by Molly Harper
I’d beaten myself up over my feelings—or lack thereof—for Ben for weeks before his disastrous Christmas Eve proposal, which he saw as a Hail Mary play to save our relationship. I just didn’t want to be with him anymore, and that alone made me feel that I was giving girlfriends everywhere a bad name. Ben was a genuinely decent sweetheart of a guy, who did everything right—remembering birthdays, having sacrosanct date nights every weekend, and faithfully Skyping when we were separated by summer internships. He accepted all of the weird supernaturalness in my life without so much as a “Hey, Type O is sort of a weird Christmas dinner.”
But he still didn’t make my fickle self happy. I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him, not in the electric, head-over-heels, launching-a-thousand-ships sort of way I’d seen in Cal and Iris or Jane and Gabriel or even Jamie and Ophelia. But as selfish as it might seem, I wanted that crazy, forever, epic sort of love for myself. When you were surrounded by eternally committed vampire couples, it warped your expectations a little bit.
Maybe it had been a mistake to switch majors so that most of my upper-level classes were also Ben’s classes. Maybe we’d spent too much time together. Maybe Ben got tired of seeing me perform so well in an area that was supposed to be his thing. Maybe we’d been doomed from the start, when I’d selfishly used him as my cover story as I secretly dated a very dangerous teenage vampire.
Either way, we hadn’t spoken, e-mailed, or texted in the six months since. We were still Facebook friends, but we avoided each other’s timelines. And none of this mattered now, because Ben was standing right in front of me, with a confused expression on his face.
“How have you been?” he asked, clearing his throat, gesturing for me to follow him back into the coffee shop.
“Great,” I told him, shaking my head for reasons I didn’t understand. “Great. You?”
“Great,” he said. “Are you working in the Hollow this summer?”
“Yeah, I’m doing some programming work for the Council. And you?”
“Oh, uh, I’m just packing some stuff up. I’ve got a summer internship for Microsoft, in their Atlanta offices,” he said, pinching his lips shut and nodding like a bobblehead.
“Great!”
“Yeah, I’m pretty excited about it,” he said. “And how do you like working for the Council?”
“It’s great,” I said, laughing in this awkward breathy fashion that made me sound slightly insane. “The other programmers made me project leader, which should be a nice résumé builder, if I don’t screw it up.”
Ben’s mouth curved up into that familiar fond Ben smile, and he finally resembled the boy I had dated instead of this stiff stranger. “You’re not going to screw it up, Geeg. You’re going to be great.”
If one of us said “great” one more time, I swear, one of our heads would explode.
Ben grinned and rubbed my arm, a gesture I stepped away from immediately. “I’m glad I ran into you. After last time, I had a few things I needed to say to you.”
I cringed inside. Honestly, I could only handle so many confessions of true feelings in one night. If he told me he loved me, I was going to jump through the window and run screaming down the street. I was practically twitching as he took a seat at a table near the plate-glass picture window. I remained standing, unwilling to spend more time than was absolutely necessary in this conversation.
He frowned when he saw my tense posture, but he took a deep breath and said, “I lied.”
My hands stopped twitching long enough for me to say, “I’m sorry?”
“When I said we could still be friends? I lied,” he said. “It was just too hard, and awkward. You seemed so happy every time I saw you, and for some reason, that really pissed me off.”
“I had to put on a happy face!” I exclaimed. “What kind of idiot breaks up with someone and then tells that person that she’s miserable? It’s against the girl code.”
“Well, I’m not going to lie, it took me a little while to get over it. I got drunk and cursed your name more than a few times.”
“That explains why so many of your friends glared at me all spring,” I muttered.
“But I just want you to know, I’m not mad at you anymore. I’m doing fine now. I’ve actually started seeing someone,” he said.
I expected some sort of pang, a twitch of irritation or jealousy. But I was happy for him. I wanted Ben to find someone. He deserved to be happy. And I wouldn’t make him happy. I was apparently some sort of romantic train wreck who violated office policies willy-nilly and led nerds to the romantic rocks like some evil cyber-siren.
“She’s really nice. She works in my office. Is that weird for you?”
“No, I’ve started seeing someone, too.” I glanced out the window to see Nik standing in the puddle of streetlamp light across the street, a concerned expression on his face. Triple shit.
“It’s a vampire, isn’t it?”
I turned to Ben and laughed. “Yeah, why?”
He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I just figured you would end up with a vampire. They say that girls marry guys just like their daddies, and Cal is the closest thing you have.”
I shuddered. “For the sake of my romantic future and emotional well-being, please do not finish that thought. If necessary, I will emphasize my point by threatening to smack you.”
“You’re so violent now! You were such a nice girl before you entered Cal boot camp!” Ben snickered as we stepped back onto the street. “I’m sorry I avoided you, but I would like us to be friends again, Gigi.”
“I’d like that, too.”
He opened his arms wide to go for a very clearly communicated hug.
I shook my head. “We are the sort of friends who do not hug.”
“Fair enough,” he said, extending his hand for a shake. I pumped it up and down in a firm, nonmushy manner.
