“Ya like her, huh, Arch?”
Archibald fought a smile, gave up, and let go. “I do, sir. She’s very engaging.”
Heath clapped him on the back. “Yeah, that she is and nah, Arch, you know it doesn’t work that way anymore.You don’t have to handle my shit like you did back in the day. I feel like a heel already for considering doing what I’m going to do—but I’m beginning to—”
“Experience a warmth for the fair Wanda that has nothing to do with southern locales.Yes, sir. I see that. When, if I might ask, did you realize she was the woman for you?”
Heath chuckled. “When she made me sit through a marathon of America’s Next Top Model and I didn’t give a shit, first, that Tyra Banks was half naked, and second, that it was America’s Next Top Model. I decided then and there I could sit forever and watch scantily clad women with her, but not even notice them. I mean, Arch, it was Tyra Banks.”
Arch raised an eyebrow. “Oh, sir, I daresay that’s sacrifice at its finest. So you’re in deep like.What will you do about this concern you have about her noncommittal attitude?”
“I like her enough to want to know what the hell’s going on, yeah. And in that like, I’m slicker than I’d given myself credit for.”
“Slick, sir?”
Heath dug a piece of paper out of his jeans and held it up with a smug grin. “It’s her friends’ numbers. I got them off her phone while you two were talking duck. Nina and Marty—very protective of Wanda from what I gather, listening to her side of their conversations, anyway.”
“Crafty, indeed, young Heathcliff. Do you expect them to be receptive to you?”
“I don’t expect anything, but whatever’s going on with Wanda worries me, and if she won’t tell me because we’re all uninvolved, I really think her friends should know something’s not copacetic.”
“Then we wait, sir.”
“Yeah, we wait.”
Wanda’s bullshit about womanly issues was feeble. Something was wrong. He felt it, and he wondered if it had something to do with the prescription she had in her medicine cabinet. He hadn’t read it, didn’t know what it was for, but it bore looking into.
So now he was going to figure out what, if anything, it meant.
Come hell or high water.
CHAPTER 15
“I didn’t ask you here today to do anything you don’t want to do—if you feel like I’m out of line, I’d totally understand. But I appreciate your both agreeing to meet me,” Heath assured both Nina and Marty, who sat across from him at a coffee shop he’d randomly picked. Marty’d taken him up on his offer of coffee, but Nina had refused. The coffee shop was slow for late afternoon; only two or three people littered the many tables and booths.
“So what is it that we might not want to do?” Marty asked, her blue eyes assessing him from across the table. She was suspicious—which made her a good friend in Heath’s estimation.
“You might not want to tell me what’s going on with Wanda.”
Nina sat back in her chair, crossing her arms defensively across her torn-T-shirt-clad chest. “Whaddaya mean? What’s going on with Wanda?”
“Something’s wrong.” He didn’t know how else to put it—or how to use the kind of finesse it took to tell two virtual strangers he was beyond concerned.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nina’s voice rose, her tone filled with menace. “Did you do something to her that’d make her wrong, ’cause I gotta tell ya, I’ll kick your ass. Don’t think because I’m a girl that I won’t either. Don’t let my gender fool you. I’m a badass—ask Marty.”
Marty swatted Nina on her arm with the back of her hand, frowning. “Yes, yes, Nina’s a badass—even for a girl—and you’ll soon learn, she’ll tell anyone she is, too, whether you care to hear it or not. Just hush, Nina. Let Heath explain.” Marty sat back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. “So what do you think is wrong with Wanda?”
Heath sat stoically, prepared to take whatever backlash might come from him sticking his nose somewhere he knew Wanda’d think it didn’t belong. He didn’t give a shit if she liked it or not—he knew his gut was telling him something was fucked up. He’d never denied or ignored his gut. Not in almost two hundred years.Yet he chose his words carefully because he didn’t want her friends to worry unnecessarily. “Maybe she’s not feeling well? I dunno. I just know she’s always got stomach cramps. She says it’s from working out, but it’s happened at least twice in the time I’ve known her.”
“Wanda doesn’t work out . . .” Nina mumbled, looking bewildered.
