Oliver rubbed his free hand over the stubble on his chin. “I can’t get over how young he looks. He looks like he should have a backpack and a skateboard under his arm.”
“I hear your protest and feel your pain. I know it’s upsetting, but he attacked you, Oliver. He could have killed you as easily as you stomp out a bug. I mean, who knows what he planned to do with you. Please remember that. He’s dangerous.”
“You’re right. He’s kind of a super-criminal, I suppose.”
“Exactly. Now, we have bigger fish to fry. Like who else he’s told about you, and who told him about you in the first place. Marty said they’re going to double up on security here to make sure you’re safe until the council speaks with him. She said maybe they can get him to fess up with the fear of imprisonment.”
Oliver cocked his head and gave her a strange look. “What does vampire prison look like? Is it garlic and sunlight all day long?”
Vinnie snorted. “I don’t know a lot about vampire prison, but I feel pretty sure it’s not quite so brutal, or there’d be no vampire prison because all the bad vampires would be dead from exposure to garlic and sunlight.”
Oliver nodded his head in affirmation with a laugh, and Vinnie noticed something.
In the midst of their chat, somehow, their fingers had entwined, and as they sat and talked, they held hands as though they’d always held hands.
And she liked it. She didn’t feel pressured to talk or pressured to fill in the gaps—or pressured period, and she wasn’t sure if that was because of the situation or that Oliver just left her feeling at ease.
His husky voice interrupted her thoughts. “I feel like I’ve really blown your fall vacation now that you have to stay here with our babysitters. I’m sorry you were ever involved in this, Vinnie.”
“I’m not,” she said, letting out a breath because it felt good to say it out loud. She even straightened her shoulders and tried to appear confident. “I was just telling Marty it feels good to belong somewhere with people who were branded misfits like me. I’m glad I met them even though I’m sorry the circumstances surrounding our meeting suck for you, but I’m also glad I met you, too, Oliver.”
Oliver sat quietly for a moment, smelling good, looking good, shedding glitter all over his couch, but then he turned to look at her, his eyes gleaming and playful. “Hey, question?”
Vinnie looked down at her lap and licked her dry lips, her heart crashing against her ribs. “Sure.”
“When this is over, or settled, or whatever happens, I was wondering if you’d like to maybe grab some coffee—or a drink? Even dinner, if you think you can stand all the stares and whispers about my sparkly horn for more than an hour.”
Her heart clenched in her chest and her pulse raced in her veins, but she somehow managed to remain cool. A man she both liked and felt comfortable with was asking her out on a date. That felt nice. It also felt nice that he’d likely been having the same thoughts she had.
Which made it very easy for her to reply with a smile. “Yeah. I’d like that, Oliver. I know a great place for coffee right by the college.”
“As long as there are no unicorn Frapps on the menu, I’m all in.”
She giggled until she wheezed and Oliver laughed with her.
And when they were done, she smiled at him again.
And he smiled back.
Chapter 14
“You could have waited back at your house, Sparkle Tits,” Nina chided.
He nodded with a glance at her face, which glowed eerily pale in the dark. “I could have, vampire, but what fun would that be? Then you wouldn’t have a reason to use sparkle tits in a sentence, and we can’t have that, can we?”
Nina cackled but she flipped him a middle finger while she did as they walked along the brick path to Vinnie’s house. “Fuck you, Unicorn Man. You just want to see your girlfriend’s house.”
That was not a lie. After sitting on the couch these last few nights with Vinnie, he was more curious than ever about who she really was—how she lived—and he especially wanted to meet her dogs and her cat. They’d been with a pet sitter for all this time, but Oliver could tell how anxious she was without them, and he wanted her to be comfortable.
But more than anything, he wanted to know what this beautiful woman did day to day other than teach mythology and, as he’d later learned, philosophy. Alice was overbearing and pushy, and a lifetime of that certainly had to wear a person down, so he understood why she shied away from people, but you could only read so much, right?
