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“Thank you, that’s very helpful,” I said, slapping the scrubbrush into his palm.
The smell did not come out. We scrubbed for hours to deslime the porch, but apparently the wood of River Oaks is very absorbent. The project did give us quality time to spend together not talking. I resisted my natural urge to jabber and just worked. Companionable silence was sort of nice. It felt mature.
Zeb finally broke when he realized that we’d nearly scrubbed the paint off my porch but hadn’t made a dent in the smell.
“I think we made the smell angry,” Zeb said, wrinkling his nose. “The good news is that we just happen to have intimate information of a personal nature about a certain vampire who knows how to obtain a pressure washer at eleven P.M.”
“One, I hope you mean Dick,” I said as he dialed his cell phone. “And two, whatever intimate personal information you have about Dick, please don’t share it with me.”
We went inside for some cold drinks. Zeb stripped his shirt off, wiping the durian remains from his hands. “You know what, I have to say the whole unkempt-workman thing is a good look for you. You should go home to Jolene right now all sweaty and manly.”
“I can’t. I smell like …” He shuddered. “I can’t go home to Jolene like this. I’m always telling her not to come home stinky after she’s rolled in something dead.”
I stretched out on the porch steps, flexing my tired legs. “Wait, you do mean in wolf form, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at me as if I was the crazy one.
“Your marriage is not like other marriages,” I told him. “So, how are you guys? Have you adjusted to the whole twins thing yet?”
“You were right,” he said sheepishly.
I smirked. “I usually am.”
“I don’t have much of a choice in the matter. The babies are on their way, so the best thing to do is just hold on and enjoy the ride. And when you think about it, it’s pretty cool,” he said, pausing to take a drink. “Besides, Jolene’s cousin Raylene is having triplets, so it could be worse.”
“Well, there you go.”
Zeb wiped his forehead off and considered. “This stinky-fruit drive-by is a weird thing to do to someone. Do you think Gabriel did it?”
“This isn’t really Gabriel’s style. This involves a certain whimsical malice that he lacks. Besides, he’s not mad at me. He just can’t seem to grasp why I’m mad at him, which is infuriating. And even when he was mad at me, he was much more likely to lecture me sternly or give me a spanking than leave putrid fruit paste on my porch.”
“I’m going to ignore the spanking reference,” he said under his breath.
“Probably for the best,” I agreed.
“So, who do you think is the fruit bomber?”
I shrugged. “Could be some random person in town who doesn’t like vampires. Could be a member of the Chamber of Commerce who has decided they don’t want me there after all. Now, that’s the place for whimsical malice. Heck, this could be Dick’s idea of a hilarious practical joke to lift my spirits. It could be anybody.”
“That’s not comforting.” Zeb said.
Or, I thought, it could be my mysterious pen pal, hoping I would be disoriented enough from lack of sleep and olfactory overdrive to stumble out of the house in full daylight to investigate the smell.
“It sucks to be this popular,” I said, reaching into the front hall to pull out my purse. “Which is why I went to the scary sporting-goods store last night and bought this.”
I pulled my new stun gun out of its holster and pressed the trigger, smiling as the arc of current connected between the two prongs.
“You bought a stun gun?” he cried. “Why did you buy a stun gun?”
“Do you want to smell my porch again?” I asked. “There’s some stuff going on right now, Zeb. I need something for protection, and I lost the mace Gabriel gave me. And I lost Gabriel. I can’t depend on anybody to protect me. I think we can agree that buying a gun would be much more likely to end in my shooting myself or innocent bystanders.”
“But you’re a vampire! You have superstrength. I’ve seen you kill someone with your bare hands. Well, there was a wooden stake in your bare hands. But still.”
“I don’t like carrying this thing around with me, either, Zeb. You know me, I only resort to violent impulses when I feel I have no option—”
“Or you’re cranky or startled, or your blood sugar is low, or you have a hangnail—”
I cut him off with a glare. “This will keep me doing too much damage to the other person while still giving me enough time to get away. And this will keep me from getting my hands dirty or, you know, dusty.”