And he’d have known that if she’d just let him be “involved” with her. Goddamn it.What he knew about her to this point came from observations, and the minimal info she’d let slip. He wanted more. Much more. “I figured as much. Look, I asked you here because I hoped you two knew something I didn’t.You’re her friends.You’re closer to her . . . it could be any number of things.”
“And why would we tell you if we did know something?” Nina asked suspiciously. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes narrowed.
He held up his hands. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Nina. I just hoped you would.” Jesus, she was a prickly one. If you didn’t have a set of steely balls, she’d likely scare the man out of you. Marty, on the other hand, seemed far more reasonable. Meeting them now, he decided they were like an odd combination of Wanda. Nina was over the top loud and mouthy. Wanda was quick, but never loud, and she definitely didn’t swear like Nina. Marty was as feminine as they came, but still a softer version of Nina. Wanda was somewhere in between them both. He decided to appeal to Marty with a reverse method. “If you’re not aware of what’s going on with Wanda, I’ll leave you two to your afternoon.” He began to rise, but Marty stopped him.
She gave Nina a dirty look. Heath watched the two send each other messages with their eyes in a matter of seconds. “Wait! Please, sit down. Ignore Nina. Communicate with me. I’m the only one of Wanda’s friends who can do that in full syllables and complete sentences. And Nina”—she pointed a finger at her—“not another damned word. Now please, tell me what you know.”
Heath resituated himself in the chair, folding his arms on the table. “I don’t know anything, Marty, that’s why I contacted you. Maybe, for the record, you should just know that I really think something’s wrong, and it has me worried.”
Nina looked at Marty with concern streaking her pale face. Her very pale face, he noted. He knew that kind of pale. “She’s gotten so skinny in the past few months, Marty—skinny and mouthy. She used to be so kinda mousy, timid and shit, but since the thing with you and then me and Greg, she’s changed.”
“What thing with you and Marty?” He probably shouldn’t have asked, but he’d take whatever snippets he could get about Wanda—and he didn’t care how or from whom.
Marty gave Nina a sharp, unmistakable warning glance before waving a hand in the air. “Oh, you know, love-life stuff.” Her answer was as vague as she could make it without being obviously vague. Quite frankly, she sucked at it. He might not have the ability to tap into her mind anymore, but he could tell she was avoiding something.
Nina shook her head, twisting a strand of hair that was caught up in her ponytail. “I seriously thought it was just the freedom of being divorced from that pig that had made her so quick with a comeback—”
“You know her ex-husband?” Heath cut her off. Maybe whatever the problem was did have to do with the asshole. But it didn’t make sense with what he knew at this point.
“No, and damned good thing I don’t. I’d have ripped the prick’s balls up into his throat and out of his mouth if I’d known her when she was married to him—but I didn’t. She was divorced when we all met. Anyway, we both just figured her weight loss was because she was working a lot and her mouthy ’tude was a good toughening up, because divorce and life do that to you. And if I’m honest, we do that to her, too,” Nina said on a chuckle.
Marty nodded her agreement. “It’s true. We, Nina and me, we argue a lot. It’s
mostly out of love, but Wanda’s the peacemaker in our friendship—in order to shut us up, she has to go the extra mile.” She gave a sidelong glance to Nina, then caught Heath’s gaze again. “If you know what I mean. Anyway, we’re always teasing her about how she’s going to be the ultimate negative size zero if she doesn’t eat a sandwich or something. Do you think she’s dieting—doing something crazy like one of those cleanses?”
Nina’s hands now fiddled with the ties on her hooded jacket. “No, Marty—that’s not Wanda. She’s the sensible one of us three. She’s the smartest one of all of us. She’s the one who keeps us together. She’s like Mother Earth. I tend to agree with Heath, and it isn’t like we haven’t been asking her what’s wrong for months. I think maybe something’s really wrong.” Heath heard the admiration for Wanda in Nina’s voice—felt it from Marty—was glad she had friends like this. Even if the dark-haired one was mouthy.
Marty’s lower lip trembled. “That’s true. We have been worried about her, but she always brushes us off. If it’s not just all that work she’s doing, and not eating properly, then what could it be?”
