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“I think you should try to get over you,” I shot back.
“That did sound a little douchey, didn’t it?” He chuckled. I nodded emphatically. “OK, go home before your cheeseburgers get cold. Tell Gigi I said hi.”
I bade Paul good night. He shut the door behind me as I started the car. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I watched him in my rearview. In the three years I’d known him, this was the first time Paul had mentioned Gigi without being prompted. Was he growing up or just hoping to convince me that we could still “work”? Why did he only decide to miss me after seeing me with someone else? And why did his hints of jealousy brighten my day?
I sighed, turning the car away from town. “Having feelings for a living ex while wrestling with the romantic stupidity of a potential vampire beau. You’ve got a real wacky sitcom of a life going, Scanlon.”
13
Vampires, particularly older vampires, do not enjoy reminiscing about their pasts. It reminds them of what they have lost over the years. If a vampire voluntarily shares this history with you, you should treat the disclosure with the respect it deserves.
—The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
I did not mention Paul’s visit to Cal when I returned home and spread the cheeseburgers out on the table. He was sitting there surrounded by research, frowning at his laptop. I warmed up a bottle of blood to serve him while Gigi and I ate the burgers, because it seemed rude to do otherwise.
“Gigi!” I called upstairs. “It’s cheeseburger night! Come and get it!”
“She’s not here,” Cal said. “She said she had to study with that Ben boy again. She said she called you and left you a message.”
I made an indignant little noise.
His plump bottom lip twitched, and he added, “If we’d taken the boy out of the equation when I suggested it, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Yes, murdering a teenager is a far more rational step than imposing a stricter curfew.” I grumbled softly as I checked my voicemail. Gigi had indeed left me a message while I was in Jane’s shop, otherwise occupied. I frowned. Gigi knew the rules. No school-night outings unless approved by me. Face-to-face, not via voicemail. Was she bending the rules because she thought I was too distracted by Cal to watch her properly? Or was she so crazy about Ben that she would risk grounding and sisterly wrath?
Gigi was in for a looooooong talk when she returned home tonight. Or I was going to have to pull some sort of Machiavellian parenting maneuver that kept her guessing about my next move and questioning my motivations. My last effort had involved a dummy Twitter account and a rented pickup truck.
Sigh. I really didn’t have time for Machiavellian brilliance right now. The best I could come up with at this point was sticking her bra in the freezer. I didn’t think that would get my point across.
“Well, now I’m left with an extra cheeseburger and an undead guest who can’t eat it.”
“Would that I could,” Cal mused, sniffing delicately at the wax-paper bundles on the table. He poked one with a fingertip and moved back as if he expected it to move in response. I chuckled, snatching my dinner out of his reach.
We sat at the table together, him with his blood, me with my calorie-laden bit of beefy goodness. It was oddly domestic and distinctly uncomfortable without Gigi as a social buffer. Cal’s eyes stayed trained on my mouth, the way it moved, the way my lips wrapped around the straw of my milkshake. But he didn’t speak.>“And a good fight always leads to …” Jane chewed her lip, as if she wasn’t sure I was ready to hear that.
Andrea sighed dreamily. “Makeup sex.”
I chewed my lip, tinkering with a blue embossed Specialty Books napkin. “Technically, we don’t make up; it’s more like declaring a ceasefire.”
“Does he make you sign a treaty? Is that your twisted form of foreplay?” Andrea asked, her perfect brow furrowed. I tossed the frayed napkin at her. She snickered and danced out of the way.
“Now I’m curious,” Jane said conspiratorially. “I never had sex with a vampire as a human, and I refuse to hear any details from Little Miss Disturbing Penis Nicknames over there.” She jerked a thumb toward Andrea. “What’s it like?”
“I’m not telling you that!” I exclaimed.
Jane whined, “Oh, come on, be a sport.”
“Why are we friends?”
“Do it, or she’ll talk about her first time with Gabriel again,” Andrea grumbled.
I ducked and hopped off the stool to avoid answering. My eyes landed on a glossy soft-cover book featuring a gaunt, weary-looking vampire sprawled across a Gothic four-poster bed.
“Hey, what’s this?” I asked, pulling a copy from the pile. “The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires. A comprehensive guide to safe, loving treatment of the injured undead.”
I flipped through the book and found nutrition guides, feeding schedules, an appendix on skin care after minor sunburns. “This would have been useful a week ago,” I muttered.
“Wait, he’s injured? Your vampire is injured? Iris, you didn’t pick this guy up while he was hitchhiking or something, did you?”