Also, he was beginning to go a little stir-crazy being cooped up in the house and hidden away like someone’s dirty little secret. They were on day five of this mess, and they hadn’t heard anything more from this council the girls spoke of since Ezekiel was taken, but they’d also heard nothing from their friend Khristos, either.
There was nothing to do but wait.
So he was in limbo, and so was everyone else. They’d played cards, board games, watched a few movies, eaten some of the best meals he’d had in his entire life, but it didn’t replace fresh air and new surroundings.
So he’d asked to come along for the ride when Vinnie mentioned she really needed to check on her pets. Nina, Marty and Darnell hadn’t loved the idea, but according to Wanda, she was no help currently, and neither were Arch or Carl.
If someone was going to come for him, they could just as easily do it at Vinnie’s house as they could at his—he’d still have the same amount of protection wherever he went.
So under the cover of night, after an amazing dinner of bacon-wrapped scallops, Parmesan risotto, creamed spinach, and balsamic Brussels sprouts, they piled into Marty’s SUV and drove to Vinnie’s, which, ironically, was only five minutes from his house.
They’d even laughed about how close they lived to one another, yet they’d never run into each other anywhere before this week.
Also, he noted, her neighborhood was a lot like his. A mix of old and new with tree-lined streets, mostly manicured lawns and gardens, and a park one block from her house.
As Vinnie stuck the key in the door of her small one-level ranch, Oliver heard the rustle of tiny, frantic dog feet before she threw the door open wide and motioned everyone to go ahead of her.
From the darkness, Frank, Mario, and even Brenda emerged, all aimed directly at Vinnie, tails wagging, mouths open, barking and meowing in simultaneous joy.
She dropped to the floor to hug them and lavish them with kisses while Marty turned on a light in the living room.
It was then Oliver understood how she spent her spare time. In fact, he had to fight a gasp of awe.
Painting.
She painted. Holy cow, did she ever paint. And she didn’t just paint, she immersed the viewer in her creations by creating such vivid images, they literally leapt off the canvas and grabbed you by the throat.
Powerful, raw, surreally beautiful pictures of all sorts of things were everywhere. And they weren’t just your typical sunsets and shoreline paintings. They were pictures of powerful superheroes; none Oliver recognized, but ones he’d be inclined to pick up a comic book to read about because they were so viscerally primal.
Darnell was the first to speak when he pointed at the unfinished picture on an easel of a woman with skin the color of eggplant, a curvy body, yet rippling with muscle, and hair the color of fresh corn poking out of her head.
“Miss Vinnie, did you paint this?”
She rose from the floor, scooping up Brenda as she went, a calico cat with round green eyes who rubbed her face against Vinnie’s when she nodded shyly. “Yep,” she responded, her eyes flitting toward the floor
Darnell’s mouth fell open, and he squeezed her shoulder with a big hand, pulling her to his side. “It’s incredible. You’re incredible! Y’all seein’ what I’m seein’?” he asked in wonder.
“Jesus fuck, kiddo,” Nina said as her eyes took in the pictures hanging on the walls. “Why are you a college professor again? These are fucking brillian
t!”
In the few days he’d known Nina, he’d observed she didn’t hand out compliments often, but to hear the wonder in her voice made the compliment even grander.
Marty stooped and grabbed one of the two dogs, a tan speckled runt of a dachshund mixed with something else, Oliver assumed, pulling him to her chest and dropping a kiss on top of his head as she began to rub his long ear. “Vinnie, these are stunning. Why aren’t you selling these? Or sending them to places that publish comic books? Your artwork is amazing.”
Vinnie tucked her other dog, a tiny little bugger of a mutt with wiry white and black hair and unknown origins, under her chin next to her cat and snuggled him close while she dismissed their praise.
She gave Darnell’s hand a squeeze with her free fingers before she said, “It’s just something I do in my spare time to blow off steam. I’m not much of a social creature, as you all already know. So it’s sort of my release. I’d never presume to ask for money for them. That never even occurred to me.”
Nina came and scooped the small dog right from Vinnie’s arms, and the tiny mutt, like most other animals when it came to her, was instantly in love with the vampire. He tucked his head right against her chin and wiggled against her in excitement.
