by S. E. Babin
"Hey," he said.
Goosebumps broke onto my skin and I knew he saw them. I also knew he could feel my heartbeat picking up. I must be four kinds of stupid to have ever thought dating a vamp was a good idea.
"Hey," I said, barely able to keep my voice from a growl.
His smile grew wider. "So glad to see you're your usual cheerful self."
"What can I do? Certain people bring out the best in me."
His smile faltered for a second before he burst out laughing. "Are you ready?" he asked, completely ignoring my barb.
I shrugged and grabbed my purse. "Guess so."
"So fatalistic," he murmured. He gestured out to his old truck. "After you."
I shut and locked the door behind me and allowed him to open the vehicle door to help me in. He waited until I had my seatbelt on before he shut it.
Moments later, we were on the road. I glanced to the backseat only to see a basket there. A stereotypical picnic basket and an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne. Someone was trying very hard today.
I decided not to smart off. See? I was already growing as a person. I was, however, regretting the fact that I hadn't drove myself, so I couldn't resisting tossing a barb his way about it.
"Before I left I made sure I installed the Uber app. Just in case I somehow get abandoned." I paused for dramatic effect. "Again."
I watched as his jaw clenched. "Whoever did that was a giant asshole," he said.
I blinked at him in surprise. "Well...yes. Quite so."
The next few minutes were spent in silence. "Where are we going?" I finally asked him.
"City park. I figure it's public enough for you to feel comfortable." A smile quirked the side of his mouth. "And plenty of regulars just in case you get ditched again and need a ride home.”
"Har har."
Several minutes later, we arrived at the park. Lucas hopped out and grabbed the stuff from the back, including a blanket I'd missed previously. I let myself out of the truck because his hands were full and followed him. He went past all of the people walking their dogs and playing volleyball and headed over to a heavily forested part. Dappled sunlight trickled through the heavy canopy of trees. It was breezy, but not enough to whip everything around, and just enough sunlight was coming through to keep the place well lit and warm. Midnight Cove usually had pretty steady temperatures, so it never got too hot, but sometimes it could get unseasonably warm. Today was good, but I did enjoy the shade. I was not immune to sunburn. Lucas definitely wasn't either, but the whole adage of him not being able to walk in the sun was totally untrue. At least here in town. I wasn't sure what would happen if he ventured elsewhere during the middle of the day, though I admit I was not eager to find out.
He spread the blanket out and set the basket right in the middle to keep the blanket in place. I slid my shoes off and stepped onto it before I made myself comfortable. Lucas opened the champagne right away and produced two plastic flutes for us. He poured me a glass of the bubbly first, then himself, and held it up to me.
"To second chances," he said and clacked his glass against mine. It didn't have the pretty tinkling sound that glass made, but it still sounded like a vow. I took a sip and studied Lucas.
I guess I couldn't keep the suspicion off my face because one of his eyebrows crept up at my perusal. "What?" he asked.
"You."
His glass faltered from his mouth a bit. "Me what?"
"Why did you ask me out on a second date?"
His lips curled in amusement. "From what I can tell, we've been tiptoeing around each other for awhile now, so this should be what...our third or fourth date?"
I rolled my eyes and snorted. "You have a masochistic view of dating. Me telling you to get bent is not a date."
"But I like my women to insult me," he said, though his eyes sparkled.
"Uh huh. And I like my men to show up and act like giant jackasses."
He held his glass up. "See. I aim to please."
I downed the rest of my champagne. "Can we please eat?" I was starving and had no patience for Lucas and his verbal shenanigans.
His gaze grew serious. "Can't a man make a mistake, Grace?"
Lucas sounded so serious that I paused in my grab for the basket. I took my hand back. "No," I said at first, my tone deadpan. "Wouldn't that be wonderful, though? The world would be harmonious and things like war and famine wouldn't exist."
An annoyed scoff escaped him. "Seriously."
I smiled. "Yes," I said slowly. "Of course. But there's a wrong way and a right way to recover from it."
