by Molly Harper
“Nice people,” I mumbled into my ice cream. “People who don’t dump boyfriends their parents would have been thrilled to meet . . . assuming that they were still alive.”
“Oh, honey, tell me you’re not staying in an unhappy relationship because you think Mom and Dad would have wanted you to. Because, trust me, that’s not what they wanted for you.”
“No, it’s nothing like that. I just feel guilty. There’s nothing wrong with Ben. He’s a great guy. He’s sweet, and he remembers my birthday, and he actually listens when I talk instead of spending that time coming up with what he’s going to say next. And if there’s nothing wrong with him, that means there has to be something wrong with me.”
“Gigi, you’re breaking up with a boy. It’s not like you’re going to steal his identity or his kidney or something.” She stopped and gave me a long stare. “You’re not, right?”
I stared at my sister with a completely deadpan expression. “Is your special vampire power sensing when someone is about to smack you? Because it should be pinging right now.”
“Hey, I want someone else to be the first one to use the emergency bail fund. Kidney theft would definitely qualify.”
I scooped up a good bit of ice cream and held it up to her face.
Out of habit, she leaned closer as if I was offering her a bite. And then she sniffed at it and gagged. “Oh, that was mean.”
“I have to use the few advantages I have.”
“Look, Geeg, if I learned anything from my relationship with Paul, it’s that you’re not doing anyone any favors drawing out a relationship that doesn’t make you happy. It’s better just to cut ties before someone gets their feelings hurt.”
“How did you break things off with Booty Call Paul? You never told me.”
“With good reason, because it was humiliating.”
“Did he find you straddling Cal?” I asked, barely suppressing my urge to smirk.
“Close to it,” she said. “But this isn’t about me. I broke up with Paul because even though the relationship worked on the surface, it wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t going to give me what I wanted in life. And it wasn’t fair to either one of us to pretend it was anything but over.”
“Yes, but what actual words did you use?” I asked. “Because I am drawing a blank.”
“That moment will arrive when you know you have to break it off, and you’ll know just what to say.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“You can’t control whether he’s going to be hurt. You can only tell him the truth and hope for the best. Ben’s a good guy. He’s not going to become some raging jerk just because you broke up with him.”
“You sure you don’t want to just do this for me?”
“I’m sure.”
“Oh, fine, make me responsible for my own decisions.”
“It’s for the best, Gigi, really. Living honestly is the only way to go.”
Talk about the conversational gods giving you a segue. I took a deep breath and pushed away the ice cream bowl. “Speaking of which, Iris, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about my plans for this summer.”
Her blue eyes went wide and saucer-like. “Oh, my God, are you pregnant? Is that why you want to break up with Ben? Because you’re having someone else’s baby?”
“No, that would be worse, but no,” I said, laughing now. “I am not pregnant. And no more recorded soaps for you, lady! I just wanted to tell you that I found a job.”
Iris scoffed. “I knew you would. Where is it? Microsoft? NetSecure? Some independent think tank that designs scary military phone apps?”
I scratched the back of my neck, staring at the fridge, the counter, the blender, anything but Iris. “Not exactly.”
“Gigi, please answer me before I start making crazy assumptions about stripper poles and webcams.”
I crossed the fridge, pulled out Iris’s bottle of Sangre Select, and put it in front of her. She arched an eyebrow and stared at the label and the price tag. “This is not helping my panic levels.”
“I’m going to work for the Council. They need help building a search engine for vampires’ living descendants, and I think I would be able to do a lot of good.”
If Iris could possibly lose blood from her cheeks, they would have paled to paper white. She clutched at the edge of the counter so hard it buckled in her hands. “So you’re going to be working for Ophelia? The same vampire I’ve worked with for years? The same vampire who I’ve made clear is about as sane and cuddly as a bag of snakes?”
“Yes.”
Her breath came out in a hissing wheeze. “And since Council offices don’t let their employees quit, this will be a permanent position?”
