Jinx by Jennifer Estep
“How are you liking Jasper’s present?” Lulu asked, eyeing the bracelet.
“It’s a bit strange knowing I could blow up myself and most of Bigtime with a couple of words, but you get used to it.”
Carmen nodded. “You get used to a lot of strange things in this town.”
24
By the time we’d finished checking up on Devlin and Grace, it was close to midnight. Carmen invited me to stay in one of the hundred or so guest suites upstairs, but I headed home. I’d had enough superheroes for one day, no matter how nice they were. My luck decided to be good for a change, giving me nothing but green lights, and I got home in less than twenty minutes.
Debonair didn’t pop! inside the house to surprise me, though. I didn’t know if it was because he’d gotten what he wanted last night, or if he was out being Devlin Dash. And I didn’t know what I would have done if he had appeared. Probably fallen into bed with him yet again. I had precious little control where the handsome thief was concerned.
I slept late for a change and didn’t get up until almost noon the next day. My luck kept pulsing around me, as if it knew I had an important day ahead. After I fried two elliptical trainers and a stationary bike, I threw in the towel on my workout and headed upstairs.
But I didn’t fare any better in the kitchen. I tried to make myself a veggie special sandwich on whole-grain, calcium-fortified bread. First, the bread fell apart in my hands. Then, a tomato flew off the counter and splattered onto one of the kitchen windows. The lettuce exploded, the cheese molded the second I took it out of the refrigerator, and I snapped a knife in two when I dipped it in a jar of low-fat mayonnaise. The jagged blade missed my big toe by less than an inch.
After destroying just about everything I touched, I went back upstairs and stayed in bed sketching until it was time to get ready for my date with Devlin. I wanted to look good when I confronted my sexy, leather-wearing lover, so I took a long shower and pampered myself with all sorts of lotions and creams and other assorted beauty products. I also put mounds of conditioner in my hair in the hope that, just once, it wouldn’t frizz. My nice, smooth look lasted about two minutes before my hair became sky-high once more.
Then, it was time to decide what to wear. I’d just settled on a nice pinstriped skirt and white blouse when a flash of scarlet caught my eye. I reached into the back of my closet and pulled out a crimson dress Fiona had made me for my birthday. The fabric reached the floor, but it had a deep, V-shaped neckline and high slits all around the skirt that showed off my legs. The dress was made of soft, slick, shiny satin and dotted here and there with sequins, glass beads, and bits of feathers. It also happened to be the exact same color as the teddy I’d sported in the Lair of Seduction.
I’d never worn the dress before. It was a little too loud, a little too bold and daring and revealing for me. But I was in a bold sort of mood tonight. So, I slithered into the dress, put on the reddest lipstick I owned, and grabbed a matching purse and shoes. As a final touch, I fastened my favorite silver angel charm around my throat. It went nicely with the bracelet Jasper had given me. I was getting rather used to having the bomb maker’s charms dangle off my wrist. I didn’t know whether that was good or bad.
I went downstairs around seven-thirty to check on Bobby. He relaxed on the couch in the living room, watching a soccer game.
“You look marvelous.” Bobby whistled. “Is that a new dress?”
I turned around. “One of Fiona’s creations.”
“Well, it looks wonderful on you,” he said.
“Why are you sitting here alone? Shouldn’t you be out with Grace tonight? Or is she dropping by later?”
“No, she’s not coming over tonight,” Bobby said. “She had a few errands to do. We’re having dinner tomorrow, though.”
“Maybe it will go better than the other night.”
My grandfather frowned. “We’ll see.”
“Well, I need to get going. I’ll call you if I’m going to be late,” I promised.
“Have a good time, darling.” Bobby turned back to his game.
I clutched my purse, which contained the drawing of Debonair that I’d done, along with the check Devlin had written me. “Oh, it will be very interesting, to say the least.”
Five minutes before eight, I stopped my silver Benz in front of Quicke’s. Despite the fact that traffic crawled along and every spot on the street was taken, another vehicle decided to leave at the exact moment I turned onto the block. So I slid my car into a parking spot with no problem. Devlin stood on the sidewalk, waiting for me. He came over and held out a hand to help me out of the car. I took it, noticing how sure and capable his hands were. They looked exactly like the same hands that had driven me mad the other night.
“Here. This is for you.” Devlin held out a single red rose.
“A rose. How lovely.”
I sniffed it. It didn’t smell nearly as wonderful as Debonair did. No rose ever could. They didn’t have his faint, musky, masculine undertones.
Devlin’s eyes flicked up and down my body. “You look amazing, Bella. That color really looks wonderful on you.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said, baiting him just a little.
No reaction. Not even a blink. Maybe Devlin was better at this than I thought. Or maybe I just wasn’t as good.
“You look nice too. Very handsome.”
And he did. For once, Devlin wore a dark blue business suit that seemed to fit just right. He’d forgone a tie, leaving his collar unbuttoned and exposing just the tiniest bit of his chest, including a patch of dark, curly hair. My power flared at the sight of him, and I had to will it to be still and not interfere.
