“Him who?”
He sighed. “Thierry. You’re in love with him.”
I frowned. “Just because I don’t want to put out on the first breaking and entering doesn’t mean that I’m in love with Thierry.”
He sat down heavily in the purple beanbag chair in the corner of my bedroom. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
The very mention of Thierry’s name had made my heart pump loudly and painfully against my ribs. “Go away, Quinn.”
I heard him swallow, and his eyes grew shiny and moist in the darkness. “I thought… I thought that you and I had a connection. I feel something when I’m with you. You feel it, too. Forget him. We’re a much better match, anyhow.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Do you know the kind of day I’ve had? All I wanted to do was come home and blank it all out, even if it was just for a couple of hours.
I don’t need any more complications.”
“That’s all I am to you? A complication?”
“Do you really want the truth?” I saw his face start to crumble. He’d had a pretty hard day himself, and I was just being a bitch to him. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I’m so sorry.” I moved toward him and took him in my arms. He began to sob against me. We sat like that for a while, nothing sexy about it anymore, just comforting.
After a few minutes he looked at me. “I’m a vampire.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I hate this. I want things to be the way they used to be. I knew what to do then. I knew how to behave, how to think. I don’t want to be a vampire.”
“Neither do I.” Now I was crying, too. Yeah, we made a good pair, all right. The overly emotional monsters of the greater Toronto area. How fierce, how scary, how much in need of a box of tissues.
Wait a minute . I pulled back from him as a thought tweaked at me. We both hated what had happened to us. Neither of us wanted to be vampires.
I stood up and left the bedroom. I grabbed my purse on the kitchen counter and picked through it to find the napkin. Clutching it in my hand, I went back to Quinn.
“Here’s the answer.”
“The answer?” He looked up at me. “To what?”
“All of our problems.”
“The answer to all of our problems is a cocktail napkin? Maybe your problems are a little different than mine are.”
“Nope, same problem.” I handed it to him and knelt back down next to the beanbag chair.
“That’s the phone number for a guy who knows about a cure for vampirism. We don’t have to be vampires. We just need to talk to him and convince him to help us.”
He stared at the napkin. “There’s a cure? I didn’t know there was a cure.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you know me.”
“Have you already called him?”
“Not yet.”
“Who did you get this from?”
I took the napkin back from him and folded it gingerly. “Zelda, at the club.”
He just sat there, stunned, as the information slowly sank in. “There’s a cure.”
“Yes.” I smiled. “We can be normal again.”
“It’s too good to be true. There has to be some sort of catch.”
“Can’t you just be happy about this?”
He smiled at me and stroked the hair off my forehead. “Okay. I’m happy. But what does this mean for you and me?”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced at the bed.
I raised my eyebrows. “It means we’ll both be human again. It also means that I have a very comfortable sofa in the living room.” I stood up so I could grab one of my pillows and throw it at him. “Sleep well.”
I thought I was tired. I really did. But I lay awake for most of the night with thoughts racing through my brain. This was it. I was going to be cured. Being a vampire was a disease, and I was going to get the medicine that would make me all better. I could be normal again; I wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted within an inch of my life; I could lose the fangs and get my reflection back. I should have been happy. It was everything I wanted. Why, then, couldn’t I sleep? I tossed and turned, the events of the past week going through my mind like a midnight monster-movie marathon. After a while I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes, it was light outside. I pushed back the covers and pulled on some powder blue sweats. I hadn’t forgotten for one moment that Quinn was sleeping on my sofa, not ten feet away.
I pushed open my bedroom door and peeked out. He was on the phone in the kitchen. When he saw me, he quickly said good-bye to whomever he was speaking with and hung up. I saw the cocktail napkin on the countertop.
He looked at me. “I called him.”
“Already? Couldn’t you have waited for me?”
“How long did you want me to wait? It’s noon.”
“It is?” I glanced at the clock on the stove. He was right. “Okay, so tell me all about it.”
“He’s agreed to meet with us. We can leave now. It sounds like it’s on the up-and-up.
There is a cure, and we’re going to get it. So get dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
“Those look like pajamas.”
“And yet, they’re not.” I rolled my eyes. “Sorry that I don’t dress up in short skirts and heels all the time. Welcome to my real life. I just need to wash my face and brush my fangs first and we can get out of here.”
“Whatever.” Quinn turned away from me.
Okay. Fine. Was he in a shitty mood because of my rejection last night? I could almost see the tiny construction workers hovering around him, helping to build up the walls that kept his male ego safe from harm. I wondered how he would be acting if I hadn’t made him sleep on the couch. Not that I was having any regrets. I was extremely attracted to him— sure, I’d admit that. But that was no reason to complicate further my already-too- complicated life.