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Andrea doubled over, laughing. I was glad someone could enjoy my pain. The truth was, I didn’t need any form of artificial stimulation. My body refused to believe that Gabriel and I were no longer together, unwilling to give up the orgasms he gave me, even if they had to be manufactured in my dreams. Every night, I had vivid, full-color dreams of Gabriel, his body, his lips, that thing he used to do with his index finger. My cruel subconscious dredged up memories of real encounters or provided elaborate scenarios, like the dream where Gabriel was a police officer and I had to use all my wiles—and a lap dance—to persuade him not to give me a speeding ticket. Or there were the dreams where he just stalked into the house, threw me down on the kitchen table without a word, and took me. Each night, I woke up in the middle of a screaming, head-spinning orgasm and was brought crashing down when I realized that I was alone. I was caught between being afraid to go to sleep and wanting to go to bed hours too early.
Finally recovered and rubbing at the stitch in her side, Andrea wiped her eyes. She sighed. “Still haven’t heard from him?”
“Nope.” She followed me into the kitchen, where I dropped the empty pitcher into the sink and pulled a Faux Type O out of the fridge. “And I’m caught in that hellish ‘I want to call him, but I would rather he call me, because that proves he wants to talk to me’ limbo. When did my life become a tragic episode of Felicity ?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that I feel like I’m waiting for that very special boy to call, only that very special boy isn’t breathing. And he told me it was probably for the best that we part ways more than three thousand miles from home, and he hasn’t deemed it necessary to contact me in two weeks. Not even to make sure my plane didn’t crash into the Atlantic. At this point, I’m not entirely sure he’s not going to stay in Europe until he hears that I’ve moved away or become a nun or something.”
She patted my head fondly. “Well, next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.”
My face softened into a smile. “You read Pride and Prejudice .”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “Well, I figured if I’m going to survive working at the shop, I would have to. And you only hinted that a person of any intelligence was required to read at least one Jane Austen book, like a thousand times.”
I tapped a finger to my chin. “That doesn’t sound anything like me …”
It was two days from the reopening. The cash-register drawer was stuck. We were missing a rather large shipment of what I considered our cornerstone product, The Guide for the Newly Undead. And I was beginning to suspect that Andrea was slipping extra espresso into her magical mystery coffee potions because “caffeinated Jane” amused her.
The only thing we had going for us was a local dairy that was willing to deliver to an account as small as ours and to a location as bad as ours at night. In fact, it was a delight to come downstairs from Mr. Wainwright’s old apartment to find a tall man in an indecently tight blue Half-Moon Dairy uniform stocking our little coffee-bar fridge with half-and-half and heavy cream.
“Wow, is that our dairy guy?” I whispered. Andrea didn’t bother removing her eyes from the sight of Dairy Guy’s delicious blue-clad bottom swaying as he loaded the fridge.
“Yep,” Andrea answered absently.
“He’s going to be coming here regularly, right?”
We simultaneously tilted our heads as Dairy Guy’s hips changed angles. Andrea sighed, “Yep.”
“Maybe we should arrange for Dick to be elsewhere on delivery nights,” I whispered. “Because you’re drooling. And I don’t blame you because milk does a body goooo— Oh, my God.” My jaw dropped as Dairy Guy turned, and I recognized him as little Jamie Lanier, whom I used to babysit every summer.
Jamie loomed four inches over my tall frame. His warm green eyes twinkled at me from under a faded blue ball cap he’d slapped over his wavy dark blond hair. (Curse my weakness for all-American boys!) Every inch of him was toned and tan, and he smelled like Irish Spring soap. I bit back a sigh.
This was the danger of living in the small town where you grew up. Local hotties have to start off somewhere, and generally, it’s as the annoying towheaded Little Leaguer who would only eat smiley-face pancakes from ages five to seven.
“Miss Jane! Hi!” He flashed those devastating dimples. “It’s great to see you!”
“Jamie. How’s your mom?” I asked, flinching at his use of “Miss,” a sure sign that he thought of me as a senior citizen. “Still teaching?”
“Yep. But she says she’s going to retire now that I’m graduating and she and dad are going to have the house to themselves.”
“You’re graduating from college?” I said, an insane note of desperation in my voice as I tried to do the age math in my head.
“Actually, I’m still a senior at Half-Moon Hollow High. I’m just working at night to save for tuition.”
Forgive me, Lord, I’m the biggest pervert in the world.
“Say hi to your mom for me,” I said as he packed up his hand truck and headed out the door. He waved at us from the delivery van as he pulled away. I stared at the ceiling, then told Andrea, “You may laugh now.”
She guffawed, collapsing against the bar as she held her side. “I’m sorry. It’s just, the look on your face when he said he was graduating from high school !”
I rubbed my hands over my face. “My eyes, they burn.”
“I can’t believe I get to relive this humiliation with every delivery,” Andrea said, rubbing her hands together in anticipatory glee. “This is already my favorite job ever!”
“I think you forget sometimes, I am fully capable of hurting you—” We turned to the front door as a woman in a smart peach raincoat came into the shop, clutching her purse close to her side with one arm and carrying an enormous beribboned basket with the other. Courtney Barrows, Nice Courtney, eyed her surroundings suspiciously, apparently afraid to touch anything. “Courtney?” I said.
“Jane!” She sighed, relieved to see me.
