6
If a man is callous and fickle in life, being a vampire won’t suddenly make him sensitive to your needs.
— Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less
Destructive Relationships
There is nothing sadder than a vampire in her bathrobe, drinking Hershey’s Blood Additive Chocolate Syrup straight from the bottle and watching Fatal Attraction over and over again.
I hadn’t gotten so much as a call from Gabriel since the ugly scene at the shop. Even though I probably would have hung up on him if he had called, he could have at least made the gesture of letting me hang up on him. But it appeared that Gabriel had learned his lesson from the first time I stopped talking to him. Complete radio silence. Every once in a while, I thought I could sense his presence outside the house, but it seemed like wishful thinking on my part. I walked outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. But there was nothing, not even a trace of his scent on the breeze.
Gabriel, it seemed, had moved on. And if he hadn’t moved on, he was doing a damn fine impersonation of someone who had. So I decided to follow suit.
For the past four nights, I’d served coffee, helped customers select books, and kept our new mascot, Cindy, in comics and lattes. The crowd wasn’t quite as big as opening night, but it was certainly respectable. And we seemed to be developing regulars, human and vampire.
But when Sunday night, our closed night, came, I found myself in my bathrobe in the kitchen, staring down the Hershey’s bottle. The phone rang, and even though I really, really hoped it was Gabriel, I was still contrary enough not to answer just in case it was Gabriel.
Instead, Mama’s voice echoed from my answering machine through my impossibly empty kitchen. “Jane, honey, it’s Mama. Daddy told me all about what happened with Gabriel. I don’t know why you told Daddy about it instead of me … but anyway, I think you just need to stop being silly and call him. It’s not like there are a lot of available vampires out there. And you two are so good together. Whatever Gabriel did, I think you just need to—”
The machine cut her off. God bless technology.
Before Mama could call back, Andrea and Jolene came barreling into the house like the cavalry, armed with DVDs; dessert blood, obviously for me; ice cream, obviously not for me; and wine, obviously not for Jolene. There was also an alarming assortment of junk food, including ready-made cheesecake filling in a tub, which I didn’t even know existed. And now that I was aware of it, I was extremely disgruntled that I couldn’t eat any of it. At the sight of this cornucopia of girlie comfort, I promptly burst into tears.
“I love you guys.” I sniffled. “I’m fine. I’m not crying ’cause of Gabriel. I just really love you guys.”
Jolene wrapped her arms around me and made soft wuffling noises as I snotted up her T-shirt. I had really good friends, girlfriends, which was something I’d never had in life. Somehow they complemented each other to form some sort of perfectly balanced break-up safety net.
“Aw, honey, it’s all right,” Jolene soothed. “He’s a bastard. Zeb was too busy mumblin’ empty threats to make it clear what Gabriel did, but he’s a bastard.”
“Oh, have we already reached the ‘calling Gabriel names’ portion of the festivities?” Andrea asked, returning to the kitchen with my corkscrew. “I thought we’d at least get her drunk and watch a movie first.”
“I thought we were supposed to get her drunk and put her panties in the freezer,” Jolene said, her pretty face scrunched in confusion.
“I think you’re mixing up your female-bonding customs,” I told her. “That’s ‘thirteen-year-olds at a sleepover,’ not ‘vampire boyfriend may or may not have cheated on you, but either way, he’s an emotionally unavailable asshat.’”
“Oh, how the hell am I supposed to keep up with all your weird human rituals?” She grunted, prying the lid off Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie and digging in. “If this was a werewolf thing, we’d just go pee on his front porch so no other females would come near him for months.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted.
I surveyed Andrea’s outfit of artfully worn jeans and what was obviously one of Dick’s T-shirts, advertising the joys of Hot Springs, Arkansas. “I thought you said you were getting rid of Dick’s tacky T-shirts.”