“I dunno, but I say we find out.” Nina whipped out her cell phone.
Marty rolled her eyes, yanking the phone from Nina. “Just hold on for two seconds. Don’t go off half-cocked, Nina. If something is wrong, wouldn’t she just tell us? We do almost everything together. Maybe she’s just having a midlife crisis? She was married a long time to that fuckhead—he controlled everything she did—maybe it’s just a little thing called freedom.”
Nina took her cell phone back. “And that’s what’s making her so skinny and tired all the time, Marty? Sometimes you’re a moron.”
He could see where Wanda’s role in their friendship came in now, clear as day. “Maybe it’s freedom, maybe it’s something else,” Heath added. “But there’s more to this, and I wasn’t sure if I should tell you, because my intention isn’t to stir you up without real cause, but it bears mentioning. Wanda asked me to get something from her medicine cabinet last week—a Band-Aid. She’d nicked herself on a glass she’d broken in the kitchen. Neanderthal that I am, I knocked half the medicine cabinet over and into the sink. As I was cleaning stuff up, a piece of paper floated out—a prescription to be exact. I don’t know what it was for because I felt guilty enough for finding it in the first place—but it’s been bugging the hell out of me since I saw it.”
Marty’s face flashed Nina a perplexed glance. “Wanda hates to take even aspirin. We had to make her that night we brought her home from—from the shelter.” She cast her eyes down. “Sorry to bring up a tough time in your life,” she said to Heath before her eyes lit up. “Omigod! Do you remember that night, Nina? She said she thought maybe she was coming down with the flu, but she was holding her stomach.” Marty reached out to Nina, taking her hand, her face becoming a mask of worry. “We need to talk to her, Nina. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I have to admit, I’m worried now, too. Will you tell her you talked to us, Heath?”
Heath gave her a stiff nod. “If you want me to, absolutely. But in my case, it’ll just piss her off—I don’t know if she’s told you much about me and our not really a relationship—”
“She did, and just for the record, ’cause I think you’re a stand-up guy for even bothering to get in touch with us, we think she’s full of shit when it comes to you,” Nina replied.
Marty slapped a hand over Nina’s mouth. “Nina! Zip. It. Our impressions are no one’s business, and Wanda’d kill us if she knew you were shooting off that mouth of yours again.” She turned to Heath, her eyes filled with what he clearly read as sympathy. “Look, it’s evident you really like Wanda. That you’d get our phone numbers and call us here is proof of that.Thank you.Thank you for giving us a heads-up. I guess we’ve been so involved with our own lives—my pregnancy, Nina’s recent marriage—that we stopped paying attention as closely as we should have. Don’t say anything to her about our meeting. We’ll take care of it.”
“Will you tell me if you find something out?” Heath knew what the answer would be—their fierce loyalty wouldn’t allow it, but he figured what the fuck, it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Marty reached across the table, grazing his hand with hers for just a moment before returning it to her lap. “You know we can’t do that.Wanda’s our friend. If something’s wrong and she chooses to tell us, we can’t betray her by telling you—no matter how much I would have it differently. Can you understand that?”
Heath hitched his jaw at them, clenching his teeth to keep from demanding they call him—whatever the outcome was. “I do. I don’t like it, but I do understand. But if I find anything out— though I wouldn’t count on it—I’ll definitely tell you. She’ll need you, if in fact we’re not making mountains out of molehills. For all we know, it could just be something as simple as an ulcer.”
Nina rocked back on her chair, clutching the edge of the table as she did. “You two have me pretty freaked out. I wanna call her right now and go beat whatever she’s not telling us out of her. And, dude, you got it pretty bad for her. It’s written all over your face, and that’s way cool.Which makes you all right by me. I can tell it’s for real.”
Heath cocked an eyebrow. “Can you?”
“Yeah, yeah I can,” Nina assured him.
He might as well let the cat out of the bag. “Know why you can tell?”
“ ’Cause I’ve gone all Dionne Warwick on you? You know, the psychic hotline shit?”