"And I took the wrong way?"
"And then some."
"Hmmm." He straightened and started pulling things from the basket. Salami and cheese rollups. A large pack of lettuce wraps. Mayo, mustard, ham and turkey. He had a small veggie tray crammed in there, some crackers and crab dip and a wide variety of other things.
I laughed. "Did you pack all of this?"
Lucas smiled sheepishly. "Colin."
"Ah. Colin."
"Yeah. He's...unique."
"You could say that. I have to say I feel genuinely remorseful for the woman who gets tangled up with him."
His eyes crinkled at the sides when he laughed. "He's a great guy. Totally clueless when it comes to social cues and especially women, but I think he will do all right. He'll need someone with a backbone of steel and endless amounts of patience."
I thought of the various kinds of folk we had around here. "Good luck with that," I murmured. "He may have to go outside the city limits."
Lucas' gaze went cloudy for a minute as he thought about something. "I think..." he said slowly, "that he'll find exactly what he's looking for here."
I tilted my head. "Got someone in mind?"
He grinned at me. "I don't want to jinx anything yet, but I do hope to introduce them. Very soon."
Color me curious. "Well, let's hope they don't kill each other before they figure it out."
I noticed Lucas kept fidgeting with something in his shirt pocket. "Got a ring in there for me?" I quipped, hoping to throw him off balance.
He blinked at me and abruptly dropped his hand. "You wish," he retorted. But there was something there. He was hiding something.
"What is it?"
He ignored me and started making a sandwich.
"Lucas?"
"It's just something I carry around with me," he snapped.
My eyebrows rose. He was hiding something. I looked closer at his pocket. Whatever it was, it took up about half his shirt pocket and made it lumpy. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a bundle of herbs. This was Midnight Cove after all and several of my friends carried things like that around.
I looked up at his still blank face, concentrating way more than he should be on spreading the mayo on the bread perfectly. No one was that serious about mayo.
"Listen," I said quietly. "I know you're hiding something. Something more than that weird bundle in your shirt. I'll let you have your secrets, and I'll respect your space."
Something like satisfaction crossed his face and I couldn't help it. It pissed me off. I tamped it down as best I could and accepted the perfectly made sandwich he offered to me.
I took a bite. It even tasted good.
But even though Lucas could make a decent sandwich, he was also a secretive jerk. He made himself a sandwich and we ate in silence for awhile, the only sound were the birds floating above us and perched in the trees. I watched a couple playing with an adorable puppy and felt the familiar pang my heart got when I saw happy people. I could have that but I decided it was better wasting my time with arrogant jerks.
I sighed and put down the rest of my sandwich. "Thanks for the sandwich and the champagne," I said to Lucas.
"I brought dessert, too," he said, his voice relaxed and friendly.
This guy was totally clueless, but I'd promised him a real date and dates did come with dessert. I debated busting out the itinerary I had made for him, but decided that since
this was the last time I'd ever go out with him that I wouldn't be a jerk about it. He was an alpha male, so I'd let him do his thing for a bit.
"Sounds wonderful," I said.
He finished up his sandwich, handed me a wet wipe as he took one as well, then got out everything for dessert. He'd brought the cake cups to make strawberry shortcakes, but instead filled them with what seemed like blueberry jam and whipped cream. He handed one over to me and I took it, along with the fork he'd produced.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Hope you like blueberries."
"I do." The conversation was painful enough for a doctor visit. I munched in silence and once I'd finished, I cleaned up my mess and tossed everything in the trash can a few feet over.
Lucas started to pick everything up. "I had a wonderful time," he said. "I'd like to take you out again." His fingers fumbled with the bundle in his shirt again but abruptly fell away when he saw me notice. A bright, happy, totally fake smile lit his face. "I think this went really well."
I smiled at him. "No thanks."
His smile faltered and fell. "Excuse me?"
"I said no thanks." I stood, stepped off the blanket, and dusted my pants off. "If you'd like to ditch me, I'd do it now while I still have time to catch a ride."
