by Molly Harper
“No, it’s just…you’re a vampire and I’m a werewolf and we’re not supposed to date. I think it’s a rule.”
“Did you sign something agreeing to these rules?”
My lips twitched and his eyes flicked town. It felt like he was staring at my mouth. With intent. “No.”
“So have coffee with me. I’ve heard of a place in town, Specialty Books. They make vampire-friendly drinks. It’s a nice public place, lots of witnesses, should you feel unsafe. Maybe I’m the one who should stop talking, because I don’t think I’m making this sound appealing.”
I giggled. I actually giggled. Because he was not quite as awkward as me, but he was still a little awkward. And it was adorable that I was able to chip under the smooth exterior enough to make him appear to be anything but suave and courtly.
I grinned at him, prompting him to smile at me just as warmly. “Dick Cheney does make a magical cappuccino.”
Our devastating raid on the local Burger Shed left the back seat of Jolene’s car littered with cheese-covered wrappers and ripped fry containers. It was fast food carnage as far as the rearview mirror could see. I felt bad feeding the kids a mess of non-organic, corporate-fueled empty calories, but I also knew how expensive and difficult it was to feed growing werewolves. Jolene tended to cook pretty healthy when the kids were home—another marked difference from the ranch dressing-soaked, deep-fried cuisine that our mothers embraced. So, I figured it all balanced out eventually.
The Lavelle house was a tidy little ranch, unremarkable in any way beyond the fact that a werewolf lived there, away from her pack. The instinct to run back to the packlands must have driven Jolene insane, but she did it so she could raise her kids on her own terms. And well, for Zeb’s safety, because if they’d tried to live on the compound, he would have lost a lot more than a toe. (There was an “accident” involving a chainsaw.)
I carefully parked the car in the garage and herded the kids inside. Without having to be told, they hung up their backpacks and took their instruments upstairs, instead of just dropping everything by the door. It was a minor miracle, as far as werewolf child behavior was concerned. I heard keys jangle in the front door and Jolene stepped through. I could practically see the maternal tension bleed out of her face when she saw her cubs. I didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t that Jolene didn’t trust me. She just didn’t trust the rest of the world. It was a common attitude among most werewolf parents.
Jolene threw her arms wide. “Hey, guys! How was practice!”
“Great! And we made the kid at the drive-thru cry again!” Joe informed her, throwing himself against Jolene’s side and nuzzling his face against her ribs.
“Joe ordered everything with no onions, so they had to make them fresh,” Janelyn said.
“Onions taste like that stuff that grows on the bottom of the toothbrush rack,” Joe insisted.
“Why would you taste stuff at the bottom of the toothbrush rack?” Janelyn asked.
“Kids, please spare cousin Ty your thoughts on what weird things taste like.” Jolene flashed a brilliant smile at me. “Thanks, Ty. You’re a lifesaver.”
“No problem, it was really interesting to watch,” I assured her. “How was your meeting?”
“Productive,” she said. “But I got roped into serving on a committee.”
“Sucker.”
“I know,” she sighed.
I dug into my backpack and handed her the package of earplugs. “Here, I didn’t use these. I know they’re the good ones.”
Jolene frowned. “You didn’t need them?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I told her, making her jaw drop. “What? I’ve spent years tuning out the aunties and they’re way louder.”
“That’s what the twins say,” Jolene said, chewing her lip.
“It’s all about focus, Mama,” Janelyn told her solemnly before following her brother down the hall. “I call first shower, Joe! You never clean your nasty hair out of the drain! Joe!”
Before Janelyn managed to reach the closed bathroom door, the shower started.
“Well, that will be a fun fight to referee,” Jolene sighed. “So it looks like these meetings might be taking up a lot of my Monday nights. Would you mind taking them to the music classes on those nights? I didn’t know if you were usually working then.”
I shrugged. “I think I would like that. I get out of the house and I get points for being helpful to family. You know how that goes.”