I nodded.
Her voice somehow went up an octave as she asked, “And have you already signed an employment agreement?”
I should just have told her that I was kidding and I was pregnant. And I’d gotten the father’s name tattooed on my boobs. That would be less upsetting for her, right?
“And how, pray tell, did you receive this job offer without Cal finding out and giving me a heads-up?” she asked, her voice deadly quiet.
I slid off the stool and stepped back. I pressed my lips together, because I liked Cal. He deserved not to wake up with his head superglued to his pillow.
“Cal!” she shouted, using her superspeed to bound up the stairs and locate her poor husband.
I stared at her blurred shape, wondering whether it would be better to stick around or slip out the door to hide out at Jane’s or Miranda’s. Gabriel or Collin wouldn’t mind an overnight guest, right?
Collin. Damn it.
“And I think I’m being stalked by an imaginary ghost-vampire,” I groaned, smacking my forehead. “That would have been a perfect distraction.”
Overhead, I heard Iris shout, “And you didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell me?”
“It’s too late now.”
My only defense now was to get another really good bottle of dessert blood.
From the second floor, I heard, “I have the right to know if my sister is signing her life away to the vampire underworld, Cal!”
Two bottles of really good dessert blood.
Two days later, Iris was still pretty peeved about my new job. Her points of contention were reasonable. She hated the fact that I’d gone behind her back during the hiring process. She was upset with Cal for not telling her, even if I had asked him not to, really nicely. She didn’t trust Ophelia. She didn’t trust the vampires I would be working with. She’d met and didn’t trust some of the humans I would be working with. She wanted me to have a regular, human job in the regular, human world. It basically boiled down to an enormous amount of guilt Iris felt for dragging us into the vampire world years ago and how it may have ruined me for corporate America.
It took an entire bottle of Tess’s special bloody sangria and very reasonable, calm arguments from both Cal and myself to convince her that she could not, in fact, storm the Council office and demand that Ophelia release me from my contract. I may or may not have reminded her of the time Mom pulled something similar when Iris signed up to volunteer in Guatemala for the summer between high school and college. Iris had been humiliated when Mom stormed her idealistic English teacher’s office and demanded that Ms. Crandall remove Iris’s name from the “Do-Gooder Roster.”
So for now, Iris was going to be quiet but vigilant. Also, she was going to stop glaring at Cal and me, because getting the stink-eye was no way to spend the holidays.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure Iris’s Christmas gift was spectacular, more spectacular than the collection of night-blooming seeds I’d ordered over the Internet. This was why I was perusing the shelves at Jane’s shop, Specialty Books, searching for the perfect “I’m sorry I agreed to work for a shadowy vampire organization without talking to yo
u first” present.
Jane’s shop was whimsical and cozy, with its midnight-blue walls and comfy purple chairs, banking the rows upon rows of neatly organized bookshelves. Andrea had draped fairy lights in loopy bunting shapes behind the shiny maple coffee bar in recognition of the season, along with a display of “Gargoyle on the Shelf” books for younger supernatural creatures. I’d spent the better part of an hour looking through rare first editions and advanced nocturnal gardening books. But nothing struck me as special enough to qualify.
“How about a pewter fairy figurine?” Andrea suggested, nudging an “autumn” fairy across the maple and lead-glass bar that served as the checkout counter.
“Stop trying to unload the fairy figurines on innocent people,” Jane told her. “Nobody buys those things. We’ve had the same set since we opened.”
I snickered but tried to keep a straight face as I told Andrea, “I’ll pass.”
Andrea held the little figurine to her eye level and pointed her finger at it. “I will get rid of you one day. I’m tired of dusting you.”
“I hate to point out the obvious, but this could have been avoided if you’d just told Iris you were going on a job interview,” Jane said.
“Yes, that was the obvious, thank you,” I retorted.
