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“So, Gabriel, Jane says you saved her life with this whole vampire thing,” Zeb said. “I appreciate that. She’s been my best friend since we were kids, and I’m glad she didn’t die in a deer-hunting mishap. For me to win the pool, her death had to involve a tragic waterskiing accident.”
“Touching, Zeb,” I muttered.
“But Jane also said you played shake-the-Etch-a-Sketch with my memory. I would prefer you not do that again. Even if you think I can’t handle some part of your world, let me decide whether I want to remember it or not.”
“Same goes,” Jolene said, raising her hand, her voice muffled by a rib. “Hey, Jane, Zeb told me about the telemarketin’
thing.”
I tamped down the urge to be annoyed with Zeb for sharing my humiliation with his girlfriend. Of course, he told Jolene about my disastrous one-night stand with phone sales. I needed to accept that my life was now their “And how was your day?” fodder.
“Don’t feel bad,” Jolene told me. “My uncle Lonnie gave me a job in his bait shop one summer, and I let a whole cooler’s worth of crickets loose. One of the customers started screamin’ that it was a biblical plague and started havin’ chest pains. We had to call nine-one-one. For the rest of the summer, all my cousins called me Cricket, and Uncle Lonnie sent me to work at the sandwich shop. It was a much better fit for me. That’s all you have to do, Jane, just find your fit.”
“Or I can follow your lead and unleash a plague of locusts like this town has never seen,” I said, rubbing my chin with an evil-genius glare.
Jolene snorted, clapping her hand over her mouth to keep from spewing potato salad over my coffee table. “No more jokes while I’m chewin’!”
The good news was that Jolene and Zeb really seemed to like spending time with me and Gabriel. The bad news is that meant they stayed, and stayed, and stayed…and stayed. Gabriel and I were cuddled under a throw at one corner of the couch, barely able to cover that we were desperately trying to touch each other without being noticed. We watched the rest of Dracula, moved on to From Dusk till Dawn, and resorted to Fright Night before Gabriel finally gave up and decided to take his leave for the evening. I walked him out as Jolene popped her fourth bag of Super Butter Lovers’ Popcorn in my microwave.
“I think they’ve moved in with you and just haven’t told you,” Gabriel whispered as I closed the door behind us. He clutched my face in his hands and seized my mouth in a fierce kiss. “What are they trying to do to us?”
“I don’t know!” I giggled as Gabriel pulled me with him on his trek to the car. “Zeb is usually much better at taking hints, but I think he’s doing some sort of weird brotherly protection thing. It’s either very sweet or just this side of cruel and unusual.”
“Did I just pass some sort of test?” he asked. “The test to determine whether your friends think I’m good enough for you?”
“Test.” I sputtered, giving a raspberried laugh. “That’s just crazy talk. There was no —yes. Yes, you did. I wasn’t intentionally testing you, but you did beautifully. Jolene was eating out of the palm of your suave and charming hand. Zeb obviously both fears and admires you. But you did turn his best friend into a vampire. He still rants about a guy who borrowed my iPod after a second date and didn’t return it. It could take some time for him to adjust to us double-dating.”
“I like Zeb,” Gabriel said. “He’s odd.”
“That he is.”
“He suits you. And he loves you, that much is obvious. You’re very lucky to have such a friend.”
“That’s very progressive of you. Some guys are uncomfortable with the whole male-best-friend thing.”
“Well, if I thought he had romantic designs on you, I would have to make him forget he ’d ever met you and give him a sudden urge to relocate to Guadalajara,” he said solemnly.
“Aww, that’s so sweet.” I chuckled, kissing him. “You know, this counts as our third date since you made your ‘I’ll know when you’re ready for sex’ declaration. In human terms, that’s very significant.”
“Third date?”
“Yeah, there was an actual meal served while we were at Cracker Barrel, so I’m counting it. And the smoke-filled porch coziness and then tonight. In human dating terms, that’s three, which is like a sexual green light. So, next time, yes?”
“If the universe was fair, we would have finished what we started on the couch,” he agreed. “Next time.”
I gave him one more smacking kiss before he started his car. “And if Zeb shows up, he’s bound for Guadalajara.”
“Agreed.”
15
When you encounter unpleasantness from the human population, try to keep in mind that you will be able to dance on their graves long after they’re dead. It’s a cheering thought.
—From The Guide for the Newly Undead
As I headed toward my three-month undead anniversary, I got twitchy. Not “espresso marathon” twitchy but certainly not the sort of person you’d want to get stuck in an elevator with. My nerves were crawling under my skin. I couldn ’t sit still. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to drink, but I still drank every drop of fake blood in the house —which I was sure would go straight to my thighs.
It took two episodes of an Intervention marathon for me to realize I was going through book withdrawal. I hadn ’t purchased a new one in more than a month. And I hadn ’t checked anything out of the library since the morning before I was fired…which also meant I had four books that were long overdue.