Devlin held out his arm. “Shall we?”
I drew in a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
We stepped inside the restaurant, and Kyle Quicke greeted us. Like Bulluci Industries, Quicke’s was very much a family business, a couple of generations strong now. It seemed like Kyle was always at the restaurant, morning, noon, and night. With his chestnut hair, light eyes, and thin physique, Kyle was cute—if a bit on the lean side.
“Devlin, my man! Good to see you!” Kyle’s face broke into a grin at the sight of his cousin.
The two of them shook hands and exchanged hearty back slaps. Then, Devlin stepped aside.
“And I’m sure you know Bella Bulluci.”
Kyle nodded. “Bella.”
“Kyle.”
He grabbed a couple of menus from underneath the podium by the front door. “Let me show you guys to your table.”
We wound our way through the restaurant. All the greenery and twinkling lights for the bachelor auction had been cleared away, and the décor had reverted back to its usual superhero-and-ubervillain motif. The posters, the toys, the newspaper clippings. They beamed at me from their positions on the walls. I grimaced. Too bad.
Kyle seated us in a secluded booth at the back of the restaurant. Devlin helped me slip into my side, then took the opposite one. Kyle handed us both menus before leaving. We made small talk for a few minutes before giving the waiter our orders. Devlin opted for grilled swordfish, while I gave in to temptation and ordered four-cheese manicotti. With berry-flavored sangria and a piece of cherry pie for dessert.
“I really shouldn’t be eating this,” I said fifteen minutes later, eyeing the steaming mound of pasta and cheese in front of me. “I don’t know why I ordered it. The carbs are going to wreck my diet.”
“You don’t look like you need to be on a diet.”
“That’s very sweet of you, but I could stand to lose a few pounds.”
“Oh, be dangerous. Live a little,” Devlin teased in a shy tone.
I stared at him. He was one to talk about living dangerously. Didn’t he realize the danger he put himself in every time he slipped into his silly costume? Every time he broke into some museum? Every time he took something that wasn’t his?
“Did I say something wrong?” Devlin asked, noticing my grimace.
?
“There are other ways to get your exercise.”
I flashed back to our time in bed together. That had certainly been a vigorous workout—very vigorous.
“Oh, really? What did you have in mind?” I asked in a sexy, impish voice.
Devlin almost spit out his wine. He started choking and didn’t recover his breath for several seconds. If I hadn’t known better, I would have bought the whole geeky, I’m-painfully-shy-around-women act. But I did know better. Devlin Dash could do things to a woman that she’d only dreamed about or read in romance novels.
Devlin did most of the talking during dinner, stammering through stories about Grace, Kyle, Kelly, and other far-flung members of his family. I made the appropriate noises, but I was too busy looking for hidden meanings in his words to add much to the conversation. An hour later, we finished dinner. Devlin looked positively miserable. He kept fiddling with his wineglass and rubbing his temples, as though the evening hadn’t gone as he’d planned.
“Would you like to go someplace? Maybe for a walk or something?” Devlin asked.
But evidently, he wasn’t miserable enough to end the evening. I didn’t plan on letting him do that anyway. Not until I’d confronted him.
I stared into his eyes, blue eyes that had haunted my dreams for days. “Sure. In fact, I know the perfect place.”
I asked Devlin where his car was and if he wanted to drive. The businessman claimed he had a friend drop him off. To me, it was another telltale sign he was really Debonair. Why drive when you could just teleport anywhere you wanted to?
“We’ll take my car, then,” I said, unlocking the Benz. “It’s not that far to the marina.”
Devlin looked at me strangely. “Why do you want to go to the marina this time of night?”
“I love listening to the waves and watching the moon rise over the bay. I think it’s very romantic. Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
We rode in silence through the quiet streets. For once, I didn’t see any superheroes out and about. No Granny Cane pummeling muggers. No Swifte racing to and fro. No Black Samba surfing on top of a city bus. After about ten minutes, I pulled to a stop in front of the entrance to the marina. Bigtime bordered the Atlantic, and the ocean cut a wide, jagged oval into the middle of the city. A man-made river flowed down the towering hill from the observatory, spilling out into the ocean and helping to form the shallow waters of Bigtime Bay.
I eased the Benz over a couple of speeds bumps and found an empty space on the street. We got out of the car and strolled toward the water’s edge. Our shoes clacked on the round cobblestones that connected the street to the long boardwalk that wrapped around the bay. The tall spires of the Bigtime Maritime Museum hovered above us, along with the massive, pentagon-shaped beams that supported the Skyline Bridge. Lights from various boats bobbed up and down farther out in the bay. Chilled, I drew my scarlet wrap tighter around my shoulders.
“Here, let me.” Devlin took off his jacket and draped it over my shivering shoulders.
I buried my face in the collar. Sweet roses. Of course.