"Why are you saying no?" He looked genuinely perplexed.
"Because you are secretive, arrogant, and genuinely unremorseful."
His gaze narrowed. "How do you know I'm unremorseful?"
I rolled my eyes. "Because you're here acting like you're doing me a huge favor just by being seen with me. And I don't know what's in your pocket, but you're creeping me out with it!"
"It doesn't matter what's in my pocket!" He stood and grabbed the blanket, wadding it into a ball. "And you are a serious pain in the ass! I have no idea why I wanted to go out on a second date with you!"
"Me neither," I said.
He gathered everything else up and stomped to his truck. I was going to follow because I wasn't getting ditched again. He didn't bother to open my door this time. Instead he tossed everything into the back, barely waited for me to buckle up, and accelerated out of the park fast enough to be considered dangerous.
We were halfway home before I spoke. "Why do you want me around?"
His jaw tightened.
"You aren't telling me something. You do know all I have to do is open up and -"
The car came to a screeching halt. "Don't you dare," he hissed.
"So you are hiding something." I sighed as the realization finally hit me. "I scared you in the parking lot the other night. You knew I could see things about you. You want to keep me close."
Several minutes later, he pulled into my driveway and sat there in sullen silence, waiting for me to get out. "Goodbye, Lucas."
I slid out of his truck and walked to my front porch. I watched him drive away.
He had no idea I had a very good feeling I knew what he had in his shirt pocket. I'd known the day he'd purchased it from Morgana, considering she'd called me directly afterward.
12
I was on what felt like date four hundred. I'd taken to not counting Lucas into my dating numbers because he was a total prick. I sat in an expensive dress at an overpriced restaurant with a man I couldn't understand. I didn't mean he had an accent or couldn't speak English, I meant he spoke way over my head. He made me feel like I was a toddler learning how to read for the first time. So I couldn't help my vacuous stare or the fact that my eyes were glazing over. I was a product of the public school system and this guy was a product of...I don't know...Stephen Hawking? He was handsome, though, but if I could never understand him, was this even worth pursuing? I let out a little sigh.
"Grace?" The man's blue eyes were curious.
"Oh. Um. Yes?"
A small smile formed on his mouth. "I've done it again. I am so sorry." He let out a charming, self-deprecating laugh. "You were totally spaced out. Let me guess. Was it the space time continuum that got you or the European farming practices solo that finally sent you over the edge?"
I blinked in surprise. I hadn't been aware he'd been talking about either. "Errrmmm."
"No, don't worry," he said on a chuckle. "I wasn't talking about either of those things, but it's nice to know you spaced out almost as soon as I started talking."
I let out an embarrassed snort. "I'm so sorry," I admitted. "I didn't mean to."
He raised a hand. "No. It's my fault. It's the story of my life." He frowned. "Well, my dating life that is." His hair was dark and on the shaggy side. He wore square rimmed glasses and a well-fitting suit. I could tell his body was athletic, but I couldn't tell what he did for fitness. He had a nice smile, he smelled nice, and he appeared to be a gentleman, but when he started talking, I almost immediately zoned out.
His name was Norman. Unfortunate, that. I wondered why Portia didn't have any folks with cool names like Raphael or Marcus, or Vincenzo. I'd bring that up the next time I talked to her. Which would be soon because I needed to curse her out about all of these terrible dates.
"When I get nervous, it's like my intellect screams up to a million." He laughed again. "I realize that sounds egotistical, but I assure you everything I've been talking about has been memorized from a book, so I'm basically just regurgitating facts. I honestly hate to date. It feels false to me. Like maybe I can't really be myself until I've built up to it."
I nodded. "I feel the same way. Right now I'd like to tear this dress off and set it on fire. Then I'd like to throw these shoes off a cliff."
His eyes lit up with genuine humor. "Not a dress gal?"
I shook my head. "Occasionally. More like not a Spanx gal. I feel like I'm in a torture device designed solely for those with a vagina."
