Chapter 13
After the wedding, Joseph and I shared an awkward moment as he was dropping me off.
Though we’d chatted nonstop throughout the night, a cat had gotten our tongues sometime between his car and the front door of my soon-to-be-previous residence. We stood so silent that the gentle breeze swishing through the trees sounded as loud as thunder.
We couldn’t get our eyes to meet. Our gazes landed every which way but our faces. I studied an invisible hangnail on my finger while he toyed with his sporran. Had it been an actual date, a kiss would have been appropriate. The boxes were all ticked for one.
Sky illuminated by moonlight. Tick.
Sizzling chemistry. Tick.
Fun evening shared by two single, attractive individuals. Tick.
So, what was the problem?
Unfortunately, there were also a few boxes ticked on the list of reasons why getting physical with Joseph was a terrible idea.
Evening coming to an end at ex-boyfriend’s home. Tick.
Romantic interest a leader of the world’s deadliest vampire organization. Tick.
Potential for involvement with said leader to blow up in face and ultimately result in heartbreak and death. Tick.
Regardless, we couldn’t stand out in the cold all evening, avoiding each other’s eyes like two teenagers on a first date. “Would you like to come inside?” I asked.
For a horrifying moment, I thought Joseph was going to accept. But then my heart sank when he hesitated, and it seemed he was going to decline.
I’d never been so conflicted.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my phone once the entire evening to see if Robert had called.
I was as stunned by the realization as I was proud.
I’d gone through the denial, anger, bargaining, and depression stages of grief.
Seemed I’d moved on to acceptance. I never thought I’d see the day—or night.
“You aren’t tired?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I was unsure what the vampire meant with his question.
In high school, I was a big nerd with few friends.
Desperate to escape small-town life and the poverty that accompanied it, I stayed in most weekend nights, studying.
I never had boyfriends. Or even a boyfriend, for that matter.
I didn’t go on my first date until I was twenty.
He was a nice enough guy, but boring as hell.
After that, I occasionally went out with men I deemed, often hastily, unsuitable to date on a long-term basis for one reason or another.
With them, the sexual contact had been brief, tame, or even nonexistent.
Late bloomer that I was, I didn’t understand unspoken rules or how to play dating games the way most twenty-somethings probably did.
My lack of experience was causing me pause now.
Was Joseph asking if I was tired code for “Are you energized enough for sex?” And if I said I wasn’t tired, was I essentially promising him a roll in the sack?
Had I inadvertently used code for “let me introduce you to my vagina” by inviting Joseph inside?
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get physical with Joseph, sexy as he was. We’d had a wonderful time at the wedding. I’d also become so comfortable in his presence that it felt as if we’d known each other for years.
However.
I may have been born dirt-poor and raised in a trailer park, but I was still a lady—or, at least, ladyish.
Though I remained furious at Robert for the way he’d dumped and then ghosted me, it would be inappropriate (read: skanky) to have sex with another man in his home, where I was technically squatting.
While I hadn’t thought of Robert throughout the evening, he was now front and center of my mind, with us loitering at his door. Naturally, I couldn’t help imagining what the outcome would be if he came home and walked in on Joseph and me writhing around in bed together. It wasn’t pretty.
Then again, perhaps I was giving Robert too much credit. He likely wouldn’t care at all, considering how callously he’d left me.
Internally, I was questioning what the hell I’d been thinking by inviting Joseph inside.
The smartest move would have been to say goodbye to him back in his car, then run inside before he had a chance to park, thus avoiding an awkward situation altogether.
Well, too late now, I thought. I couldn’t take back my invitation so suddenly without appearing discourteous. Or insane.
Besides, Joseph was over a thousand years old.
How old exactly, I still couldn’t say. Vampires, like humans, could be testy when prodded about their age, and I figured he’d tell me if he wanted me to know.
Regardless, I imagined he’d been on enough dates in his long lifetime to know that women aren’t a one-size-fits-all gender—that what’s insinuated by one woman’s invitation to enter a home is not going to always translate into the same insinuation from another.
“Sure, I can come in for a bit,” Joseph grinned.
Oh God-oh God-oh God! He was coming in!
“Great,” I grinned right back.
Inside, I led Joseph into the living room and then went into the kitchen and fixed our drinks, blood and champagne.