“Oh, this isn’t tacky, this is vintage,” she said, turning proudly to show off the way the shirt hugged her curves. “I put a seam here and there. It’s a little more tailored, so instant classic.”
I peered down at my own happy-face pajama pants and a baggy T-shirt advertising the annual 4-H Hog Call. “I hate you. What’d you bring?” I examined the stack of videos. “ Steel Magnolias and Beaches ? Are you trying to comfort me or get me to commit suicide?”
Jolene shrugged. “When I want an excuse to cry, I watch Steel Magnolias .”
“What about this one?” I held up a copy of 9 to 5 .
“I think Jolene got confused about the theme,” Andrea said. “But still, female empowerment, dosing your boss with rat poison. It could work.”
“I’m your boss,” I reminded her.
“That does pose a problem,” Andrea agreed as my eyes narrowed.
“Zeb said we should bring over the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Andrea thought you’d get all depressed,” Jolene told me.
“Yeah, because what’s the point of watching Buffy if you’re not watching the second-season episodes with Spike in them?” I asked, uncorking the bottle of wine. Andrea poured me a large glass. “Hmmm. I wonder if it would be unethical for me to turn James Marsters? And then force him to fake the Cockney accent? And then make him my love monkey?”
“Yes, the Council would probably notice that.” Andrea snorted.
“Frankly, I’m surprised some crazy, recently turned fan girl hasn’t already thought of it,” I muttered into my wine.
Andrea pulled a DVD case with a blank cover out of her purse. “I also brought this. It’s an unrated version of the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, the Colin Firth version. Dick got it from one of his … sources. There’s a rumor that during the bath scene, you get an accidental peek at Mr. Darcy’s bum.”
“Oh, Lord, she’s crying again,” Jolene groaned as I gave her neck another moist hug.
I blubbered, “I’m just so happy!”
We indulged in buttoned-up Austenian dramedy for a few hours, consuming more calories than should be allowed by law. I painted my toes a bold eggplant, which Gabriel had always disliked. He said it made my feet look hypothermic. Thanks to her accelerated pregnancy, Jolene’s brief flirtation with crippling morning sickness was over. She polished off the Mint Chocolate Cookie and the Cherry Garcia but not the Chunky Monkey, which Andrea specifically chose because Jolene hated banana. I became concerned about Andrea’s wine-to-ice-cream consumption ratio and what sort of color she might turn my carpet if she got sick. But then I had a few glasses myself and just didn’t care. Fitz couldn’t decide whom he’d rather spurn me for, Andrea or Jolene, both of whom he adored. But since he had a better chance of Andrea sharing food with him, he snuggled up with Andrea.
“Do you consider yourselves Colin Firth girls or Colin Farrell girls?” Jolene asked, munching on her thousandth or so mini-Snickers as Mr. Darcy informed Elizabeth that he most ardently admired and loved her.
“Can’t I have both?” Andrea asked with a dreamy sort of leer. “One of them could run the video camera.”
“That answer, by its very nature, makes you a Colin Farrell girl.” I snickered.
“I’m just saying what you’re both think—” Andrea let out a shriek and dropped her half-melted tub of ice cream on my floor.
At least it wasn’t vomit.
“What?” I squinted at her whitened face in the flickering light of the TV.
“There’s somebody out there!” she cried. “I saw them! They were looking in the window.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “It was all blurry.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I drawled, looking pointedly at the two empty wine bottles at her feet.
“Jane, I’m serious, there was someone standing there, watching us through the window!” Andrea insisted.
I shook my head. “But I haven’t picked up on anything.”
I looked to Jolene, who shrugged. “I usually have to be pretty focused to sense something watching me.”
Jolene and I went to the window and saw nothing reflected back at us but darkened woods.
“Hit pause. I’ll go check it out.” I sighed.
“What if it’s Gabriel? Or what if it’s some townie lookin’ to mess with a vamp?” Jolene asked. “And you’re wearin’ your bathrobe.”