Nina held him up, using the childlike voice she reserved strictly for four-legged creatures and children. “Listen, Whatsername, you tell Mommy it’s a waste of goddamn time not to sell her shit and Auntie Nina thinks she’s bananapants. Will you do that for me? Of course you will, because hims a good boy,” she cooed, kissing the dog’s nose while he happily wagged his short, stubby tail.
“That’s Mario, and even he’ll tell you, I’m not in this to make money. It’s just a way for me to relax and be creative.”
Darnell retrieved Brenda the cat from Vinnie’s arms and hugged her close, scratching the top of her multicolored head. “That’s a big ol’ waste a’ talent, if you ask old Darnell. I read comics all the time, and your pictures are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
Vinnie’s cheeks blushed prettily as she made her way across the light oak floor of her living room toward her kitchen and turned on the lights to expose a space full of blue and gray cabinets and sparkling white countertops, free of almost everything but a Keurig and lush green plants in various decorative clay pots.
“Thanks, Darnell. That’s nice of you to say.”
“I ain’t just bein’ nice. I’m bein’ real,” he said with a wide smile. “Flat-out honest when I tell ya, you got somethin’ special.”
Vinnie came back around the bank of cabinets facing her living room, a cozy space with fuzzy blankets on her ivory brocade couch and, of course, plenty of throw pillows to spare in mint green and pale blue.
Leaning into him, she gave Darnell a quick hug, wrapping an arm around his wide waist. “You do a girl’s ego good. Now, does anyone want coffee or tea while you wait? I have both.”
Marty and Nina swapped dogs like they were passing each other footballs and Nina took Frank, cradling him against her face. “That’s avoidance, right, you cute little fucking fur ball? Mommy’s avoiding the nice things Uncle Darnell’s saying because it makes her uncomfortable. But the truth is the truth, right, handsome?”
Vinnie giggled. “I’m not avoiding, Auntie Nina. I just like eating more than I like suffering for my art. Now, coffee? The blood of my neighbor’s annoying wife, maybe?”
Nina chuckled. “Ahh, Almost-Goddess, you’re not as shy as you fucking pretend, eh? Therein lies a crabby beast. The cranky in me honors the cranky in you.”
Vinnie giggled with a grin as she set her purse on the pristine counter. “What can I say, you bring out the snark in me, and it’s not so much that she makes me cranky, but she’s a little overbearing when it comes to the neighborhood association.”
“Your home is so lovely, Vinnie. It’s like a cozy, warm cottage,” Marty remarked as she stroked Mario’s fur and looked around. “You really have a great eye for decorating as well as art.”
Nina pointed to one picture where the woman had on a ratty T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants. “I like that the women in them aren’t half fucking naked, kiddo. Who the hell fights crime, or fights anything, in a damn bathing suit that has D-cups made of farkin’ steel? I’m not much of a comic book reader, but that always bugged the shit out of me.”
Oliver nodded his head, still blown away by her incredible talent. “You really are amazing, Vinnie. I especially like that picture.” He pointed to a picture of a woman in military style black boots, tentacles for hair and a royal blue coat that looked like it came straight out of the Matrix movie. “The detail is magnificent. Would you consider selling it to me? It’d look great in my den.”
“Sell it?” She cocked her head and gave him a strange look. “You can just take it, Oliver. I can always paint another. They’re no big deal. Now, you guys make yourselves comfortable while I pack a bag for these monsters, and then I’ll grab some fresh clothes and we can get back to Wanda and the others, okay?”
Oliver found himself a little disappointed that she so easily dismissed the idea someone would pay for her art. As he bent to scoop up Brenda, who’d curled her tail around his calf, meowing for attention, he decided not to press.
Clearly, praise embarrassed her, and that wasn’t what he wanted. Still, he liked her more and more with each passing moment they spent together.
As she rummaged around in the kitchen, and the others talked to each other while they played with the dogs, he watched Vinnie in her element, and he liked what he saw.
She’d made this house her haven, that much was clear. Every inch of it screamed calm and organized, something he knew she craved after the chaos of Alice.
