, I chatted with Sam, who was back in his usual spot on the building awning. “My folks are flying in this evening,” I told him. “Do you think you could increase the bodyguard detail a little bit?”

“Worried that Idris’ll go after them?”

“Kind of. I mostly just want to avoid any situations that might make my parents worry. If they had any idea about the weirdness I’m caught up in, they’d have me hauled back to Texas so fast my head would spin. Heading off the bad guys at the pass would be a very good thing.”

“Gotcha! I’ll get my people right on it.” Then he winked. “Besides, Palmer already talked to me about it. He said you were worried.”

Even when Ethan arrived and we were on our way to the airport, I couldn’t stop fretting. I’d already worried about what my parents would think about my dinky apartment over a nail salon in an old tenement building. They were guaranteed not to like that. But even if they couldn’t see creatures with wings, flying gargoyles, and other magical oddities, they were still likely to see the effects of anything that got close to me. I wasn’t good at coming up with explanations on the spur of the moment.

“It’ll be okay,” Ethan said mildly as he negotiated the traffic on the way to LaGuardia.

“Hmm?” I asked, distracted.

“Your parents. Most people are scared of New York the first time they come here, but after a while it becomes just another place. It isn’t nearly so scary. In fact, I think that letting it become a real place instead of the bizarro world they imagined will make them feel better about it.”

“The problem is, it’s more a bizarro world than they possibly could have imagined. Muggers I think they could deal with. But magic?”

“These people have been hiding their magic from others for ages. I think your parents can spend a week here without discovering the secret. It took you a year, didn’t it? And I’d lived here for nearly ten years before I figured it out, even as an immune.”

I hoped he was right. It had been difficult enough to give Ethan, someone I barely knew at the time, the “magic is real, okay?” speech. I didn’t think I could give it to my parents while remaining sane. I gave him a quick kiss before I got out of the car and headed in to the baggage claim area.

The longer I waited, the more nervous I grew. I hadn’t seen my parents in more than a year. More important, they hadn’t seen me. What would they think of me? I felt like I’d changed so much. What if they didn’t like the new me?

When I saw the crowd of passengers arrive and head to the baggage claim for the flight from Dallas, I got so nervous I thought I’d throw up. Then I caught a glimpse of my dad’s head towering above the crowd and I rushed forward. “Dad! Mom!” I called out.

It took them a second to find me, and in that moment I was astonished by how much older they looked. It had only been a year, but my mental image of them was one I’d retained from childhood, apparently. The current reality came as a jolt. My dad had silver hair, and there was more gray than blond in my mother’s hair.

But then they reached me and hugged me like they never wanted to let me go. “Oh, my baby!” my mother said over and over again. My dad just kept patting me on the back. I was glad that Ethan had to stay behind with the car because I didn’t want him to see me cry.

“It’s good to see you,” I told them when I’d regained enough control to speak. “I missed you so much.”

My mom held me at arm’s length. “Look at you! You’re so thin. Are you eating enough? If you didn’t have enough money to eat, you should have said something.”

I felt like I was right back at home. “I’m eating fine, really,” I said with a laugh. “You have to walk a lot in New York. That keeps me in shape.”

“You aren’t anorexic, are you? Like all those models?” She opened her tote bag. “Here, I brought some food with me since they don’t feed you on airplanes these days. I think I still have some fried chicken.”

I reached over and closed her tote bag before she could pull out an entire chicken dinner in the middle of baggage claim. “Mom, I don’t need any fried chicken. We’ll be having dinner soon enough.”

“You’ve been living here too long. You always loved my fried chicken.”

While we were talking, my dad had gone about collecting their bags. “Do you have everything?” I asked. “My friend is outside with the car. They probably made him circle around.”

“You didn’t have to come pick us up,” Mom said.

“I wanted to, and my friend offered to drive.”

Ethan pulled up almost as soon as we got outside. My parents took one look at the Mercedes, then looked at each other. When Ethan got out of the car to help them load their bags, they appeared even more intrigued.

“Mom, Dad, this is my um, friend, Ethan Wainwright. We work together. Ethan, these are my parents, Frank and Lois Chandler.”

Ethan shook hands with both of them. My mom caught his hand in both of hers and said, “It was so nice of you to offer to come pick us up. You must be a very special friend to our Katie.”