“I’m just saying, if Jamie had agreed to a lifetime commitment to Ophelia without telling me, I would be really upset, too.”
“You know that eventually, the two of them are going to be mated and married, right?” I asked her. “Or at least, they’re going to want to move in together.”
“That’s one of those things Jane doesn’t like to think about,” Andrea said, ticking the items off on her long, coral-tipped fingers. “Health-care reform, the Kardashians, Jamie’s inevitable marriage to her nemesis.”
“Sorry,” I told Jane, who shrugged.
“I’m just delaying the inevitable, I’m aware. Denial is a pseudo-mother’s strongest coping skill,” she said, clapping her hands. “OK, this isn’t solving your problem. Now, you’re sure you don’t see anything in the shop that will do?”
“No, I’m sorry, nothing jumps out at me.”
Jane held up one finger and disappeared into the stockroom at the back of the shop. She came out holding an enormous cardboard carton marked “For Iris” in one hand. She handed me the box, and I nearly sank to the floor under its weight. Stupid vampire superstrength.
The box was filled to the brim with romance paperbacks, each one marked with a Post-it noting the year of publication. I sifted through the box and found that there was one book for each year since Iris’s birth. Almost every genre was covered—pirates, Vikings, westerns, contemporary, thrillers, cozy mysteries, urban fantasy, and Regencies. My mouth fell open. Iris would love it. She’d been a closet romance-novel fan since her early teens. She hid her titles in dust jackets for self-help books, because she was afraid I would make fun of the covers. (Rightly so.) But the books had always been a source of comfort and amusement for her.
“I picked these up from the secondhand paperback store across town. I was saving this as a special ‘congratulations on making it through your first year as a vampire without nonconsensual biting’ present, but clearly, you’re in dire need,” Jane said.
“You didn’t get me a first-year no-bite anniversary present.” Andrea pouted prettily.
Jane shrugged. “You weren’t terrified of injuring innocent humans.”
“I’ll take it,” I told her. “As long as the price is in the fifty-to-one-hundred-dollar range and not, say, my very soul.”
“I will give you the desperate-sister discount and sell it to you at cost, thirty-two dollars.”
“Well, that’s good, because I’m pretty sure I signed my soul over to Ophelia in my employment contract.”
“And you want the gift card, too?” Andrea asked.
“Better make it a big one,” I said, shelling the bills out of my wallet onto the counter.
Because I’d dragged Cal into my mess, I owed him something a little special, too. Jane had a rare edition of The Iliad in the original Greek that she’d set aside for me. The final cost of buying back my family’s affection was going to be about three hundred dollars, the sum total of my summer-salary savings account.
It was worth it. I chatted with Andrea while Jane gift-wrapped the books. Andrea made me one of her famous coffee concoctions involving chocolate and caramel. I sipped it gratefully and fortified myself for the drive home. A few moments later, Jane handed me a purple gift box with an extravagant silver bow.
“Wow, that is surprisingly crafty,” I told Jane. She smiled, all pleased and bashful.
“It turns out Jane is a bit of a gift-wrapping savant now that she has vampire reflexes.”
“My mother could not be prouder,” Jane said. “She thinks maybe I can get a real job wrapping at a department store.”
I giggled. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s funny,” Jane conceded. “She just worries about me having job security and health benefits, that’s all.”
Jane’s imitation of her mother’s voice was so accurate it gave me shivers. “She does realize you don’t get sick, right? And that you own your own successful business?”
“I’ve told her so, many times,” Jane said, nodding. “And she wonders why I don’t brave daylight to attend the family Christmas lunch.”
“It’s a mystery,” I said, taking Cal’s wrapped book from her hands. “And on that note, I bid you good night. I’m supposed to meet Ben at the house for a Home Alone movie marathon with Cal and Iris.”
“And you sound super thrilled about it,” Andrea noted. “Is it because the Home Alone sequels got weird after the second one?”