“Either way, I get to hit something, so yay. They’re probably gone by now, anyway.” I shrugged. Andrea did not look convinced. “Fine.”
I shrugged out of my robe, reached into the hall closet, and pulled out a Louisville Slugger, which had been sharpened to a wicked point.
“Why do you have that giant phallic symbol in your hall closet?” Andrea asked, pointing to my bat.
“I’m a woman living alone in the country. Vampire or not, I feel the need to take some precautions. Why do you think I keep that pair of muddy men’s boots out on the porch?”
“I thought it was a tacky decoration,” Andrea said, shrugging.
“I’m comin’, too,” Jolene said, rolling her shoulders in a way I knew meant she was preparing to wolf out.
“You’re not going anywhere, pregnant lady. You just stay here and keep your belly covered. Besides, someone has to keep Lushy here company. Lock the door behind me. Call Dick if things get weird.”
“When aren’t they weird?” Andrea grumbled as I walked out the front door. I crept around the house, bat on shoulder, to the den window. There was a fresh smear of scent on the air, a cold, angry presence. Someone had been standing outside my window, watching as we gorged ourselves and watched silly movies. Someone had intruded on what was supposed to be my sanctuary.
That just pissed me off.
The scent was emotional, unfamiliar, dark and red and desperate. I followed it to the tree line and, against my better judgment, walked into the dense grove of oaks that surrounded my house. Night is rarely quiet in Kentucky, especially in the hazy weeks of late summer. Mosquitoes buzzed near my head but apparently knew better than to try to graze on my undead skin. Bullfrogs croaked their love songs from the slow-moving creek that flowed into the long-abandoned pastures. Growth had given way to ripening and rot, a wet, sad smell that rose up to meet me with every step, covering the trail of the intruder.
I moved quickly through the trees, cringing with every acorn that crackled beneath my feet. A draft of icy, frigid air seemed to snake around my ankles, rising to twine around my body and squeeze at my chest. I froze, turning toward a bank of poplar trees on my left, the source of the strange sensation. I couldn’t see anything, anyone, even with my clear, inhuman vision. I closed my eyes and tried to search for the mind of whoever was out there. It was like scratching my fingers at a slick marble wall, cold, hard, and impossible to get a grip. Even with my limited psychic practice, I could tell that the clammy blast of air clinging to my skin wasn’t coming from whoever might be out there. It felt like an internal alarm, an organic warning even stronger than a sense of dread or foreboding. My body was trying to tell me that something bad was coming.
I took an instinctual step back toward the house, where I could lock several doors against this sense of impending doom. Instead, I locked my legs against the impulse to run. The time for running was over. Time to be proactive, I told myself.
Mustering up all the bravado I could, I yelled, “Hey! I know you’re out here. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care why you’re here. If you have something to say to me, you don’t skulk outside my window like a peeping Tom, understand? You come to my door and approach me like a grown-up evil being.”
I waited another few beats, but the only presence I felt was the frogs, their tiny hearts fluttering in the dark. “I thought so. Stay away from my house, you freaking coward!”
I turned on my heel, stepped into a mud slick, and went flying, landing on my back with a thud and whacking my head against a stump.
Through the lacy green canopy of leaves, the stars twinkled, mocking me.
“Oh, shut up,” I huffed, pulling myself to my feet. I was lucky I hadn’t impaled myself on my bat or some handy branch. Now fully sober and disgruntled, I trudged back to the house.
Jolene and Andrea, who had cleaned up the ice-cream mess in my absence, fired questions at me as I went upstairs to change out of my muddy clothes.
“I’m pretty sure there was someone out there, so I owe you an apology,” I told Andrea.
“Who do you think it was?” Jolene asked, rubbing her stomach nervously. “I cracked the door open just a little to get a sniff, but I couldn’t tell. Also, Andrea closed the door on my face.”
“She told us to stay inside,” Andrea said, as slowly and patiently as she could. “And some of us don’t have superpowers.”
