Making Promises (7 page)

With that the little dancer stuck his head into the tent and said,

“Kimmy—don’t you usually keep this for us?”

“Jesus, Mikhail, give a girl a little warning!” Kimmy’s voice was muffled through the tent and what sounded like clothing.

“Like I care about your breasts. Here—I don’t need any more temptation to spend my money, right?”

“Yeah, I hear you. I’ll put it here, and Kurt will make it safe when he gets here. Now move! This fucking thing’s a bitch to lace up, and queer or not, I don’t want witnesses.”

Shane’s heart did a fantastically orchestrated happy dance, complete with acrobatics and costume. When Mikhail popped back out of the tent Making Promises

wearing a long turquoise colored vest over his bare chest, it was all Shane could do to not babble like a moron.

“So, um….” His tongue froze in the back of his throat, and it occurred to him that there were worse things than babbling.

“You are Kimmy’s older brother?” Mikhail asked after an awkward pause.

“Twin,” Shane told him, wondering if he should be affronted.

Mikhail blinked and looked at him as though he hadn’t actually seen him the first time. “You two are nothing alike,” he decided with a sniff, and Shane knew his cheeks grew pink.

“She’s always been real graceful.” He had to look away. “Clothes.

What sort of clothes should I buy?”

“You are graceful!” Mikhail said, surprising the hell out of him. “But you move like you have somewhere to go. She moves like the world will come to her.”

“I heard that!” Kimmy shouted from the tent, and Mikhail rolled his eyes.

“I hope you did!” he called back. “Your brother is here, and he wishes to go shopping, and you are wasting your break trying to make your breasts look bigger. They’re small. Be happy. They do not get in the way.”

“Look, you queer Ruskie bastard, I’ve got forty minutes until my next gig, and I have to look like a fucking peasant, so would you cut me a fucking break?”

“If you have to look like a fucking peasant, I suggest you call Kurt over here, because the only part you are going to get right is the fucking.

Now get your ass out here, you silly girl, and greet your family.” Mikhail gave the tent an ill-tempered look. “It’s inexcusable. She’s spent weeks talking about nothing but seeing you, and now she’s hiding in there like a frightened child…”

“I’m not hiding!” Kimmy snapped, coming out of the tent and tying the front of her bodice, but she gave Shane a sidelong look, the kind he recognized from childhood that said she was only telling half the truth.

“Not anymore,” Mikhail said, his sulky little mouth curving up on one side smugly.

Shane had to laugh. “You’ve worked with her before?” Mikhail shrugged. “I have subbed in her troupe many times. She’s very sisterly—I think she needs a real brother to squander some of that attention on.”

Kimmy flushed and then took Shane’s arm. “Well, then, let me get to it,” she said brusquely, but she wasn’t meeting Shane’s eyes, either.

“You want to come along?” Holy cats. Shane couldn’t believe he actually said that. It was almost… smooth or something, like he was a whole other person. Almost like he was talking to Deacon or Crick.

Mikhail looked like he was on the verge of saying “No,” and Kimmy said, “Please, Mikhail—you never wander the Faire. You just hang out in the tent listening to music!”

Shane heard Mikhail’s little sigh as he came alongside. “I have no money for the Faire,” he muttered, then he brightened. “But I am not spending my money, am I?” He turned a blinding grin to Shane. “I am spending
yours.
Excellent—this should be very fun!” Shane had to laugh. “Glad to oblige.” He let Kimmy lead him past the tents that housed the performers (fairly close to the bathrooms, he noticed with a grimace) and into the Faire proper. He got his bearings quickly—it was laid out on a simple loop, with the food court forming a cul de sac off to one side and the jousting area off to the other.

“Keeps the horse shit well and good away from the food,” Shane observed thoughtfully, and Mikhail smiled.

“You know something about horses? Here—let’s go in here.” Shane allowed himself to be led into a vast tent full of what appeared to be machine-sewn cotton clothing and hustled into a corner and told to stay put. Kimmy and Mikhail whirled around the store, coming to him with trousers—both fitted and loose—and shirts in a variety of colors.