Of course, this arrangement would only work if the date I’d scheduled with Alex didn’t go terribly awry. But I wasn’t about to mention that in front of Jolene. If things went wrong, I would just make some excuse about not being able to take the kids to class.
From down the hallway, I heard what sounded like the shower curtain being ripped off its hooks.
“I’m just gonna run home, and let you deal with that,” I said, nodding.
Jolene cringed as something crashed and the twins yelled simultaneously for their mom. “Thanks.”
3
“Understand that the courting manners of other generations will be different than your own. However, no matter when or how you were raised, back-handed compliments are always bad.”
—A Gentleman in Any Era: An Ancient Vampire’s Guide to Modern Relationships
* * *
Specialty Books very quickly became my new “office space,” though the change came more out of necessity than the charms of Dick Cheney.
Mrs. Stubblefield seemed to blame me for the ruckus the previous week and was decidedly cold to me on the one night I’d returned. Suddenly, there were no study carrels available to me, despite the fact that they were all empty. I took the hint and made myself scarce. Also, there were at least three moms from the music class sitting “casually” at the reading tables, dressed to the nines. The library was now infested.
Jane had almost as many books as the library anyway. And I knew I could depend on the vampires to defend my stuff if I stepped away. They’d been so incredibly welcoming since I started showing up, occupying one of their tables for hours at a time. Jane and Dick tried to switch nights in the shop as they were also expected to work at the Council office. But I could tell the shop was where they preferred to spend their time, along with their partners. They were comfortable there in a way I tried not to envy. This was their home and I had the feeling they’d worked hard for it.
Dick kept me in caffeine, letting me try experimental “human coffee drinks” before adding to them to the permanent menu. I ingested more bottled caramel sauce than any human would be able to metabolize. Jane’s husband, Gabriel, found the writing for media process to be fascinating and would spend my breaks discussing obscure typography rules with me. Dick’s wife, Andrea, hovered like a mother hen, making sure I had water, pens, a coaster for my coffee.
And the location included one hundred percent fewer disturbing eyebrows, which couldn’t be discounted, in terms of a perk.
Other that their usual complaints about me not being home, my parents didn’t really notice the difference. Well, they did ask if I was drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee, and then we had to have another discussion about sniffing me.
“Can you come give this a try?” Dick asked on the night I was supposed to meet Alex at the bookshop for our date. I’d taken a little more care with my appearance than normal, wearing a pair of jeans so dark they were practically navy slacks and a new shade of lipstick that I would have to wipe off before I went home.
Reluctantly, I abandoned the special anniversary edition of The Princess Bride I’d been ogling ever since I’d spotted it on the shelf days ago. I knew that most people preferred the movie to the book, with its ambiguous and potentially gloomy ending, but that story had gotten me through some very unhappy times as a preteen. I’d devoted many hours to imagining that I’d be whisked away by some handsome man in a mask. Hell, at several points, I would have settled for an angry Sicilian genius. This was a gorgeous leather-bound tome that I couldn’t bring myself to splu
rge on. I was sort of a tightwad when it came to buying things just for me, just for fun.
Dick slid a purple Specialty Books mug across the bar. It smelled…funny.
“Is there blood in this?” I asked him. “I think, legally, you have to tell me before I drink it.”
“No blood, just a sample of some flavoring syrups,” he said as I took a tentative sip. “But they’re made by a new vampire-run company and sometimes I wonder if it’s a good idea for us to produce food products. Human food tastes like garbage to us, so vampires making human food products seems like a not-great idea.”
I smacked my lips, trying to clear my mouth of the weird, synthetic raspberry cough syrup taste combined with nicely brewed coffee. “Well…”
“Well, what?”
I pressed my lips together before whispering, “My mama always told me if I couldn’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Dick cringed.
“So I’m trying to figure out a way to go back in time so I can take some words back from my lifetime total, to make up for how bad this is,” I said, making him draw the mug back across the bar. “I mean, when was the last time these people ate fruit?!”