“Do you think it was Gabriel?” Jolene asked.
“Well, it wouldn’t be completely out of character, considering he pretty much kept watch outside my house for the first few months I was a vampire. But it didn’t smell or feel like anybody I know. It smelled …”
“Angry,” Jolene finished for me. “And desperate and sort of like bug spray.”
“That’s about it.” I nodded. “So, who’s ready for Elizabeth to visit Pemberley?”
“Aren’t you going to call the cops?” Andrea demanded.
“And tell them what?” I laughed. “That I smelled an intruder? After several glasses of wine? And I chased after him in my pajamas with what is probably considered an illegal weapon? No. I’m going back downstairs, and I’m going to finish watching our movie. I’m going to drink that Hershey’s syrup straight from the bottle. And if peeping guy wants to come back, he’s getting a crotchful of my left foot.”
“What if it’s Gabriel?” Jolene asked.
“Especially if it’s Gabriel,” I muttered.
Andrea leaned over to Jolene and whispered, “Well, the good news is, she seems to have moved on to the angry stage.”
The next night, Dick greeted me at the door wearing a T-shirt that I can only guess he rescued from Andrea’s culling process. In blurry white letters, it read, “If you can read this, please put me back on my bar stool.”
“You are all class, my friend,” I told him.
“Come on, Stretch, we’re going out.”
“Andrea told you what happened the other night, didn’t she?” I grumbled.
“My lovely lady friend keeps no secrets from me. Come on. Andrea’s taking care of the shop tonight. We’re going out.” Dick hustled me up the stairs, where he threw open my closet door and selected a clingy red tank top that I normally wore as a camisole under other shirts. He tossed it at me, along with a black push-up bra that was hanging out of my underwear drawer. When he tried to open the drawer a bit to peek inside, I smacked his hand. I went to the closet to pick an overshirt, but Dick shook his head. “Just wear the tank top.”
“It’s not meant to—”
“Wearing something on top of that is a waste of your God-given gift of cleavage,” he insisted. “It’s practically blasphemy.”
“I know I’m your first female friend, so it’s taken some adjustments for you. But we’re not going to have in-depth mammary discussions. Also, I’m not changing in front of you,” I told him. Dick rolled his eyes and turned his back.
When I remained clothed, he sighed his martyr’s sigh and slunk outside my bedroom door, calling in, “Whatever you girls did to banish the Ghost of Jackasses Past obviously didn’t work, because you’re all still sulky. So, you’re going to take this like a man. No ice cream. No fruity drinks. No movies where whiny women ‘find their power.’ You’re not a girl, Jane.”
“I think my God-given gift of cleavage proves otherwise,” I muttered as I pulled the tank top over my head.
Dick snickered. “You know what I mean. You’re not like other girls. If you were, you’d be sitting in a dark room somewhere, making a scrapbook of painful memories and reading Women Are from Mars, Men Are from Uranus or something. You’re sort of a guy at heart, Jane. And you know what guys do when we’re suffering?”
I poked my head out of my room and informed him, “If this involves going to the Booby Hatch and watching my cousin Junie do her tribute to famous interns, I’ll pass.”
Dick ignored me. “There are three things guys do when we’re suffering. We drink, and we don’t talk about our feelings.”
“Oddly enough, I find that extremely appealing. What’s the third thing?”
Dick handed me my purse and ushered me out the door. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Why do I see cow tipping in my immediate future?”
When I found myself sitting in the parking lot of the Cellar, staring at the sputtering neon sign, I asked Dick if he’d lost his ever-loving mind.
“It’s the Cellar, you loved the Cellar,” Dick said, jiggling my shoulder. “That one time. Come on, Norm asks about you all the time.”
“As in ‘Whatever happened to that girl who got her ass handed to her in my parking lot and was suspected of setting Walter on fire?’” I snorted.