“White!” he said at one point. “I know there are six zillion colors for the shirts—”

“Tunics,” Mikhail supplied blandly.

“Whatever—but I want white.”

“Gold would look very good with your complexion,” the little dancer said, holding up a bright gold shirt…
tunic
… judiciously under Shane’s chin.

“But white would look better with a black leather overshirt!” Shane said firmly, and the way Mikhail’s eyes lit up made his vision swim for a minute.

“You want a leather jerkin? Like a constable or a rowdy?”

“A constable?” Shane said, trying to remember what that was.

“Yeah—I’m a cop. I can be a constable—but I need a white shirt underneath the… jerkin? Really? Is that the word?” Because it sounded like something completely dirty, and he wanted to make sure he’d heard right.

“Da,” Mikhail nodded sincerely—but his gray eyes were twinkling, and Shane grimaced. Little bastard knew exactly what Shane was trying not to say. He tried and failed to come up with a smart comeback—

anything but imagining Mikhail um…er…
jerkin’
, and then Kimmy’s brain caught up with her ears.

“You’re a what?” she asked, horrified.

“A policeman—I told you that, Kim. That’s why I moved to Levee Oaks—to take a job.”

“You fucker,” she said, her voice lost and a little empty.

“Kimmy!” Mikhail protested—because unlike their banter previously, she sounded like she really meant it as an insult this time.

“Are you trying to get shot again?” Shane heard the quaver in her voice and felt bad.

“Not really, Kim. Wasn’t trying to get shot the last time, if I recall.”

“You were shot? I thought you said you dealt with horses!” And to his credit, Mikhail sounded concerned as well.

“My friends deal with horses. And I wasn’t really shot,” Shane said to both of them. “You’re not shot if the Kevlar holds—mostly you’re
shot
at
, right?”

Kimmy put her hand on her stomach, which was cinched pretty tight with a leather thong through a red-flowered bodice. “That’s not funny, asshole. You were in the hospital for a month—”

“A month? And you were not shot?”

Shane shrugged and rolled his eyes—he hadn’t wanted to talk about this, not today. “Yeah, well, who needs a spleen, right? From what I 32

understand, they’re sort of redundant. Mikhail, did you want a shirt?” He held up a black shirt with ties coming from a V-necked collar—and Mikhail took it numbly.

“It’s very nice—they took out your spleen?”

Oh God. Shane had been there during dinners when Deacon had been cornered about his weight or working too hard or taking too much on. He’d seen the guy turn red and try to blow off any and all attempts to make his own health serious, and it had pissed him off.

Now he knew how Deacon felt.

“Look,” he said quietly, so they knew he’d been hearing their concern and not their sharp words, “I’m fine. I’m working in a quiet little suburb of a place about a twentieth the size of Los Angeles. It’s like going from Interpol to mall cop—I’m seriously taking it easy, so don’t sweat it, okay?”

“Don’t sweat it?” Kimmy asked bitterly. “When I sent you flowers, they were seriously doubting whether or not you’d survive, dammit!”

“You didn’t go visit him?” Mikhail asked sharply, and Kimmy snapped, “I was in rehab, okay?”

Shane blinked. “Rehab?”

And now Kimmy flushed and threw a pair of trousers at him with undue force. Shane dimly realized that their little corner of the store had cleared out pretty damned quickly, and he felt bad. “Which is what I was going to tell you about when you got here—but then you had to go and tell me that you’re trying to kill yourself with
out
the high!”

“Don’t be dramatic, darlin’.” Shane put an armload of clothes down and took both her hands in his. “Look—how ’bout you calm down and let me change, and sometime when we don’t have an audience, we can talk about this, okay?”

Kimmy looked around and laughed shakily. “Sorry—I know how you don’t like scenes. I just….” And now she looked away, embarrassed.

“I wanted to explain, you know? Part of coming clean is explaining to people you wronged, and… I didn’t come to visit.” Shane shrugged, honestly surprised. “No worries, Kim. You sent the only flowers in the damned room. It’s all good. Now can I go try this shit on? I want to find the place that sells leather!” Making Promises

“Yeah, fine,” Kimmy sniffed, looking over her shoulder. She wanted out of this scene, too, it was clear as day. “Here—let me go find some girl shit for you—some of that stuff on your list was here.”