“Go home, Ben,” I said. “Say hello to your special lady friend for me.”
Ben unlocked his car. “No, no. We’re not going to do that. As far as she is concerned, you don’t exist. And vice versa. And please do not tell your vampire boyfriend about me.”
Ben climbed behind the wheel and drove away, waving to me. I rubbed my hand over my face. “So very awkward.”
I felt as if I’d been run through an emotional meat grinder. I’d been angry, frustrated, mortified, hopeful, happy, and sad all in one night. I didn’t know how to feel about anything. I wanted to talk to Iris about it, but I didn’t know how much help she would be, what with her blind hatred of Nik and her instinctual kill response to anyone who made me the least bit uncomfortable. I scrubbed my hand over my face again, wishing I hadn’t left my coffee on my desk. Then again, vodka might be better. Lots of vodka. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but tonight I could see the wisdom in blind stinking oblivion.
“Did you have a nice chat?”
I turned around to find Nik standing behind me. His brow was furrowed in concern, but he kept glancing over my shoulder toward the former position of Ben’s car. I groaned. “What? What can I do for you?”
“What is this I hear about you being ill?” he asked, cupping my face between his palms. And that’s when I realized I’d forgotten to text Nik. Wow, the Council office grapevine worked fast.
“It’s nothing.” I sighed. “Just something Nola thought would be funny.”
“Pernicious anemia is hardly funny!” he exclaimed. “Your friend the nurse finds illness funny?”
“I don’t have pernicious anemia. It was just something she made up so she had an excuse to come into the office to see me.”
“Why would she need to come see you?”
I shrugged it off, because there was no way I was going to tell him I had my friend magi-scan my coworkers on his behalf. Guys got weird about that sort of thing. “It’s a long story. Now, what brings you to my parking lot?”
“I came to see you, and I found you talking to that boy, the boy from the pictures in your room,” he said, as if I’d been having a conversation with a leper. A leper who liked dubstep.
“Trust me, that boy is no longer my problem or yours. I’ve got more pressing issues right now.”
Nik’s vaguely irritated expression changed to one of concern. “Such as?”
“Such as, I seem to have accidentally seduced a coworker, who wants to work around the spirit of office policy to go on a date I don’t want. My ex-boyfriend is hanging out at coffee shops near my office so he can tell me about the new girl he’s dating, which has been the bright spot of my evening. My undead boyfriend is cursed, and I’m actually pathetically happy right now that you haven’t attacked me in the last five minutes. I am stressed out to my eyeballs.”
“I did not understand any of that.”
“Of course you didn’t.” I sighed. “I just can’t handle one more upsetting conversation tonight, OK? So if you have a problem with me talking to Ben, we’re just going to have to discuss that at another time.”
“Do not shut me out, Gigi,” he said, sounding genuinely hurt.
“I’m not shutting you out, I’m shutting myself down,” I told him. “I just need some peace and quiet, just for a few minutes. I just can’t think about anything anymore.”
He nodded. “I will walk you to your office.”
“Don’t bother,” I said, walking away from him. “But I would consider it a personal favor if you don’t zombie out and chase me down like a cheetah while I’m walking back to the building.”
I hung my head the moment the words came out of my mouth. That was bitchy. It wasn’t fair that I was sniping at Nik for something he couldn’t help, just because I was frustrated and overwrought.
“Nik, I’m sorry. That was rude.”
He didn’t answer.
I turned around to find an empty sidewalk and a dark street. So we were back to disappearing Nik again. I groaned. “I suck.”
11
Office romances are never a good idea, whether you’re alive or undead. The walk of shame is still embarrassing, whether it takes place at dawn or at dusk.
—The Office After Dark: A Guide to Maintaining a Safe, Productive Vampire Workplace
I hauled myself out of bed early the next morning to visit Nola during prevampire hours. She usually left for work at the clinic around lunchtime, and I didn’t want to risk a run-in with Nik when I was still such a basket case. It was bad enough that Iris took one look at me when I walked into the house, all ragged and pale and distressed, and concluded that I’d contracted a horrible stomach virus. She spent the rest of her waking hours fussing over me and plying me with chicken noodle soup, which is exactly what you want to eat at two a.m.
Between the sleepless night and the early-morning doses of high-sodium condensed soup, I looked as if I’d been wrestling with a bear. At least, that’s the impression I got from Nola’s expression when she opened her front door.
“Wow,” she said, blanching and not even bothering to cover it. Instead of her peach-and-blue scrubs, she was wearing a blue tank top and a floaty green-and-white skirt, looking quite the picture of the modern young witch. “Gigi, darlin’, have you been drinkin’? I know I said the B-twelve would be a booster, but I didn’t mean to go out and test the limits.”
“Sadly, I am sober as a judge,” I grumbled, shoving my sunglasses on top of my head, into the mess of dark hair I’d piled up. “You offering?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. “You twenty-one?”
“I thought the Irish didn’t really give a damn about that sort of thing. Weren’t you weaned on whiskey?” I snorted as she led me into her kitchen.