Dick dragged me out of the car. “No, as in ‘Whatever happened to that girl who kept me from being a Norm-shaped smear across the parking lot?’”
The Cellar was packed compared with the single night I’d spent there the previous year. Norm, the ironically named cuddly bartender, was busy, his work complicated by the house band blaring painfully earnest Elton John covers. But there were humans and vampires on the dance floor, and everybody sitting at the bar seemed companionably drunk.
“Norm!” Dick crowed over the din.
Norm shook his broad, balding head and chuckled. “That never gets old.”
“Place is busy tonight,” Dick observed.
Norm opened his mouth to answer but started when he saw my face. “Jane! I almost didn’t recognize you! Haven’t seen you around here since, well, the night Walter died.”
I smiled and hoped none of Walter’s friends overheard this conversation. Technically, Missy did the actual killing, but that report wasn’t as widely circulated in the vampire community as the one accusing me of setting Walter on fire. … Oh, wait, Walter didn’t have any friends.
“I’ve been meaning to thank you,” Norm said, grasping my hands in his own warm, thick paws. “Most vamps, especially newborns, probably would have wanted to stay out of that mess and let me fend for myself. You helped me, and I appreciate it. You don’t pay for drinks here, ever, got it?”
If I could have blushed, I would have. Instead, I just gave him a crooked smile and said, “Thanks.”
“Hey, I was there, too,” Dick objected.
“You were in the can,” Norm said with considerably less warmth. “And I’ve seen you drink. You’d run me out of business. What can I do for you?”
Dick grinned liked a winsome, irresistible toddler. “A bottle of tequila and two shot glasses, please, Norm.”
“That’ll be twenty-five dollars, up front,” Norm told him.
“I ask you, where’s the trust?” Dick grumbled as he dug bills out of his wallet.
Norm handed over his best bottle of tequila, which I could only imagine was a nod to me, a bowl of lime slices, salt, and shot glasses.
I grimaced. “I’m not so sure about this. I know this is going to shock you, but I’ve never actually done tequila shooters. I’ve always been more of a ‘mixed drinks that taste like snow cones’ kind of girl.”
Dick poured two shots and nudged a lime slice my way. “I’ll bet you’re a natural, honey.”
I sighed. “Set me up.”
Following Dick’s motions, I licked the salt, pinched my nose, and knocked back the shot, wheezing when it hit my throat. Dick forced the lime to my lips and I bit down, careful not to swallow any vomit-inducing pulp. The heady, antiseptic burn of the liquor mixed with fresh, tart citrus juice. Dick laughed and tapped his shot glass twice on the bar. “What do you think, Stretch?”
“I think my throat is melting.” I coughed, though the room started to tilt pleasantly. “Give me another one.”
“That’s my girl!” he crowed, pouring another shot.
Three shots later, I was a much mellower vampire. Hell, I was even admiring the finer points of the band’s rendition of “Rocket Man.” So, when a tall, handsome vamp came my way and asked me to dance, I was just relaxed enough not to embarrass myself completely.
OK, what I said was, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and then I ran to the back of the bar. Which was only a little embarrassing.
In the ladies’ room, I stared at the ceiling and wondered why I didn’t get any share of the Early feminine wiles, so aptly handled by Jenny, Mama, and Grandma Ruthie.
“You are a ridiculous person,” I told myself. “That was a perfectly nice-looking, nonthreatening person, who, for some reason, seems not to find you repulsive. And if you were a woman who had normal emotional responses and a regulated sense of paranoia, you would actually give that man a chance to take you home tonight. Go back out there, and stop being a spaz.”
I shoved the door open, fully committed to non-spazdom, and heard someone on the other side yelp. I stepped out to see that I had smacked some poor guy with the door and spilled his beer down the front of his shirt.
“Well, there goes that,” I said. “I’m so sorry!”
The vampire now wearing his beer laughed and wrung out his shirt. “So, are you anti-drinking, or do you just really hate plaid?”