We settled on an iron bench in the shadow of the Skyline Bridge and looked out over the bay. Despite my pretenses to get Devlin here, it really was a beautiful view. The moonlight made the waves seem like streams of silver coming into and going out from the sandy shore. A few gulls cried in the night sky, but the constant rush of the waves crashing on the pebbled beach muted their harsh calls.
We didn’t speak for a long time.
“You know, I’m surprised you agreed to come out with me tonight,” Devlin said. “Even if I did pay for the pleasure.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I don’t exactly seem like your type.” He picked up a loose bit of stone and skipped it across the water.
“And what would my type be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone suave. Sophisticated. Confident. Handsome.”
“You’re not all of those things?” I said, trying to tease him a bit. “Because you hide it very well.”
“Not really.”
I was silent for a moment. “Actually, I was glad you called. I wanted to see you again.”
“Really? Why?” He sounded surprised.
“Because I wanted to talk to you. To tell you that I know the truth,” I said, staring him in the eyes. “To tell you that I know you’re really Debonair.”
25
Devlin stared at me. His face paled. Sweat beaded on his forehead. A bit of nervous laughter escaped his trembling lips.
“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” I demanded.
Devlin took off his glasses and rubbed his temples.
“I could barely summon up enough courage to call you and ask you out, even though I bid on you at the auction.” Devlin put his glasses back on. “I’m a total klutz when it comes to women. And you think I’m Debonair? Of all the superheroes in Bigtime, he’s the one I’m least like.”
He let out a few more nervous giggles, trying to pass off my accusation as nothing more than a joke.
“Well, that’s funny,” I replied in a calm voice. “Especially since I have proof that you are, in fact, Debonair.”
I drew the drawing and the check out of my purse and showed them to him. “See? The two signatures match perfectly. Care to explain that?”
Devlin quit laughing. He looked at the two scraps of paper, then at me. I got the impression he wanted to teleport away. Somewhere far, far away.
I reached over and slid the glasses off his face. “You don’t have to hide from me. Not anymore, Devlin Debonair Dash.”
He looked at me, really looked at me, and I realized I was staring into the face of the man I’d slept with. The face of the man I’d come to care about.
Devlin tucked his glasses in his pocket. His mouth twisted. “Of course I do. I have to hide from everyone.”
I thought about what Lulu had said—how finding out a superhero’s real identity ruined the mystery, the fantasy, for her. Maybe Devlin thought that way too. “Why do you say that?”
He let out a harsh, self-deprecating laugh. “Because if people found out I was really Debonair, they’d be angry with me. Think I’d betrayed them in some way. That I’d lied to them all these years. They’d laugh and snicker and point their fingers, especially the women. I couldn’t stand that.”
“Why do you even do it?” I asked. “Why be somebody like Debonair?”
Devlin stared down at his scuffed wingtips. “I’m not like the other men on the society scene in Bigtime. I’m not that rich, at least not anymore. I’m not that handsome, and I never know the right thing to say. I can’t even tell a good joke. Half the time, I forget the punch line. I’ve always been awkward and self-conscious, particularly around women. I’ve never felt like I fit in, not even in my own family. Debonair is a way for me to be everything I want to be. Suave. Smooth. Cool. Confident. Everything I’m not in real life. It’s an escape from being average, boring, nerdy Devlin Dash, if only for a few hours at a time.”
“I see.”
And I did. I understood Devlin better than he realized. I used to dream of being Johnny Angel, and I’d seen the effect a secret identity had on people like my father. To some, it was better than the most potent drug. More desirable, more addictive, and much more harmful. At least, it had been to my family.
“I don’t think people would laugh at you if they knew the truth. You’re a very interesting, special man in your own right, Devlin.”
He gave me a wan smile, as if he didn’t really believe me.
“And your powers?” I asked, wanting to know the rest of the story. “How did you get your powers?”
Devlin looked out into the shimmering water. Memories clouded his blue eyes. “You know my grandmother, Grace, raised me. My parents died in a sailing accident when
“But you didn’t die.” I squeezed his hand, willing him to go on with his story. “You survived. How?”
Devlin drew in a deep breath. “Cap’n Freebeard and his Saucy Wenches saw the explosion and came to help. They found me clinging to a piece of debris. They rescued me and kept me safe until Grams could come and get me.”
Devlin watching his parents drown, discovering his power, being taken aboard Freebeard’s love boat. That would have had a major impact on him. The shock, the trauma, the stress. It was the beginning of him becoming Debonair.
From his story, it sounded like Devlin had a natural, genetic mutation that gave him superpowers, unlike Carmen Cole, who’d developed hers only after being dropped into a vat of radioactive waste. Or Henry Harris, who’d been struck by lightning. Or a dozen other legends I’d heard. Devlin was more like me than I’d realized.
“I know why you were in Berkley’s house that night. You were stealing the painting so you could restore it, weren’t you? That’s why you steal all the art you do.”
He nodded. “I take the paintings, restore and preserve them, and then return them to their owners—or to the nearest museum. There’s no real harm in it. I do it because I can’t stand to see beautiful things wasting away. I suppose I’m an art lover, like you. I always have been.”