The shake of a box of treats from the kitchen had Brenda scrambling from his arms and dropping to the floor in a cloud of fur to go see what Vinnie had to offer, leaving him to make his way to her fireplace and look at the construction of the stonework.
Like everything else, it was really well done and he found himself envious. “Hey, Vinnie? Did you DIY this or did you hire out?”
She poked her fiery red head over the bank of floor cabinets and rested her elbows on the counter and grinned. They’d spent a ton of time talking into the wee hours of the morning these last few days, and DIY was a topic of some of their most spirited discussions.
“Do you have fireplace envy, Oliver Baldwin?”
He ran his hands over the muted white stone and nodded with a smile. “I damn well do, and if you tell me you did this yourself, I’m gonna hang up my tool belt.”
She rolled up the sleeves of her bulky periwinkle sweater and chuckled. “Then fear not. Your tool belt is safe from retirement. I hired someone to reface it. I’m ambitious, but I’m not that ambitious.”
“Then I suppose I can let you live. For now, anyway,” he teased with a wink.
They’d developed this easy banter between them, one he relished after Denise. He found he didn’t have to watch what he said to Vinnie. Despite her admission of social anxiety, Oliver didn’t at all feel like he had to temper his words when he was with her, or that she went out of her way to temper hers.
And while their banter was easy, his desire to lay one on her was not.
In fact, last night, after they’d watched a few episodes of one DIY show or another, they’d realized the house had gone quiet and everyone had gone off to bed or, in Nina’s case, gone to read with Carl, leaving them totally alone with nothing but Baloney between them.
What he’d found was an irresistible urge to kiss her beautiful raspberry-colored lips, but he’d fought it. He really liked her. He thought about her all the time, but Oliver didn’t want her to think this was a case of him bonding because of dire crisis. He also didn’t want to rush her into anything she wasn’t ready for.
So he’d refrained, but it hadn’t been easy, and as he watched her in her element, he could easily picture them sharing a bottle of wine by her fireplace while they discussed anything and everything.
“Okay, I’m going to let these little beasts out and then we’ll go. Are you sure you don’t mind me bringing them to your house, Oliver? I don’t want Baloney to feel usurped.”
“And I don’t want you to spend a fortune on your pet sitter if you won’t let me pay for it. Besides, Baloney could do with some socialization, and she seems okay with Calamity.”
“That’s because Calamity knows I’d kick her little furry ass if she hurt another living thing,” Nina crowed from the couch as she put Frank, who knew what the bag Vinnie was packing meant, on the floor.
Oliver watched him prance toward the kitchen, his tail in the air, clearly excited by the prospect of Vinnie in the pantry that held treats
Vinnie pulled a tote bag from her pantry and yelled, “I’m not letting you pay for my dog sitter, Oliver!”
“But it’s my fault they have to be uprooted in the first place,” he yelled back with a chuckle. “If it weren’t for me and my horn, you’d be here with them, safe and sound, painting and reading, toasty warm by the awesome fireplace you outsourced.”
“Ah, but would my life be as exciting as that of a guy with a horn that can heal people? I think not, Baldwin. Also, I don’t mind watching all that DIY with someone who can carry on an actual conversation and form opinions about shiplap.”
“Shiplap’s dumb, Morretti! I don’t care what Joanna says.”
“Aw, look, Mistress of the Dark, the kids are flirting,” Marty teased with a snort as she elbowed Darnell.
“All right, Paranormal Rom-com.com,” Nina said as she jumped up from the couch. “Quit with the cutesy banter bullshit and pack ’em up. No way we’re leaving these little buggers here, now that I’ve seen ’em anyway, but I don’t wanna be here all fucking night while you two play footsie. I have a Skype with Charlie and Greg tonight and a book to read to Carl. Get a move on, lovers.”
Vinnie laughed the laugh he liked the best. The one where she let it all bubble up from her throat, carefree and with total abandon.
“Hold on to your fangs, vampire. I’m—”
ACCIDENTAL UNICORN, THE Page 16