I laughed at the situation and the funny. “Both, actually. I had a traumatic childhood involving hard-drinking lumberjacks.” His smile was wide, friendly, his fangs incongruent with the sweet chocolate eyes. “Can I buy you another beer to replace what you’re wearing?”
“Nah,” he said. “It was my friend’s round, and he tends to buy domestic. But you can dance with me. To cover my chest, so no one will see the stain on my shirt … that you caused. Not to make you feel obligated or anything.”
“Why would I feel obligated?” I laughed and let him lead me to the dance floor as the band struck up “Your Song.” I hadn’t slow-danced since Zeb and Jolene’s wedding, when Gabriel twirled me around the floor to the strains of “My Heart Will Go On .” Oh, thinking about Gabriel was really not going to help me right now. I pushed those images away as this delicious man, who smelled pleasantly of Polo cologne and beer, put my arms around his neck and pulled me close. Normal, healthy relationship, I repeated over and over in my head. Normal, healthy relationship.
“I’m Charlie.”
“Jane.”
“I noticed you earlier, you know. You’re one of the only women in here whose smile looks real. Sometimes when people are turned, they lose that. It’s nice to meet someone who hasn’t.”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
“See? There it is again,” he teased, his dimples winking as he smiled back.
Charlie was the type of guy I would have loved meeting when I was living. Sincere, friendly, open, and out in the world. Of course, I never went to bars when I was living, so technically I wasn’t out in the world.
“So, how’s a nice girl like you doing shots in a place like this?”
I smirked. “Why don’t you guess?”
“You lost a bet?” Charlie asked. I giggled—yes, it’s pathetic, I know—and shook my head. “You’re new to Alcoholics Anonymous, and you’re unclear on the rules?”
“Good guess, but no.”
Charlie bit his lip and considered. “You’re in the witness-protection program and that guy is your inept federal handler?”
We glanced back at Dick, who was giving Charlie the “male relative” death glare.
“That’s my friend Dick. I’ve been having a rough time lately, and he’s trying to cheer me up with good booze and bad Elton John music, forgetting that I intensely dislike both. But I do like Dick, so I’m making the best of it.”
“That’s nice of you.” There was the smile again, drawing my attention to his mouth. It looked soft and sweet; obviously, he made Chapstick a priority.
As we swayed and turned in silence, listening to the insistently poignant music, I caught sight of Dick watching us from the bar. He looked concerned, not necessarily judging me but definitely concerned. One didn’t have to be a mind reader to tell that he was wary of Charlie and the fact that Charlie’s hands were making contact with actual skin. It was only the skin on my arms, but it still seemed to disturb Dick.
I turned my back on him. Charlie took this as a hint to hold me closer, so that his lips brushed my forehead. It felt good, uncomplicated. His hands stroked my back in slow circles, urging me ever closer. It would be so easy to tip up my head and let him kiss me. But something was holding me back. Actually, it was several somethings: the knowledge that Dick was watching, doubt over whether a nice girl would move on this fast after breaking up with her vampire sire, and the possibility that for all I knew, this was the guy who had lurked outside my house the other night. I really didn’t like that last one.
Why couldn’t I be the casual-romance girl? Why couldn’t I pick up some strange guy at a bar, flirt and kiss, and have no-strings-attached sex? Why did my brain always prevent me from behaving like a normal person?
Kissing. I would start with kissing.
So I did. I parted my lips and felt the cool, wet slide of his mouth across mine. He slipped his hands under my chin, tilting my face toward his so he could take even more of my mouth. He was gentle. He was sweet. And it felt wrong.
You know when you can tell you’re making a huge mistake—not just buying ugly shoes because they’re on sale or choosing the wrong Christmas gift for your mother but “the world is off its axis, spinning out of control into the abyss of space” wrong? I was making a huge mistake. Even though it was possible Gabriel was out, enjoying a “purely carnal” relationship with a woman who enjoyed high-quality stationery, at that very moment, it felt wrong for me to be kissing someone else. It felt like a betrayal.
