“You said wonderful twice. And no, I was thinking more along the lines of troll-like and annoying.”
She frowned.
I raised my hands. “But you’re the one who has to share a bed with him, not me.”
Her frown turned upside down. “And let me tell you. Barry is seriously a sex god.”
“I am going to throw up.”
“I know you don’t like talking about this sort of thing, but seriously.” She appeared to quiver.
“Sometimes he bites my neck when we’re in the middle of,you know . . . and it isso amazing. That man can curl my toes like nobody’s business. I don’t know why I would ever doubt that he loves me.”
“Where is my barf bag?” I made a face. “Hold on one moment, I think I need to deal with something.”
I turned around and walked quickly over to the hulk, who had raised a copy of theToronto Star ’s entertainment section up to cover his face. He lowered it just in time to see me approach, and his eyes widened slightly with surprise. He had a brown crew cut and wore a black leather jacket and blue jeans he probably had to buy at the Big & Brawny store.
“Hi there,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. You have a name, don’t you?”
“I . . . ” He looked confused. “My name . . . uh . . . ”
“Listen, buddy. I’m having a difficult week, to say the least. I get that you’ve been hired to keep an eye on me so I don’t get murdered or blown up again. And I appreciate that. Really. But I want you to know that I know that you’re here and I want to know your name.”
His shifted his weight to his other very large shoe. “Uh . . . it’s Lenny, ma’am.”
“Lenny.” I repeated. My bodyguard’s name wasLenny . “All right, Lenny. Thank you. You’re doing a good job so far. Still alive. Hooray. Keep it up. Me and my friend are heading into Starbucks for a coffee. Can I get you something?”
He tucked the newspaper under his arm. “Um. No thank you, ma’am. I’ll wait out here.”
I turned back to Amy, who’d raised her penciled-in eyebrows at me. “Wow. You’re getting all demanding. Very impressive.”
“Thank you. Now I demand that you stop talking about Thierry, your sex life, and anything else that makes me want to throw myself into oncoming traffic. I need caffeine in the worst way.”
“Mmm. I’m having a major craving for a brownie.” She practically skipped across the street toward the coffee house.
Some vampires could still eat solid food. Like Amy. She was blessed with the ability to chow down on whatever she wanted. Me? Lately eating a kernel of corn made me hurl. Coffee seemed to be where the line had been drawn.
I guess it’s because Amy hadn’t been lucky enough to partake in a master vampire’s blood like I had.
Much like wine, a vamp’s blood was more precious, rare, and potent the older he was. And Thierry was damn old.
If I let my mind wander a little, I could still feel him against my mouth. Drawing a wet line against his warm skin with my tongue. My teeth grazing the surface.
Drinking deep, so deep.
Filling my mouth with the dark, delicious taste of him.
I blinked and shook my head to try to clear it.
“Coffee!” I shouted, my voice suddenly a little pitchy. “Right now! Make it an espresso!”
Would you look at that line?” Amy said as we entered the crowded coffee house.
“What did you expect? It’s a Saturday afternoon.” I glanced around, feeling immediately claustrophobic and more than my share of paranoid. We were surrounded by a lot of people I didn’t know. Buzzing on caffeine and biscotti. Why did I come out today again?
Death wish, table for two.
“Oo, I see a table.” She beelined to one near the window that had been abandoned all of two seconds ago. I sat down. The chair was still warm. And oddly sticky.
“Look,” I moved to the seat next to me and shifted to get comfortable, “I don’t want to spend a lot of time here. I have things to do. Assassination attempts to avoid. Besides, I have a date with Thierry tonight so I need to have time to prepare.”
“How do you prepare for a date with Thierry?”
Since I’d never really had an “official” date with him, I wasn’t entirely sure. “Um. A little red lipstick and a calming meditation CD?”
She eyed the lineup. “It won’t be long.”
“Famous last words.” I cleared my throat and thought of the smoking remnants of my life. “Wait, let me take that back. That’s a phrase I never want to say again just in case it happens to be true.”
The wide hips of a passing woman bumped into my shoulder and I glanced up to make sure she wasn’t carrying any concealed weapons along with her caramel macchiato.
Suddenly a sound rang out above snippets of conversations I could catch with my surprisingly sharp vampire hearing (to match my increased sense of smell) —though some conversations, like the one about body piercings between an older woman at the table in the far corner and her much, much younger boyfriend, were not ones I really wanted the chance to overhear.
The sound was coming from Amy. From her purse, specifically. She reached into it and pulled out a thin pink cell phone, which was the cause of the odd sound, a sound I now pinpointed as a tinny rendition of
“I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred.
“This is Amy,” she chimed into the tiny contraption. “Uh huh?”
There was a long silence and I watched her face lose its happy Amy glow.
“I see. Well, alrighty then. Thanks for letting me know. No, I appreciate you telling me. I really do.” She shut the phone up and stared at it. “That heinousbitch .”
“Who’s a heinous bitch?” I inquired. Amy rarely, if ever, got mad enough to call somebody else a bad name—a trait I didn’t happen to share with her. I didn’t even think she knew the word “heinous.” But obviously I was wrong.
“My neighbor.” She looked down at the small, expensive piece of technology as if it was the cause of every problem she’d had since birth. “Mynosy old bag of a neighbor.”
“And? What did she say?” I glanced outside at Lenny, who’d just started to chase two kids with deadly looking skateboards down the street.
Skateboards in January? There should be a law.
She slumped down into the seat across from me. “She just saw Barry.”