“I’m guessing a long time.”
“It tastes like a cough drop that’s been left in an old lady’s sweater pocket for like a year, and then she digs it out and you take it because you don’t want to be rude, but then you’re just left with this awful pocket fuzz taste in your mouth,” I said, shuddering. “But then add a weird synthetic chemical taste afterwards.”
“For someone who doesn’t want to say anything mean, this is a very specific old lady-based scenario,” he deadpanned.
“I do what I can,” I said.
“So…don’t buy the line of syrups.”
I shook my head vehemently. “Don’t buy the syrups.”
The bell over the door rang and a vampire in a floral peasant top came in, carrying a large shipping box labeled “SPECIALTY BOOKS—TEA ORDER” in a haphazard hand.
“Hey Meadow, how’d the move go?” With Dick’s accent, the name came out as “Medda” but the lady didn’t seem to mind. She smiled brightly at him.
“As well as you could expect when the people moving are one person with what you might call a lax attitude towards organization and the other one is Erik,” she said, jerking her shoulder. “You and Andrea have been really good to us and we appreciate it. So, to thank you, I brought you this.”
She reached into the shipping box and pulled out a package wrapped in brightly patterned cloth.
“Is it slippery elm bark tea?” Dick asked, his expression caught between affection and dread.
“It’s slippery elm bark tea!” she chirped, relentlessly cheerful despite Dick’s clear lack of enthusiasm.
“I know you say this stuff is good for me, Hippy Dippy, but by comparison, Ty’s old lady cough drop description sounds tempting.”
Meadow blinked at him, confused. I snickered.
“Drink the tea, Dick!” Andrea called from the stacks.
“It’s good for you!” Jane added.
“This is a vast conspiracy among the women in my life to drive me nuts, isn’t it?” he asked Meadow.
I laughed, clapping my hand over my mouth.
“You got something to add there, Little Red?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Is that my nickname?”
“You have to admit it’s better than Hippy Dippy,” Meadow said.
“We’re still working on it.” Dick looked at me, his lips pursed in contemplation. “Cough Drop Hater?”
I shook my head again. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I’m Meadow Schwartz,” Meadow said, offering her hand. “I own the tea shop down the street, Everlasting Health. Stop by anytime.”
“Thanks, but I’m more of a coffee drinker. Or at least, I was before Dick and his cough drop syrup ruined the drink forever,” I said as Jane and Andrea joined her at the bar. Jane gave her a quick hug before setting an electric kettle to boil. Andrea took the box and began emptying bags of loose tea into enormous glass apothecary jars.
“Everybody says that at first,” Meadow assured me. “Except for the cough drop thing. I’m hearing way more about cough drops than I thought I would today.”
“This is Ty McClaine,” Jane said. “Jolene’s cousin.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, tilting her head as she looked at me. If I wasn’t a werewolf, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on the almost imperceptible flaring of her nostrils. It wasn’t personal. She was a predator, taking stock of another predator. I was doing the same. She seemed like a gentle thing, too kind to do what was needed to survive as a vampire, but I also knew better than to underestimate her. I’d heard enough stories through Jolene to know that Jane and her little chosen pack had been through hell and high water over the years. Vampirism in Half-Moon Hollow wasn’t for the ill-prepared.
“You’re uncertain about almost everything, huh?” Meadow said, patting my hand. “Well, don’t be. Once you get a nickname, you’re basically adopted in.”
All right, I hadn’t been expecting that. Because Jane and her friends seemed so normal, I sort of forgot that every vampire had some sort of special ability beyond their already unfair predatory advantages of super-strength, super-speed, and forever preserved more-than-above-average good looks. (Yeah, I was a little bitter.) At some point, after turning, every vampire developed a special talent—being able to persuade someone to do their bidding or find hidden objects.
Werewolves didn’t get that. (Still bitter.)