I pulled back from him and sighed. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. You’re really nice. And that was a really great kiss. I don’t want to lead you on or send out mixed signals, which is, ironically, exactly what I’m doing right now. But I just got out of a weird relationship, and I’m not ready to do this yet.”
“I can be your rebound guy,” he offered affably. “It won’t hurt my feelings, honest.”
I stared at him for a beat, my hormones waging war against my more rational parts. Stupid rational parts! I groaned. “That’s really tempting, trust me. But I’m more of a wallowing-in-self-pity/angry-outburst type than a rebounder.”
“Story of my life.” He sighed. He pulled out his wallet and handed me a business card for Dr. Charles McCraffrey and his ear, nose, and throat practice in nearby Willardsville. He was a doctor. A vampire doctor but a doctor all the same. It was a good thing my mother wasn’t there to witness this. “If you change your mind, please give me a call. It was very nice to meet you, Jane.”
“You, too, Charlie.”
“What happened with Mr. Hands?” Dick asked, glaring in Charlie’s direction when I slumped back to the bar stool.
“You’re the one who wanted me to share my ‘gift’ with the world,” I reminded him. “Pour me another drink.”
Dick obliged, asking Norm for a bottle of water. Apparently, I was being cut off. “That was a really nice guy,” I told Dick. “And a doctor. Do you know what the chances are of meeting a nice, noncrazy vampire doctor at a bar in Half-Moon Hollow? I have a better chance of being struck by lightning and winning the lottery at the same time.”
“Well, maybe we should go out and buy some tickets,” Dick said.
“Don’t humor the cranky vampire. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just meet a nice guy and go home with him? Why do I have all these weird hang-ups about feelings and meaning and making sure I have this intuitive bell going off in my head before I can let someone into my pants? You know, even when Gabriel and I had sex for the first time—”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this,” Dick said, shaking his head.
“I had to be all angry and ‘out of control.’ I couldn’t just get lost in the moment. I needed an excuse, which is ridiculous, because there’s no reason not to want to have sex with Gabriel. I mean, he has an amazing body—”
“What part of ‘drinking and not talking’ did I not make clear?” Dick demanded.
The band kicked into “Benny and the Jets.” A skinny, pimpled vampire and two of his buddies appeared behind Dick and tapped him on the shoulder. “Dick, I want to talk to you.”
Dick looked thrilled for the interruption. “Todd, thank God. What can I do for you?”
“I want my money back for those Springsteen tickets,” Todd demanded, his Adam’s apple bobbing indignantly.
Using a patient, paternal voice, Dick said, “Now, Todd, I gave you a good deal on those tickets. I didn’t even charge a handling fee. You couldn’t get a price that good from Ticketmaster.”
“Those tickets were to a concert two years ago!” Todd shouted, a cue for his companions to put on their mean faces and look intimidating. I rolled my eyes and took a swig of water, which did nothing for my thirst, blood- or liquor-wise.
“They were collector’s items!” Dick shouted back. “It’s not my fault you didn’t look on the tickets to check the date. I never told you they were for a concert this year.”
“Well, you sure the hell didn’t tell me they weren’t!” Todd whined. “I took a girl all the way to Memphis for that concert. There was nothing there! Marcy was convinced I was trying to trick her into something. I felt like an asshole!”
“But Todd,” Dick said, giving Todd what could be construed as a sympathetic headshake, “you are an asshole.”
A lot of things seemed to happen at once. One of Todd’s friends took a swing at Dick, missing and pinning me against the bar as he fell. I reached into my purse, feeling for the little keychain canister of vampire mace Gabriel had given me for Christmas, but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t attached to my keys or caught loose in the lining. Crap. I thought about stepping out of the way and letting Dick handle this, but then Todd smashed a pilsner over Dick’s head. I yelled, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?” and shoved Todd back. The smaller of Todd’s buddies gave me an admirable upward right hook to the jaw, knocking me back on my butt.