“Irish-American, you smartass,” she scoffed. “And the side of my personality that’s interested in holding on to my newly issued Kentucky nursing license has no plans to contribute to the delinquency of an almost minor.”
I dropped my bag onto the table and flopped into the kitchen chair. Nola, bless her soul, started a pot of coffee, a concession to Jed’s American need for a higher grade of caffeine than English breakfast tea could offer.
“Spoilsport,” I muttered into the kitchen tabletop, where I’d planted my face. “I haven’t slept. I had a really rough night at the office. And I haven’t been able to talk to Iris about it, because I don’t want her to march into my place of employment and demand a fifty-foot space bubble between me and a coworker who, as of last night, makes me uncomfortable. It’s not that I wouldn’t appreciate the buffer, but it doesn’t exactly make me look like a professional. So, what were the results of your scans?”
“Nothing.” Nola sighed.
“Nothing?”
“Not a single caster in the office,” she said. “Even that weird yogurt lady.”
“Damn it!” I grunted. “But what was with all that grinning when you were shaking Margaret’s hand?”
“Because I could tell it was annoying her,” Nola said. “Gigi, this is good news. This means that people who have access to you every day are not trying to make Nik a murderer.”
“Well, that’s actually reassuring when you put it like that, thank you,” I said, nodding. “The problem remains that if my two prime suspects have been eliminated, I’m left with an unknown potential suspect with no discernible motive.”
“Look, don’t worry. We’ll keep researching. If there’s anything I’ve learned with this group, it’s that there is no enemy or magic or even force of nature that can’t be worked around, once they devote their energy to it.”
“Yeah, but people get hurt along the way,” I murmured. “I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“You can’t control that, Geeg,” she said. “And you’ll go mad if you try.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “So is there any way we can be proactive about this? Because I would love not to be attacked by the man I’m in deep, devoted like with . . . who may not be talking to me because I was sort of mean to him last night.”
“You are a very complicated girl, aren’t you?”
“Not intentionally. Now, can you answer the question?”
Nola thought about it for a long while, chewing her lip. “Yes.”
“Does it involve some sort of spell that ends up making a big red ‘A’ appear on their forehead? Because that would be helpful.”
“Well, magically, there’s not a lot I can do without knowing who I’m casting against. And frankly, I don’t like the whole threefold return on doing someone wrong, karma-wise. “
“Then I am confused. Also disappointed.”
“Have you ever studied the placebo effect?” Nola asked. “People take sugar pills, believing they’re taking medications, and thanks to the power of the mind, they actually feel the effects of drugs that aren’t even in their system?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with—ohhhhhhh.”
• • •
Nola’s plan was as brilliant as it was devious.
After showering thoroughly and putting on a more respectable outfit, I would go to work, as normal. Rather than having Nola cast an actual spell, I would stand out in the hallway with my coworkers and very loudly discuss a spell that Nola was planning to cast on the person causing so much trouble for my gentleman companion. Aaron and Jordan were appropriately rapt at my descriptions of the nervous sweats, stomach cramps, and other symptoms that would be inflicted upon said evildoer, living or undead. I didn’t know if they believed me or not, but I was their boss, and they were both too polite to call me a liar.
And since Aaron was about as discreet as a full-page newspaper ad, it only took a few hours for the story to make the rounds. As a fun side note, almost everybody in the office now avoided eye contact with me.
Now I just had to sit back and let said evildoer’s guilty conscience do my dirty
work for me. Of course, doing some actual work, which had been absent from my last few nights at the office, would also be a nice gesture.
It took me a few hours, but I caught up on the tasks I’d abandoned in favor of my own personal telenovela the night before. I checked the search platform Aaron and Jordan built. I started construction on a bridge function that would allow users to track multiple family branches at the same time. And I shredded the research paper Marty had written on fonts before he could mail it to the regional office. Now we just had to come up with another pointless task that would keep him occupied for another week.
I left that particular brainstorm to Jordan and Aaron while I checked off my first major backup task as project leader. Every file that my team had touched since we arrived had been saved to an external drive, which would be placed in a safe, deep within the bowels of the office. I would have to do this once a month all summer to prevent catastrophic loss of our work, just in case every server at the Council’s disposal simultaneously crashed. It could happen.
In fact, if Marty figured out how to get around the encryption Aaron had set up to keep him out of the scanned files Jordan had archived, it might happen. For his part, Marty remained unaware of the measures we were forced to employ to protect our work from him thanks to his golden protected-by-Ophelia status. He remained friendly and cheerful. He didn’t sulk or give me longing looks from across the room. To me, this said that he definitely had not processed my no to his dinner invitation and he sincerely believed that I would be dating him at some point.
So yes, maybe I was a little enthusiastic about visiting some part of the building where Marty didn’t have clearance to breathe. On the long elevator ride to the lower floors of the Council office, I cradled the external drive in my hands as if it was the last egg of a near-extinct species of bird. I had to pass two armed guards and a retinal scanner to get to the safe, where I was blindfolded as the code was entered. And then I verified by signature on a digital pad that the drives had been secured. The various security precautions took a grand total of ten minutes. I was just glad we only backed up like this every month.