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“Yes, taking away their right to choose whom to spend the rest of their lives with would be a huge step in the right direction,” I retorted. “This is so not the subject for you to expound on. No matter what you say, you’re bound to piss me off.”
“I should distrust any young man who thinks he’s good enough to court her.” Cal touched my arm again, lightly this time, his voice quiet and steady. “She’s a good girl with a sweet disposition. I wouldn’t want anyone to take advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll rest easy tonight until she’s safe at home, maybe under lock and key.”
I tugged on his shirt, pulling him close and giving him a brief hug.
When he was gone—because he would leave the moment he could; he’d made that much clear—I would be alone again. But for that moment, it felt so good to have someone to share my family with. Yes, he was obnoxious and high-handed, but he was also decent and very good to Gigi, when he didn’t have to be. He made me laugh, which was something previous lovers hadn’t bothered with. And he listened when I had a good idea.
Of course, he pitched a fit if those ideas put me in harm’s way, and he’d written some really hurtful things about me. I was going to have to let go of that if I was going to survive the next week or so. Cal didn’t know me then, and now he did. And I think he was aware that if he said anything like it again, he was in for a whooping.
“And if I happened to imply that should anything happen to Gigi while in his care, it would take every law-enforcement resource available in this backward little hellhole of a state to determine what I’ve done to his body, well, that might just lessen the chance of his doing something regrettable.”
“See, you took a nice moment, and you took it too far.” I sighed, burying my face in his shoulder.
Gigi stuck her head through the doorway. She snickered and said quietly, “Iris, dismount the vampire and get out here.”
I straightened, holding the jacket out to Gigi. “Ixnay on the ampirevay,” I muttered, glancing toward Ben.
Gigi smirked. “You know that pig Latin went out with scrunchies and Smurfs, right?”
I warned her, “Easy.”
“We’re leaving.”
“Back by eleven,” I reminded her, then cut her off at the first sign of a groan. “Complain, and it will be ten-thirty … and if you’re not in that door on time, I’ll show up at the Dairy Freeze in my bathrobe, yelling your full legal name.”
“You wouldn’t.” She hissed.
“Try me. Now, have a good time.” I kissed her forehead. Gigi snatched the jacket from me, pulling Ben by the collar as she bustled out the door.
“Good night, Miss Iris,” Ben called as Gigi yanked him along.
Cal cleared his throat. “Remember what I said, Ben.”
Ben flushed red, then white, as he disappeared into the shadows of the porch.
11
You should set up a deadline for your vampire guest to depart your house. Vampires are creatures of habit. Unless you specifically order them off of your couch, they will not leave.
—The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
“Must you torture the boy?” I asked, turning on Cal as we heard Ben’s car engine start.
“Yes, it’s a rite of passage,” he said, nodding emphatically while I flopped onto the couch. “Your threat to show up at the drive-in wearing your bathrobe was particularly inspired.”
He sat on the opposite end of the couch, relaxing into the cushions. It struck me as odd that we hadn’t shared this room since his first night in the house. It seemed so long ago that I was staring down at a pale, gaunt stranger whom I didn’t quite trust.
I wasn’t sure I trusted him entirely now.
I cleared my throat and slipped my feet into his lap, hoping that maybe treating him like furniture would make him less intimidating. “For a teenage girl, fear of embarrassment is far more powerful than fear of consequences. Gigi didn’t believe I would do it until last year, when I actually pulled into the Dairy Freeze parking lot twenty minutes after her curfew. I didn’t even have to get out of my car. My mere presence was enough to make her jump into Sammi Jo’s car and beg her to floor it.”
“Were you wearing the bathrobe?”
I nodded, grinning. “Over my T-shirt and jeans.”
“You’re going to make a fantastic mother someday,” he said, chuckling.
“I think taking care of one so early in life may have scared me off of having more. I have a child,” I said, nodding toward Gigi’s school bag, slung across the foyer table. “I’ve raised her, just as much as my parents raised me. I’ve loved her, lost sleep worrying about her, taken care of her when she was sick, suffered through embarrassing but informative anatomical conversations. If that doesn’t make her mine, I don’t know what would. And at least I got to skip the messy-diaper-and-two-A.M.-feeding phase.”