Have I mentioned that most male vampires have no compunctions about hitting girl vampires?
I scrambled to my feet, picked the Girl Hitter up, and slammed him to the floor. Todd spun me on my heel and punched me in the eye.
Ow.
The dance-floor crowd was now circled around the ruckus, cheering Dick on as he kicked Todd in the kneecap and hit him in the throat with a pool cue. The taller of Todd’s friends smashed another pilsner and the tequila bottle over Dick’s head, so I kicked him in the crotch and felt a vicious little thrill when he howled and toppled over.
As Todd turned and advanced on me, I grabbed a chair, sidestepped him, and broke it over his back on “B-b-b-benny” and knocked him to the floor on “the Jets.”
“Outside, Dick, now!” Norm yelled, apparently hitting his limit in terms of broken bar paraphernalia. Dick grabbed a pool cue and chased the three of them out of the bar. I felt I had no choice but to follow, along with most of the patrons in the bar. The gentleman with the spanking-new crotch injury elected to get into his car rather than suffer further humiliation.
Todd was getting winded, and his other friend was whining about something in his face being broken.
“Just give me my money, and we’ll call it a night,” Todd wheezed.
“I’ll tell you what, you get in your car and get the hell out of here, and I’ll keep my girl here from kicking you in the goods, too.” Dick smirked. “She’s done it before. She’ll do it again.”
Todd look one look at my size-nine boots. I smiled, my fangs fully extended over my lip. Todd ran for it. The crowd groaned in disappointment and dispersed.
After I handed over cash to cover the broken stools and pitchers, a more forgiving Norm allowed us back into the bar to press ice to our rapidly healing faces.
“You should know better,” Norm told Dick.
“Hey, Jane threw just as many punches as I did!” Dick cried.
Norm shook his head. “She was hitting in self-defense. You started it.”
“Todd hit me first. Besides, how was I supposed to know he was dumb enough to head all the way to Memphis without even looking at the stupid tickets? I thought he would have figured it out weeks ago.”
Norm pointed a fatherly finger at Dick. “You know what I mean. If you didn’t do your back-alley deals at my bar, I wouldn’t have all that many fights. Why did you even come tonight, anyway? You knew Todd would come looking for you, and you know he loves Cover Band Night.”
“I forgot all about it,” Dick said, avoiding eye contact with me. Norm muttered something under his breath and turned his back to help another customer.
I stared at Dick, who busied himself pouring the remaining ice from his face pack into my water glass and stretching his freshly healed jaw. “Dick, what’s the third thing?”
Dick stared at me, his face blank. “Did you get a concussion, Stretch?”
“The third thing that men do to get over a break-up. Drinking, not talking about your feelings, and then what?” I said, growing suspicious. “It’s fighting, isn’t it? You set this up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dick said, still not making eye contact.
“You set this up,” I repeated, poking him in the sides.
“Yes,” he mumbled in the tone of a little boy who’d burnt his Mother’s Day breakfast in bed. He smirked. “I didn’t arrange for him to hassle me, but I figured, you’re sad, you’re angry, you didn’t get to hit anything the other night. Todd was going to be there anyway, so why not let you get some stuff out of your system? I always feel better after a good cathartic tussle.”
“You did all this for me?” I laughed.
He shrugged. “You feel better, right?”
I thought about it for a second and realized that I did. That beating the tar out of a Bruce Springsteen fan with poor attention to detail had made me feel better than all the liquor and ice cream and Bette Midler in the world. “I sort of love you, Dick.”
“While my heart and all my other parts belong to a certain adorable redhead, I love you, too, Stretch,” he said, giving my shoulder a brief squeeze. “You’re the sister I never really wanted.”
“Nice.”