Norman cracked up. "And direct, too. I like that. So many people, as I'm sure you've just noticed, use words to deflect from their true purposes and agenda."
My thoughts went right back to Lucas. He'd hit the nail on the head there. "They do. It's exhausting."
Norman leaned forward. "So tell me, Grace. Why are you dating?"
I studied him, the handsome face, the earnest look in his eyes and decided to hell with it. "I want to get married and start a family. I'm getting older. It's lonely out there. I thought I wanted to date, but I'm completely miserable doing it."
Norman nodded. "Me too. I was set up with one of the Comey sisters and I honestly thought the next time people saw me, it would be my dead body under a mound of dirt and leaves found by the edge of a deserted highway."
I laughed out loud. "It couldn't have been that bad."
Norman shuddered. "Utterly terrifying. By the middle of the date, I'd gone through the Fibonacci sequence twelve times."
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. "I'm so sorry."
"Me too. Never again."
"So why are you so interested in dating?"
Norman took a sip of his wine and shrugged. "Same as you, I guess. Although I don't want kids right away if I meet someone. I think that's a recipe for disaster. I'm tired of the dating scene, the awkwardness and sometimes primal fear involved."
I laughed at that one. The Comey sisters were pretty scary. "Have you ever had any really weird dates?"
His eyes glittered. Norman really was handsome. "Beside the one where I thought I was going to be a statistic?" He looked up at the ceiling. "A few. One woman collected fur pelts. That wasn't super weird, but she had them dry cleaned on a weekly basis and they all had names."
Wow. "Okayyy." I thought about Lucas showing up like the lumberjack hipster.
"And then I was supposed to meet a girl at a restaurant outside the city limits and when I showed up, she had her entire family with her. She'd told them all it was an engagement party."
"What the hell? And you didn't fire Portia?"
Norman shrugged. "I've been told her methods are quite unorthodox. Although...she did apologize to me for that one."
"But not for the fur collector?"
; "No. She told me I had to be able to deal with certain proclivities."
I snorted. "She's set me up on a few doozies, but I've never felt in any real danger. Unless you counted death by awkwardness."
"I hear it's becoming an epidemic."
The waitress came over and collected our orders. Norman was a nice guy. "I'm glad you're not reciting the Fibonacci sequence," I admitted.
He adjusted his tie. "Me too. I'm also glad you didn't leave in the middle of my nervous chatter."
"I would have fallen asleep before I would have left you."
"Good to know."
We chatted in a companionable manner for almost half an hour before our food arrived. It had been a long time since I'd thoroughly enjoyed someone's company like this, even if it had started out with some major awkwardness.
I noticed Norman ordered fish with roasted vegetables. "Healthy eater?" I quipped.
He smiled self-consciously. "Not always. We were raised as conservationists. My brother and sister are much better at it than I am, but I do try to self regulate what I'm eating and whether or not it's sustainable." He rolled his eyes. "But you'd better look out during Christmas. I'll eat whatever you put in front of me."
I eyed my scallop pasta. "Sorry," I murmured. "Not so healthy."
He winked at me. "But delicious?"
I took a bite. "Yep," I said with my mouth full.
Norman dropped me off at my house at a reasonable hour and didn't even try to kiss me, though I had a feeling he wanted to. We'd agreed on a second date, and for the first time in many weeks, I was feeling reasonably hopeful.
He wasn't perfect, but neither was I. He didn't seem to mind my lack of filter or my tendency to order junk food at restaurants (he didn't bat an eye at the double chocolate cake I ordered, but declined my offer to pay for it), and he seemed kind. I could do a lot worse in the man department.
My traitorous mind kept drifting back to Lucas, though, and how he both pissed me off and intrigued me. "Stop, brain," I demanded as I shoved the key in the lock and pushed into my house.
But my brain wasn't inclined to listen to me and even when I fell into bed half an hour later, I was still thinking about him, interspersed with scenes of Norman rambling.