“So, hit me, but don’t bother with the books,” he demanded, grabbing my shoulders.
“You don’t get to touch me!” I slapped his hands away.
Dick emerged from the back room, his face thunderous as he told Gabriel, “Son, you’d better back off,now.”
Gabriel’s face softened, and his hands dropped to his sides. “Just let it out, so we can get through this.” He was almost begging now. He leaned his forehead against mine and pulled my hands gently into his. “This is what we do. So, let’s just fight and then fight some more until we get this out of our system and we can go back to normal again.”
“No,” I said, my own voice shaking as I backed away from him, toward my office. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore. And we are anything but normal. Just stay away from me, Gabriel.”
“But I love you.”
“I know you think so.” I nodded and stepped back behind the closed office door, waiting until I heard the front doorbell tell me that he’d walked out.
If a man is callous and fickle in life, being a vampire won’t suddenly make him sensitive to your needs.
—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less Destructive Relationships
There is nothing sadder than a vampire in her bathrobe, drinking Hershey’s Blood Additive Chocolate Syrup straight from the bottle and watchingFatal Attractionover and over again.
I hadn’t gotten so much as a call from Gabriel since the ugly scene at the shop. Even though I probably would have hung up on him if he had called, he could have at least made the gesture of letting me hang up on him. But it appeared that Gabriel had learned his lesson from the first time I stopped talking to him. Complete radio silence. Every once in a while, I thought I could sense his presence outside the house, but it seemed like wishful thinking on my part. I walked outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. But there was nothing, not even a trace of his scent on the breeze.
Gabriel, it seemed, had moved on. And if he hadn’t moved on, he was doing a damn fine impersonation of someone who had. So I decided to follow suit.
For the past four nights, I’d served coffee, helped customers select books, and kept our new mascot, Cindy, in comics and lattes. The crowd wasn’t quite as big as opening night, but it was certainly respectable. And we seemed to be developing regulars, human and vampire.
But when Sunday night, our closed night, came, I found myself in my bathrobe in the kitchen, staring down the Hershey’s bottle. The phone rang, and even though I really, really hoped it was Gabriel, I was still contrary enough not to answer just in case itwasGabriel.
Instead, Mama’s voice echoed from my answering machine through my impossibly empty kitchen. “Jane, honey, it’s Mama. Daddy told me all about what happened with Gabriel. I don’t know why you told Daddy about it instead of me … but anyway, I think you just need to stop being silly and call him. It’s not like there are a lot of available vampires out there. And you two are so good together. Whatever Gabriel did, I think you just need to—” The machine cut her off. God bless technology.
Before Mama could call back, Andrea and Jolene came barreling into the house like the cavalry, armed with DVDs; dessert blood, obviously for me; ice cream, obviously not for me; and wine, obviously not for Jolene. There was also an alarming assortment of junk food, including readymade cheesecake filling in a tub, which I didn’t even know existed. And now that I was aware of it, I was extremely disgruntled that I couldn’t eat any of it. At the sight of this cornucopia of girlie comfort, I promptly burst into tears.
“I love you guys.” I sniffled. “I’m fine. I’m not crying ’cause of Gabriel. I just really love you guys.”
Jolene wrapped her arms around me and made soft wuffling noises as I snotted up her T-shirt. I had really good friends, girlfriends, which was something I’d never had in life. Somehow they complemented each other to form some sort of perfectly balanced break-up safety net.
“Aw, honey, it’s all right,” Jolene soothed. “He’s a bastard. Zeb was too busy mumblin’ empty threats to make it clear what Gabriel did, but he’s a bastard.”
“Oh, have we already reached the ‘calling Gabriel names’ portion of the festivities?” Andrea asked, returning to the kitchen with my corkscrew. “I thought we’d at least get her drunk and watch a movie first.”
“I thought we were supposed to get her drunk and put her panties in the freezer,” Jolene said, her pretty face scrunched in confusion.