“Yes,” I told her, even when Jane gave me one of her patented “I can see inside your head, you big liar who lies” looks.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Andrea exclaimed, dashing toward the fridge behind the coffee bar. “Iris asked me to mix this up for her. It’s a super-concentrated espresso and blood potion to help her stay up to watch Mary’s Wish List.”
I winced as Andrea pressed the thermos into my hands. Even though Iris was mad at me, she’d still taken measures to make sure we could continue our Christmas movie tradition. “Thank you for driving that sisterly-guilt stake just a little bit deeper.”
Jane helped me carry the heavy box of books out the front door. “We do what we can.”
With my gift packages secured in the trunk, Jane gave me a quick hug and dashed back into the store. “Good night, you two,” I called. They waved at me through the window, and I turned back to my car. I’d almost opened the driver’s-side door when I noticed a flash of something sparkly on the other side of the street. I changed directions immediately to investigate.
Shiny objects. I was a simple girl.
A new jewelry shop had opened across the street and three doors down from Specialty Books as part of the revitalization efforts on Paxton. It had only taken Jane a few years of steady business and knocking down the porn store next door to convince local merchants that the area was worth investment. This sparkly shop in question was called Beautiful Things, a name that was sort of lovely in its simplicity.
The proprietor knew how to stock a display window, creating multiple levels of snowy “hills” from fluffy cotton and tucking jewelry into little hollows so it looked like flowers blooming in the snow. I hovered close by the window, admiring a pair of well-lit moonstone earrings shaped to look like apple blossoms with silver petals. They were the closest to the glass, and I couldn’t help but lay my hand over the window as if I could reach through and touch them. I smiled at them through the glass but ultimately decided to back away and not wreck my credit rating by giving in to earring temptation.
I turned away, digging through my purse for my phone. Ben was probably at the house by now, waiting to start the Macaulay-thon. I
glanced up and saw a tall, lean shape against the backdrop of the building next to Jane’s. I could make out the shock of blond hair in the bluish light of the security lamp. And his eyes glowed gold.
My imaginary vampire friend appeared to be of a more solid variety.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I stepped toward my car and nearly walked into a lamppost. His eyes followed my bumbling progress across the street. It didn’t feel . . . bad or wrong. And that was probably an indicator that there was something seriously wrong with the way my brain worked.
I fumbled in my bag for good old Mr. Sparky, but before I could pull my hand out, he was standing right in front of me. I yelped, stumbling back. Stupid vampire speed. I was going to end up ass-over-teakettle on the pavement because I had a poor startle reflex in front of attractive supernatural creatures.
Cool, strong hands closed around my elbows and pulled me back upright. From far away, fade-y, imaginary vampire-ghost guy was sort of attractive. Imagine a portrait of an incredibly handsome nobleman come to life, then rip off the tacky white wig. Up close, imaginary vampire-ghost guy was cortex-meltingly hot. High cheekbones, long straight nose, chiseled jawline, and a mouth I wanted to taste more than I wanted my next breath. He was wearing a long black trench coat over jeans and a white button-down with the collar open just enough that licking the man’s Adam’s apple seemed like a reasonable thing to do.
The gold—how was that even possible?—eyes bored into mine. My breath stuttered. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a sound. Come on, poise and logical thinking, I prayed, give me something to work with.
“Guuhhh.”
You are dead to me, poise. And tell logical thinking it can screw itself.
Those full lips quirked into a smug little smile, and he ran the tip of his nose in a long line down the curve of my jaw, breathing in the scent of my throat. His lip curled back into something resembling a smile before he brushed his mouth across mine. He slid his hand under my hair and pulled me close, swallowing my alarmed little exhalation.
I pulled back, staring up at him with what I am sure were wide anime eyes. He was smiling down at me, running his thumb along my cheek, making me shiver. He kissed me again, sinking his blunt teeth into my bottom lip. I moaned, and he took the opportunity to slip his tongue past my lips, teasing it ever so gently across my teeth.