“I like leather,” Mikhail said when she was gone. He had a sly little smile on his sulky mouth, and now Shane blushed.

“Chafes,” he muttered, remembering an experience with an old girlfriend.

“Not if you don’t wear it for long,” Mikhail said gaily, and Shane had to laugh.

“Try on that shirt,” he said earnestly, and Mikhail looked at it judiciously.

“It is a small—I know it will fit,” he said with confidence. “But I have no money.”

“Do you at least like the color?” Shane asked with some exasperation.

“It matches my jerkin and trousers very well,” he conceded, and Shane rolled his eyes. Geez… try to do something nice for someone.

Okay—that wasn’t entirely true. The truth was Shane really wanted to see him in the shirt. He looked at Mikhail awkwardly for a moment and flushed. Not that seeing him without it wasn’t a treat too.

Mikhail caught that look and the blush, too, and smiled, arching his eyebrows and looking very gamine. “If you would like to see it on me, I will try it on.”

“Thank you,” Shane muttered, and then he disappeared into his dressing room. The dressing rooms were hardly more than curtained cubicles, and he knew he could hardly keep his big, awkward body from challenging the edges of his space. When he and Mikhail bumped bottoms through the curtain, and his body—so long denied any contact at all—

began to wake up and show a little interest, Shane knew he had to make some conversation.

“Uhm, this Kurt that Kimmy keeps mentioning—is he a nice guy?”

“No,” said Mikhail shortly. “He hasn’t stopped using for one thing, and he treats your sister like shit for another. Did you really get shot?”

“He what?” Shane whirled around and pulled the curtain aside, and then slammed it shut again. “You didn’t tell me you were going to try on 34

pants too,” he mumbled, backing up against the plywood partition that marked the solid side of the cubicle. The guy had also not mentioned that he was going commando.

“You didn’t ask,” came the mild reply. “You act as though you have not seen another man naked. I take it that’s not true?”

“One,” Shane blurted, looking fiercely at the curtain and wishing he could get rid of the mental image of Mikhail—all smooth, tanned skin and pale blond hair at his groin and the center of his chest. That picture in his head was making him stupid. “And that’s not the point. My sister—you’re saying this thing with Kurt isn’t a good idea?”

“He also shortchanges me on the tips,” Mikhail muttered, and then, more brightly, “but that’s okay—I flushed half his stash and replaced it with baking soda. Jerkoff.”

“Jesus,” Shane mumbled. “She was so proud she had it all together.”

“And she did not visit you in the hospital.” Mikhail was still talking—almost to himself, it sounded like. “Why was it your fault you got shot?”

“It wasn’t.” Shane had a sudden understanding. Talking to this man was like following a kitten with a ball of yarn. That thing was going to take him a lot of different, tangled places before he unraveled it and put it in order. “Stop chasing worsted,” he muttered, “and let’s keep talking about Kimmy.”

“Your sister loves you,” Mikhail said, and there was some shifting as he moved out of the dressing room. “Now I am not naked—would you care to see me?”

“I’m not even dressed yet! Gimme a moment!” Shane shut up for a moment—Mikhail was distracting him entirely—and worked at getting his trousers and tunic on. He came out of the dressing room and stopped.

Mikhail was wearing the black shirt with a turquoise huntsman and new black trousers and he looked….

“Handsome as a cat,” Shane said without meaning to, and then he wanted to smack his head against the four-by-four post holding the entire tent up.

“One that chases worsted balls of words,” Mikhail finished for him, looking pleased. “And your sister—she is proud of her life here. Kurt is…

he is not a good part of it, but he is only a part. She wants you to see that she’s happy. That is all—you don’t need to love the only addiction she still has, yes?”

“I still haven’t met the guy,” Shane said, looking around. The entire tent—every wall—was filled with clothes neatly hung on dowels suspended on the support bars. All those clothes and not one damned leather jerkin.

“We need to go somewhere else for trousers,” Mikhail said judiciously, and Shane looked down at the loose-fitting pair he’d just pulled up.