Free Under a Vampire Moon by Lynsay Sands

you’re dating, and you’ll be obliged to kiss her and she’ll let you to uphold her position as beard.”
    “Oh, Julius, you are clever,” Marguerite praised.
    “But if she thinks I’m gay, she’ll hardly be attracted to me and want me kissing her,” Christian said unhappily.
    “Her thinking you’re gay isn’t going to affect her attraction to you,” his father said firmly. “Nothing can affect that. The nanos somehow control that. She’ll want you no matter what she thinks you are. All this gay and beard business does is make it so she just won’t be afraid that you’re attracted back. So she won’t fear having to deal with, or face up to, an attraction she feels is inappropriate. She’ll have no reason to run. You’ll be free to woo her.”
    Christian could see how that could be helpful. It was certainly better than having her avoid him and not getting to spend time with her at all. Still . . . “All right, but what happens then?”
    “What happens when?” Julius asked uncertainly.
    “Well, once I have her liking me and get her to know me, how do I then roll it over from I’m gay to I’m not?” he asked dryly.
    “Oh.” Julius removed his arm with a shrug. “I have no idea.”
    “I’m sure nature will take its course, dear,” Marguerite said at once. “The important thing is that this allows you to at least begin the wooing process.”
    Christian sighed and nodded wearily.
    “It’s not my clothes,” Zanipolo said with certainty. “My clothes are no different from what you guys wear.”
    “Now,” Marguerite murmured, ignoring Zanipolo’s mutterings. “I told the girls we were going to see if you guys were up for joining us. Are you?”
    When Christian hesitated, unsure if he was ready—or even knew how—to play a gay man, Marguerite added, “If so, you can ask her to go for a walk, tell her Gia told you she agreed to be your beard and you appreciate it and then kick it off. Ask her to dinner tomorrow night, maybe.”
    Christian hesitated. “I don’t have to talk in a higher octave or start walking or behaving effeminately, do I?”
    “Is my walk effeminate?” Zanipolo asked suddenly.
    “Not that I noticed,” Santo assured him. Zanipolo was just relaxing when he added, “But then I don’t really watch you walk, cugino .”
    “You don’t have to walk or act effeminately,” Gia said with exasperation. “There are all sorts of gay men, some more effeminate, some more butch, and then some perfectly average. They are just like everyone else, for heaven’s sake.”
    “Right,” Christian muttered.
    “Just be yourself,” Marguerite advised.
    “Right,” Christian repeated.
    “Let’s go get her, son,” Julius said cheerfully, slapping him on the shoulder. “I want to be bouncing your babies on my knee in nine months or so.”
    “Oh,” Marguerite said on a little sigh and rubbed Christian’s arm. “My baby having babies.”
    “I’m over five hundred years old, Mom. Hardly a baby.”
    “You’ll always be a baby to me,” she assured him, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
    Christian shook his head and turned toward the door, but heard her murmur in a weepy voice, “Did you hear, Julius? He called me Mom again.”
    “ Si, cara, and so you are,” his father said gently.
    “Yes, but I missed so much of his growing up,” she said on a sigh as Christian opened the door.
    “You did,” Christian heard his father agree solemnly. “Maybe we should have another one to make up for it.”
    “It won’t make up for all I missed,” she whispered. “But it would be nice.”
    “Then we’ll start working on it tonight,” Julius murmured.
    “You two have been ‘working on it’ since finding each other,” Christian pointed out dryly.
    “Yes, we have,” Julius agreed as they started through the lobby. “Jealous?”
    “Damned right,” Christian muttered. He wouldn’t mind doing a little “working on it” with Carolyn. But that wasn’t likely to happen for a