Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(86)

“How’s the arm?”

“It aches real bad when I don’t take the pain pills, but if I do take the pain pills then I forget that it’s broken and I do stupid stuff. I bumped it yesterday—on accident—and it hurt like hell.” Sitting cross-legged, he scooted back on the bed to make room for me. I plopped down while he muted the volume on a large TV hanging on the wall across from us that was twice as big as mine at home.

“The cast is huge, Jesus,” I said.

“It’s heavy too—feel.” He tugged my hand so he could rest the elbow in my palm. “See.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty heavy. When do you get to take it off?”

“The human doctor at the emergency room said six weeks, but my real doctor’s Earthbound, and he said I can probably take it off in two, and he can heal it up the rest of the way himself then.”

“Being a demon sometimes has advantages.”

“I guess.”

I surveyed Jupe’s domain. Pretty big for a kid’s bedroom, but hard to tell from all the clutter. A door opened to a private bathroom on one side of the room. On the other, old movie lobby cards lined the walls, along with a signed poster of some Brazilian soccer star and another of Pam Grier as Foxy Brown. The wall in front of us supported floating shelves from floor to ceiling, each packed with neatly arranged vintage horror movie toys. A vertical series of three large black-and-white framed photographs hung nearby.

“Who are they?” I asked, pointing to the photos.

“Oh, that’s Aunt Adella.”

“Your mom’s sister?” I guessed.

“Yeah, and that’s my gramma. My dad took those this summer.”

Adella had a darker complexion than her sister, and a softer, rounder face. Strikingly pretty with a kind smile. My age, maybe a little older. Her hair was a mass of spiral, electric curls that stuck out just like Jupe’s, barely tamed by a wide polka-dot headscarf tied just above her forehead. A gray wisp of a halo was just visible. “Christ, you look like her.” More than his mother, even, just going from photos.

“Yeah, my hair, huh? Nose too. She’s so-o-o cool. You would love her. She’s supersmart and really funny. She emails me almost every day and I talk to her on Sunday nights,” he bragged, then added, “and I already told her all about you.”

An odd feeling tightened my chest. Something between embarrassment and pleasure. “You did?”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t offer anything more, so I didn’t pry. “She asked me what I wanted for my birthday yesterday.”

He was totally fishing, but I took the bait. “When’s your birthday?”

“Next month. Halloween.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

He gave me a smug look. “I know, right? When’s yours?”

“Febru …” I paused. No, that was the actual Arcadia Bell’s birthday—the one I was used to spouting off on cue. I struggled for a moment to remember the real date. I hadn’t celebrated it in years. “Wow, I guess it’s tomorrow.”

“What? Tomorrow? Happy birthday! The big twenty-six, huh?”

“Twenty-five,” I corrected without thinking.

“I thought you were already twenty-five? That’s what my dad told me when I asked him.”

According to my fake driver’s license, I was. “Nope. Tomorrow.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me like he’d just discovered some salacious secret, then mumbled, “Talk about cradle robbing …”

I gave him a soft punch on his shoulder, then glanced back at the photos on the wall again. The last one was a shot of Adella and Jupe pretending to balance on a surfboard, their arms held out. They were both grinning.

“Those are the first photos I’ve seen of your dad’s—well, in person, anyway. At first I thought he only shot women in bikinis, but then I found his website and saw the other stuff, National Geographic covers and the local photos of the coast.”

“Yeah, he sells a ton of those in a shop down in the Village. You know how much people pay for some of them? The signed prints? Guess.”

“Uh …”

“A thousand dollars! Can you believe that? Who would pay that much for a photo of the stupid beach? All they have to do is walk outside and see it for free. Man, people are dumb.” Jupe shook his head and kicked several open video game cases off the side of the bed. God only knew where the games were or what shape they were in. “Wait a minute, why are you here so early?” He looked askance at me.

Busted. I had no idea what to say. On one hand, he might be angry or uncomfortable. Then again, he probably deserved honesty, and he wasn’t a child. But maybe it wasn’t my place to say anything at all. “Uh …” I hedged, trying to make up my mind.

Jupe’s pale green eyes widened. He looked away for a second, forehead wrinkled, then asked me straight up, “Did you stay here last night?”

“Kinda.”

“In the guest room?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly. I think it was the forcefulness of it that gave it away. All my well-cultivated lying skills seemed to be just out of reach.

“You stayed … with my dad?” He sounded like a gossip columnist uncovering the scandal of the year, shocked but titillated.