Page 25 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

CHAPTER 7

“There’s a betting pool,” I say, walking into the Lantern, “on the sidewalk.”

“There’s a betting pool in the ledger.” Theo doesn’t look up from the glass he’s polishing, which is already clean, and which is what Theo does instead of hiding. “The sidewalk’s just marketing.”

“You’re taking money.”

“I’m holding money. There’s a big difference legally.”

I put the tray of hand pies down harder than the hand pies deserve. Outside, there’s a chalkboard that usually tells you the day’s specials. Today the soup is nowhere in evidence. Today the board says, in Theo’s enormous fisherman’s capitals:

HARRINGTON & VOLKOV—WHEN DO THEY ADMIT IT?

BY THE HARVEST SUPPER, THREE TO ONE.

BY THANKSGIVING, EVEN.

BY CHRISTMAS, FIVE TO TWO.

NEVER, TWELVE TO ONE.

I read all four lines three times on the wet sidewalk, in case one of them changed. Twelve to one. Someone in this town has looked at my entire life and priced it as a long shot.

“You’re taking bets.” My voice comes out very flat. “On me.”

“On both of you. It’s not personal. Well.” He considers. “It’s a little personal.”

“We’re just friends, Theo.”

“Sure.”

“We are. He came to a dinner. He came to your chowder night. That’s two events. Mabel’s been to nine hundred of my events and no one’s running a book on⁠—”

Theo sets the glass down. He’s a big man, and when he leans on the bar the whole bar leans with him, and he looks at me with the terrible kindness of someone who has known me a long time.

“Mabel didn’t spend five hours at your dinner and stay afterwards to wash your grandmother’s glasses.”

“He was being polite.”

“He was being something.” Theo says it gently, and gentle from Theo is worse than teasing, because Theo doesn’t do it to be funny.

Behind me someone laughs, and it is unmistakably Lucy, who came in for the free hand pies she was promised and stayed for the humiliation she was not.

“Don’t,” I tell her.

“I put ten on Thanksgiving.”

“Lucy.”

“It’s even money, Pen. That’s practically a savings account.”

Theo picks up another glass.

“We’re just friends,” I tell Lucy, because Theo is clearly beyond reason. “We’re friends in a very specific way, where one of us talks too much and the other one listens like it’s a job he trained for. I know almost nothing about him. I went to his house one time a week ago. He reads shipping journals for fun, and he’s kind to people who’ve done nothing to earn it. I don’t know where he was born, what he does all day, or why a man who doesn’t eat comes to every single thing that involves eating.”

“That’s not a romance,” Lucy agrees. “That’s an unsolved puzzle with excellent posture.”

“Thank you.”