Page 8 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“I was checking whether he needed anything.” I bang the oven door shut with my hip, which is something I do when I want a conversation to be over. “That’s hosting. That’s literally the job.”

“Penny.” She’s leaning in my kitchen doorway with her camera hanging off one hand, and she is enjoying this more than anyone has ever enjoyed anything. “I have known you since we were twelve. I have watched you check on a lot of guests. You have never once checked on a guest like you were deciding whether to climb him.”

“Lucy.”

“I’m just saying he’s very tall.”

“He’s very broad,” I say, before my brain catches up with my mouth, and Lucy makes a small triumphant noise and goes back out to the party.

I put my hands flat on the counter and breathe for a second. I refuse to think about the way he came through my door and had to angle his shoulders. Or the way the coat came off and the shirt underneath did absolutely nothing to disguise what it was covering.

I pick up the dessert plates.

Hosting, I tell myself. You are hosting.

The tarts go out. The cheese goes out.

He refuses all of it. Beautifully.

It is very kind of you.

It’s exquisite.

Thank you.

I go back for the coffee.

By the time I come back Mabel has taken up my cause, because Mabel takes up everyone’s causes whether they’ve asked her to or not. She’s leaning across the corner of the table with her beetle brooch catching the light and her voice pitched to concerned neighbor.

“You mustn’t mind Penny fussing,” she’s telling him. “Feeding people is how she says things she hasn’t got words for. Now. Is it allergies?”

“Is what allergies?”

“The eating. My nephew’s boy is dreadful with nuts. Blows up like a life raft. There’s no shame in it. Penny can cook around anything, can’t you, dear? You did that whole meal for the Prescott girl who couldn’t have gluten or dairy or joy⁠—”

“It isn’t allergies,” Julian says.

“Religious?”

“No.”

“Doctor’s orders?”

“Something like that.” Which is the smoothest non-answer I’ve heard all night, and I’ve been counting.

Theo sets his glass down. “I’ve got a theory.”

“God help us,” Harriet says.

“He’s a critic.” Theo points a thick finger down the table at Julian with the air of a man cracking a case. “Fancy fella, comes to town, won’t say where he’s from, eats nothing so he can stay sharp. Palate’s a tool. You lot ever watch that show? They spit the wine out. He’s here to review us.”

“There is no restaurant here to review,” Julian says.

“There’s Penny.”

“There is, indeed, Penny.” He says it without looking at me. Somehow I feel it land in the back of my knees anyway, which is a deeply unhelpful place to feel something while holding a pot of coffee.

“I’m not a restaurant,” I say.