“No. Because you’re vampire—and that explains everything. Everything.” It was a relief to say it out loud.To let her friends know he knew. A relief to know this was why Wanda had accepted his explanation like he’d told her he once was on the football team.
Marty gasped, spilling some of her coffee.
Nina was immediately on guard—a stance he knew well.
“And you, Marty.You’re not vampire, but you’re something.”
Nina leaned forward on the table, shoving her face in his. “Okay, I take it back.You’re a fucking nut. All bets are officially off.”
His laughter filled the small café. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. I know your kind of pale, Nina. I also know that strip of zinc oxide on your nose, and I know you know about me, too.We may as well cut through the bullshit. Meeting you here cleared up a lot of stuff for me as far as Wanda’s concerned.”
“Like?” Nina’s head moved back and forth in a half circle on her neck.
Marty sighed, putting a hand between Nina and Heath. “Oh, Nina—give it up. Like the fact that Wanda wasn’t at all surprised when he told her he was once a vampire. And no, I’m not vampire. I’m a werewolf. Don’t ask—it’s too caa-razy for even us to believe. But we get where you are—just in reverse.”
It all made sense now. Wanda’s dulled reaction to his confession—her understanding about zombies that she said she’d gotten out of some romance novel. She’d seen it, done it, been there with these women. And that was just too much of a coincidence for him to spend a whole lot of time thinking on. “It’s true. I was once a vampire.”
Nina scoffed, shaking a finger at Marty. “I told you and Wanda he smelled funny—and, yeah, I know you were once vamp. You have no fucking idea how much that pisses me off.”
Heath’s look conveyed his confusion.
“Long story again. Suffice it to say, Nina wasn’t happy about being turned. It was an accident. But now she’s happy clappy, aren’t you, sunshine?” Marty tweaked her cheeks.
Nina batted her hands away. “Get the fuck off me, Marty. Yeah. I’m happy. How ’bout you, Heath? You like being human again?”
He grinned. “Yeah. I’m pretty okay with it. It’s had some bleak moments, but things are rapidly improving.” He looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, but I gotta go. I’m meeting Wanda. Anyway, thanks, ladies. I hope someday you’ll tell me all about how you came to this point in your lives.”
“We’d like that,” Marty said, casting him a warm smile.
“C
an I ask just one more favor of the two of you?”
“Sure,” Marty offered.
“I think you both know Wanda feels something for me that runs a whole lot deeper than she’s letting on. That may sound arrogant—it may sound egotistical, but it is. And she isn’t alone in that. That said, I’d appreciate it if you’d just mention to her that whatever’s going on, I’d like to know, too.”
Marty and Nina grew solemn again, both brought back to the reason he’d asked them here.
Wanda.
“I’ll definitely do that, Heath. Promise,” Marty whispered.
“Yeah, me, too,” Nina piped up, her voice softer than he’d heard it their entire conversation. “Promise.”
THEY lay in her bed, Wanda snuggled against Heath’s smooth chest. Menusha curled at Heath’s feet, the slight rise and fall of her back a sure sign she was out cold. The TV played low in the background. Humphrey Bogart was bidding Ingrid Berman adieu, and just like every time she’d ever watched it,Wanda began to tear up. A salty fat bubble escaped her eye, landing on Heath’s chest.
“Need a tissue?”
She smiled a watery smile. “I’m okay. I always cry at the end of this. Just call me girl.”
Heath ran a toe along her calf, rubbing it seductively up to her thigh. “I like my women girly.”
“Your women . . .”
His lips whispered along her cheek, slipping down over her neck to her shoulder. “Oh, right. Sorry. That was definitely an involved label. And we’re anything but involved, even if we spend almost all of our free time together.”
Wanda squirmed beneath him, arching into his hard embrace, gripping his shoulders as he let his lips trail hot kisses over her chest. “We spend most of our time in bed.”
He slid beneath the covers, capturing a nipple between his teeth, stroking it between words. “Right. Not counting lunch every day this week, dinner, too. Oh, and the Top Model repeats I sat through for nearly four hours just last night while we ate popcorn and I ogled Tyra Banks.”
The Accidental Human Page 23