I wondered what Alex’s special ability could be … maybe it was just looking really, really good in jeans? Could that be considered a super-power?
My eyes must have gone wide at that because Jane elbowed Meadow lightly. “Sweetie, we’ve talked about the emotion-sniffing thing. It’s rude to do it without permission.”
“You know I can’t help what I smell, Jane. Besides, you’ve dipped into my brain on occasion without a password,” Meadow replied, shooting me an apologetic glance. “Sorry. It’s a gift and a curse.”
I’d completely forgotten Jane was telepathic. Shit.
Jane told me. “Don’t worry, I’m getting much better at keeping my shield up. As long as you’re not thinking loud, panicky thoughts, we should be fine. Also, to my knowledge, looking really, really good in jeans isn’t considered a super-power. But I think it should be.”
“I say this as someone who grew up with a bunch of werewolves, but this is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever heard,” I told her.
“Well, I have a hard time believing that,” Dick said. “I’ve hung out with Jolene for too long.”
I chuckled, turning to Meadow. “So do you work here, too? I just started visiting.”
“I’m usually here for book club nights, but I’m pretty busy with my own shop,” she said. “And I used to be Dick and Andrea’s tenant, but my boyfriend and I just bought a house together.” She preened as she dropped a set of keys into Dick’s hand.
“I’m so pleased for you,” Andrea said, hugging her. “That’s a huge step.”
“Especially for me and my trust issues,” Meadow admitted.
“You own an apartment building?” I lifted a brow. Dick didn’t seem like the landlord type. Owning a building that people lived in was a lot of responsibility and upkeep and dealing with people and their complaints. And while Dick was a super nice person, that seemed like a lot for him. Then again, he had Andrea, and I once saw her defuse a fifteen-minute customer meltdown over the absence of cashew milk at the coffee bar—with a smile on her face.
Cashew milk. At a vampire coffee bar. In Kentucky.
“Yeah, are you looking for a place?” Dick asked. “We were going to advertise it, but we’d rather rent to people we know. You’re way less likely to try to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms in the laundry room or something.”
“But you barely know me!” I scoffed.
“You’ve been in h
ere every night this week, working steadily for hours at a time,” Andrea said. “Clearly, you have a job to which you’re very dedicated. You’re pleasant, responsible and you haven’t once tried to stick gum under the table, which means you respect other people’s property.”
“The gum thing drives her crazy,” Jane added.
I was frozen like a—well, werewolves never got caught in headlights, but it was close. Just thinking about the offer almost made me dizzy—living alone, in my own space that I controlled. It was enough to make me nearly tear up right there in front of everybody. It was so tantalizing. I could almost taste it, the freedom, the control. My own life.
My parents had always told me that landlords would never rent to me. My work history was spread out across several family-owned businesses simultaneously, making my resume a nightmare. My references were limited to family members. I had no rental history. And it was just too hard for werewolves to try to assimilate into town, they’d insisted. I’d never even considered looking at apartment listings. No one my age had ever moved off of the compound unless it was to get married and move onto some other pack’s lands. What I wanted had always seemed impossible, until now.
“How much is the rent?” I squeaked. I took a quick sip of coffee to wet my throat and then immediately regretted it because cough drop syrup.
Dick checked under the coffee bar and pulled out a piece of paper with all of the specs for the apartment. One bedroom, one bath, kitchen, breakfast nook, a balcony overlooking Millard Street. It wasn’t exactly huge, but it would be more space than I was used to having on my own. And I had more than enough in my savings to cover rent for the first year on my own, plus utilities and Internet. It was pretty reasonable considering it was right in the middle of town. I could work from home! I could take on jobs I had been turning down because I would have hours of uninterrupted time! Which would mean I could afford things like furniture and sheets and toothpaste!
Was this real?
Andrea seemed unnerved by my losing the ability to speak. “Do you want an application? We’ll waive the references.”