Cassidy set her brush down before leaning closer to the mirror across from her. In the glass, her deep blue eyes met Julian’s. For a second, she simply stared. The last time they spoke through video was a year ago, and he hadn’t had a beard. Then, her beautiful face lit with a smile, and she leapt from her chair.
He’d planned to surprise her, and he succeeded. The waitress who’d directed him back here hadn’t wanted to tell him where his sister was, but once he smiled at her and explained his surprise, she directed him to the employee room.
“Julian!” Cassidy cried as she rushed across the room and threw herself into his arms. “What are you doing here? No, I don’t care. You’re here!”
Guilt tugged at Julian’s heart while he hugged her back. At one time, he was incredibly close to the twins. He’d been close with his whole family, but as the years slipped by, the distance between them grew.
These last six months were the worst. Once he hit maturity and his killer instinct kicked into hyperdrive, he hadn’t felt as capable of hiding what he was becoming from his family, so he avoided talking with them.
“Where have you been?” Cassidy asked as she leaned away from him. She tugged at his beard. “And what’s with this?”
He rubbed his beard as he replied. “Something to keep me warmer on chilly nights.”
“So, it was cold where you were?”
He released her and stepped back to shove his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the doorway of the cramped back room. Lockers for the employees took up most of the left-hand wall. On the right wall was the small table with a mirror Cassidy had vacated. A couple of hairbrushes, some deodorant, and a couple of hairbands were on the table, and he suspected it was where the employees came to fix themselves during their shift instead of using the bathroom.
Towels hung from a couple of hooks in the wall over the table, along with some aprons and one coat from someone who hadn’t bothered with their locker. In the corner near the back metal door was a stack of empty beer cases. The single bulb hanging in the center of the room didn’t do much to illuminate it.
“It was cold. It was warm. It was sunny and cloudy. It was everything it could be as I went almost everywhere,” Julian told her.
Cassidy settled on the corner of the small dressing room table. “I haven’t talked to you since Christmas. You never answer my calls.”
Maybe it would’ve been easier if he’d gone home and dealt with everyone at once. He hadn’t considered one-on-one would allow for more direct questions. “You know I’m not a big fan of the phone, and it wasn’t always possible to use a phone at some of the places I was.”
“Hmm,” she huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Now that some of her happiness about seeing him was wearing off, her anger over his disappearance was showing. “Does Mom know you’re here?” she asked.
“No. I planned to surprise all of you.”
“It worked.”
“Where’s Kyle?”
“He’ll be in soon; his shift starts at seven. When did you get into Boston?”
“I flew in from London last night.”
“And you’re just coming to see us now?”
Julian sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. He’d expected some annoyance over his abrupt four-year hiatus, but Cassidy was not going to make it easy. “I was on my way last night when I had a bit of a problem.”
He told her about his encounter with the Savage in the alley.
“That’s horrible,” she breathed when he finished. “Why didn’t you call one of us to come and help you in case someone discovered you? You didn’t have to stay there alone with that thing.”
He’d considered calling them but ruled it out. They couldn’t see what he’d done to the vamp before killing it, and he wasn’t in control of himself enough to deal with them. It had taken a couple of hours before he felt capable of pulling a towel from his pack to clean himself up.
When the sun rose enough to turn the body to ashes, he lifted his bag and found the closest hotel room, where he crashed for the day. He’d come here after waking and showering.
“I didn’t want either of you to have to deal with it,” he told her.
“Julian—”
“So, what’s new at the homestead?” he asked to distract her.
Cassidy gave him a look that said she knew what he was doing, but she answered him anyway. “The munchkins are all getting big.”
“I bet they are.”
“Aiden and Maggie are expecting a baby in the fall.”
He grinned at her as he tried to imagine Aiden as a dad. He’d be amazing at it. “That’s fantastic news.”
“If you called more often, you would have heard it a month ago, like the rest of us.”
“Ouch,” he said as he rubbed at his heart.
He remembered Cassidy as a young, easygoing girl with the voice of an angel and soul of a devil. She’d smile sweetly at them all while knowing she’d placed dog shit in their sneakers, or frogs in their bed, or taken all their clothes and thrown them in the ocean.
Once, she unplugged the cables to his computers and equipment and rearranged them all. It had taken her hours, but it took him days, a lot of cursing, and a whole lot of revenge planning to get it all sorted out again.
By then, she’d already discovered his revenge of a dead fish in her closet and moved it into his room; she added three more fish. He was so caught up in trying to get his equipment sorted out that he didn’t return to his room for three days. By then, it stunk so bad he couldn’t sleep in it for a month.
She’d become the reigning queen of the prank wars after their older siblings retired, and they all bowed to her expertise at making their lives miserable.
That young girl was gone, and in her place was a beautiful, twenty-year-old woman who wielded guilt with expertise. She was also mad at him for hurting her, and as much as he’d prefer not to deal with it, he had to face the music. He was the one who left.
“Why did you leave?” she asked. “Why haven’t you been back?”
Yes, one-on-one was definitely the wrong choice, but a roomful of Byrnes wasn’t going to be any easier. Running a hand through his hair, he reminded himself that he had to see his family. He couldn’t run away again. If he didn’t say goodbye to them now, he might not have another chance.
He didn’t know how to explain his leaving, and he certainly couldn’t explain his return, so he shrugged and shoved his hands back into his pockets. “I wanted to see the world.”
“And you did.”
“Most of it. I’ve even been to Antarctica.”
Her eyes widened, and some of her irritation eased as excitement replaced it. “Did you see penguins?”
The question and hopefulness in her gaze were that of the girl he left behind. That girl had watched a movie about a dancing penguin five thousand times like it was the first time every time. The girl who was so adventurous she’d do anything her brothers dared her to do. The one who would sing the most beautiful songs while Doug played the piano.
Thinking of Doug caused his chest to constrict, and for a minute, he couldn’t breathe. Losing one of his adopted uncles to the same island that nearly claimed Aida’s life was still a knife to his chest. The hole that knife created would never fully heal.
Unwilling to focus on the past, he shifted his attention back to Cassidy. “I saw penguins. I held one of their babies.”
“That’s awesome!” she exclaimed. “Now, I’m jealous.”
“How are things going in the city?” he asked.
“I like it here, and I get to sing to a lot more people than I ever could in Maine. I won’t ever be a chart-topper or on Broadway, but I love the audience and the people. Everything is so much more exciting here.”
The exhilaration in her voice made him realize their mom’s hope of having the twins return home in a couple of years was probably not going to happen. Cassidy had flown the nest, and this baby bird showed no signs of returning any time soon.
“I’m not so sure you won’t be in the top forty.”
Her wistful gaze went to the door behind him. “We both know why that could never happen.”
Yes, they did. They could blend in with humans and avoid drawing attention to themselves in the human world, but a vampire becoming a star would be an entirely different ball game. The media alone would be a nightmare to navigate.
If she were human, Cassidy would already be on Broadway or touring the world; instead, she sang in a bar.
“Besides,” she said as she rose from the table, “there’s a lot of talent out there.”
“None as talented as you, I’m sure.”
“I’m staying mad at you for a little while, so you can quit kissing my ass.”
He laughed as he leaned against the doorframe and pulled his hands from his pockets.