An impatient cabdriver waiting to unload his passengers spared me potential further embarrassment by honking. Everyone had to scramble to get in the car so Ethan could pull away. It was only a temporary reprieve from embarrassment, though, for once we got on the road, we were trapped inside a car with my mother, whose potential-wedding-for-her-only-daughter radar was pinging loud and clear. She’d probably make Gemma scrap the sightseeing expedition and take her shopping for mother-of-the-bride dresses instead.

“So, Ethan,” she asked. “What is it you do?”

“I’m an attorney.”

“And you work with Katie?”

“Sort of. I have my own firm, but I’m on retainer for Katie’s company.”

“And that’s how you met?”

I tried not to groan out loud. I hadn’t even thought of working out a cover story with him in advance.

“Actually, it’s kind of funny, but no. I’m a friend of Jim’s, Connie’s husband. You know Connie?”

“Of course. The girls were always coming home with Katie on weekends from college.” Connie was my other college friend who’d moved to New York with Gemma and Marcia. When she got married and a spot in the apartment opened up, they’d persuaded me to join them in New York.

“Well,” Ethan continued, “Jim originally set me up with Marcia, but we didn’t hit it off so well. But Katie and I did.”

I didn’t have to look at the backseat to see my mother’s satisfied smile. “So you two are dating?”

“Yes, we are.” He said it like he was proud of it, and that gave me a warm glow.

If I could read minds, I knew at that moment I’d be able to hear my mom rehearsing the speech she’d give her friends back home. “Oh yes, and our Katie is dating a very prominent Manhattan attorney. He drives a Mercedes, you know.”

“We only just started dating,” I said, before she got carried away with thinking of how she’d tell her friends that she was expecting an engagement announcement any day now. I changed the subject by saying, “I got you a room at a hotel down the street from where I live, so it’ll be easy for us to come and go.”

“I hope you didn’t go to any bother,” Mom said.

“We’ll pay our own bill,” Dad added.

“It wasn’t any trouble at all,” I said. “I wish we had enough room for you to stay with us, but believe me, you’ll be much more comfortable in a hotel. It’s the same hotel where Gemma’s and Marcia’s parents stay when they visit.”

“Then I’m sure it’ll be fine,” my mom said.

I glanced over my shoulder to the backseat and saw that both of them were staring out the window. It was dark already, so there wasn’t much to see. It was probably for the best. That part of Queens wasn’t the most scenic section of New York and probably wasn’t the best way to introduce them to the city. “You can see the skyline ahead,” I pointed out. “We’ll be crossing the Triboro Bridge soon, and then you’ll have a great view.”

That cut off the personal questions for a while as they looked for landmarks. Ethan shot me a glance, a smile, and a wink, and I winked back at him.

We made good time heading down FDR to Fourteenth Street, so my parents didn’t have a chance to start the truly personal questions. “I’ll take you to your hotel so you can unload your bags,” Ethan said, “and then I’ll leave all of you to have some time together.”

“You’re very sweet to go to all this trouble,” Mom said, a lilt of Southern belle flirtation in her voice. Was that what I sounded like when I pulled that stunt?

“It wasn’t any trouble at all.” I knew he was lying through his teeth. The tolls alone were outrageous.

“You’ll have to come over for Thanksgiving if you don’t have any other plans. Katie and I are planning a big feast for all her friends.”

I felt a moment of panic. I wasn’t sure I was ready to subject Ethan to that much of my parents. On the other hand, it would probably be the safest possible circumstances, with Marcia, Gemma, Philip, and Jeff there.

Ethan glanced at me, like he was getting my okay before responding. I gave him a slight nod. “Yes, we’d love to have you.”

“Great then, I accept. I was just going to get a turkey TV dinner and watch football all day.”

“You do get football at your place?” my dad asked, sounding the least bit panicked.

“Of course I do, Dad. It’s on network TV. But they have cable at the hotel, just in case. I’m not sure whether or not we’ll get the Texas game Friday, though.”

“We’ll be out sightseeing and shopping Friday,” Mom declared. “And I’m glad you’ll be able to join us, Ethan. But aren’t you spending Thanksgiving with your family?” She was in full-on mother-hen mode. I could only imagine what she’d think about Owen, a true orphan.