If someone had told me back in the trailer park in Pellville, Florida, that I’d one day be in a San Francisco mansion wearing couture and sipping bubbly with the leader of a powerful vampire organization, I probably would have died laughing. But there I was. Life sure was strange.
When I returned, Joseph was sitting casually at the center of the sofa. No matter where I sat, I’d be within touching distance from him. I wondered if he’d done that intentionally.
I regarded a chair on the other side of the room. Well, I couldn’t sit there. It would be weird and insulting. I took a seat on the sofa and carefully handed Joseph his blood, so that my thigh wouldn’t rub against his.
“You didn’t decorate this place, did you?” he asked, looking around.
I chuckled. “Is it that obvious? No, it was all Robert.”
Joseph gestured at the rug I loathed so much—the one that looked like amoebas. “If you don’t mind my saying, that rug is atrocious.”
I threw my head back and cackled, feeling mighty vindicated. I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought it was ugly, despite Robert protesting otherwise. “Don’t I know it.”
“Did you have a nice time at the wedding? It was sweet how you cried at the ceremony. You humans are so sentimental.”
I pretended to be outraged. “I’ll have you know, there were vamps crying, too.”
“Aye,” he agreed. Smirking, he added, “But none as hard as you.”
We sipped our drinks in silence for a moment, then I commented, “You were right about vampires getting weird around you.”
“As I said, they avoid me like a leper.”
“I think it’s because they’re afraid of getting on your bad side. Like you’d have them killed for forgetting to say bless you after you sneezed.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I don’t sneeze, Olivia.”
“You know what I mean, smart ass.”
His half-smile morphed into a full-on grin. I wondered when the last time was when someone had called him out and lived to tell the tale.
I amended my previous statement. “Actually, they either avoid you or kiss your ass so hard that it’s embarrassing. It must get old.”
He shrugged. “Comes with the job, but, yes, it does get old. Very few speak to me as frankly as you do.”
“It was lovely, though, the wedding,” I said, and he nodded.
Contrary to Joseph’s teasing, the happy couple had left few dry eyes in the house during their nuptials.
Jerry and Tim had chosen classic cream as their wedding color, with accents of gold.
The flowers were crisp, plentiful, and white: roses, gardenias, calla lilies, orchids, and apricot blossoms. Their first dance as a new couple was to a soulful Motown ballad.
The main meal was salmon for the human guests and a blood fountain for the vamps, who made up about ninety percent of the attendees.
One of the best parts of the wedding—for me, at least—was that Robert and Serena didn’t make an appearance, a fact Joseph was wise enough not to address.
Jerry was also savvy enough to overlook Robert’s absence, though his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw that I was there with another vamp.
He didn’t seem aware that Joseph was in the VGO, so I didn’t mention it for fear of upsetting Jerry’s big day.
And Joseph? He was an unexpectedly fun date who cracked lots of jokes and made witty conversation.
He also danced in a cool, self-deprecating way.
He didn’t even mind too much when a pack of inebriated human women tried to lift his kilt on the dance floor, wanting to know if he was a “true Scotsman.” I about died laughing when he explained it was code for wearing nothing underneath his kilt—a.k.a.
going commando—though he declined to confirm.
When it came time to catch the bouquet, I stayed seated.
Joseph tried to nudge me out of the chair, but the steely look I shot him put an end to that quick.
Then, he, too, was cracking up. I’d had such a good time that I’d nearly forgotten how I’d been in front of him only a short time ago, pleading for my life.
He took a sip of blood. “Strange, though, that kid staring at you all night. What was up with that?” Joseph used a lot more slang than Robert, who would never phrase a question in such a way. It only endorsed how different the two vamps were.
I frowned. “A kid at the wedding? I didn’t see any.”
Then again, what would a vampire as old as Joseph deem a kid? I was a kid to him, if you wanted to split hairs, though we appeared similar in age physically.
“He was a teenager. You really didn’t see him? I thought he was being obvious.”
I shook my head. “No, not at all. Was he looking at me in a creepy way? Like checking me out?”
Joseph thought a moment. “I wouldn’t say he was creepy, no. If he was doing that, I would have said something to him.”
Poor him, I thought.
“It was more like he was observing you. Like he was curious.”