“I think you’re mixing up your female-bonding customs,” I told her. “That’s ‘thirteen-year-olds at a sleepover,’ not ‘vampire boyfriend may or may not have cheated on you, but either way, he’s an emotionally unavailable asshat.’”
“Oh, how the hell am I supposed to keep up with all your weird human rituals?” She grunted, prying the lid off Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie and digging in. “If this was a werewolf thing, we’d just go pee on his front porch so no other females would come near him for months.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted.
I surveyed Andrea’s outfit of artfully worn jeans and what was obviously one of Dick’s T-shirts, advertising the joys of Hot Springs, Arkansas. “I thought you said you were getting rid of Dick’s tacky T-shirts.”
“Oh, this isn’t tacky, this is vintage,” she said, turning proudly to show off the way the shirt hugged her curves. “I put a seam here and there. It’s a little more tailored, so instant classic.”
I peered down at my own happy-face pajama pants and a baggy T-shirt advertising the annual 4 H Hog Call. “I hate you. What’d you bring?” I examined the stack of videos. “Steel MagnoliasandBeaches? Are you trying to comfort me or get me to commit suicide?”
Jolene shrugged. “When I want an excuse to cry, I watchSteel Magnolias.”
“What about this one?” I held up a copy of9 to 5.
“I think Jolene got confused about the theme,” Andrea said. “But still, female empowerment, dosing your boss with rat poison. It could work.”
“I’m your boss,” I reminded her.
“That does pose a problem,” Andrea agreed as my eyes narrowed.
“Zeb said we should bring over the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,but Andrea thought you’d get all depressed,” Jolene told me.
“Yeah, because what’s the point of watching Buffy if you’re not watching the second-season episodes with Spike in them?” I asked, uncorking the bottle of wine. Andrea poured me a large glass. “Hmmm. I wonder if it would be unethical for me to turn James Marsters? And then force him to fake the Cockney accent? And then make him my love monkey?”
“Yes, the Council would probably notice that.” Andrea snorted.
“Frankly, I’m surprised some crazy, recently turned fan girl hasn’t already thought of it,” I muttered into my wine.
Andrea pulled a DVD case with a blank cover out of her purse. “I also brought this. It’s an unrated version of the BBC production ofPride and Prejudice,the Colin Firth version. Dick got it from one of his … sources. There’s a rumor that during the bath scene, you get an accidental peek at Mr. Darcy’s bum.”
“Oh, Lord, she’s crying again,” Jolene groaned as I gave her neck another moist hug.
I blubbered, “I’m just so happy!”
We indulged in buttoned-up Austenian dramedy for a few hours, consuming more calories than should be allowed by law. I painted my toes a bold eggplant, which Gabriel had always disliked.
He said it made my feet look hypothermic. Thanks to her accelerated pregnancy, Jolene’s brief flirtation with crippling morning sickness was over. She polished off the Mint Chocolate Cookie and the Cherry Garcia but not the Chunky Monkey, which Andrea specifically chose because Jolene hated banana. I became concerned about Andrea’s wine-to-ice-cream consumption ratio and what sort of color she might turn my carpet if she got sick. But then I had a few glasses myself and just didn’t care. Fitz couldn’t decide whom he’d rather spurn me for, Andrea or Jolene, both of whom he adored. But since he had a better chance of Andrea sharing food with him, he snuggled up with Andrea.
“Do you consider yourselves Colin Firth girls or Colin Farrell girls?” Jolene asked, munching on her thousandth or so mini-Snickers as Mr. Darcy informed Elizabeth that he most ardently admired and loved her.
“Can’t I have both?” Andrea asked with a dreamy sort of leer. “One of them could run the video camera.”
“That answer, by its very nature, makes you a Colin Farrell girl.” I snickered.
“I’m just saying what you’re both think—” Andrea let out a shriek and dropped her half-melted tub of ice cream on my floor.
At least it wasn’t vomit.
“What?” I squinted at her whitened face in the flickering light of the TV.
“There’s somebody out there!” she cried. “I saw them! They were looking in the window.”
“Who was it?”