“I still can’t believe you agreed to a date,” I said. “I thought you were getting some sort of sick, retaliatory pleasure from repeatedly rejecting him. I was getting sick, retaliatory pleasure out of your repeatedly rejecting him. Can’t we keep playing?”
“I don’t know,” Andrea said, laughing. “He just kind of grows on you, like …”
“Like fungus,” I suggested.
“Oh, hush. You like him, you know you do. And I do, too. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to like him.” She smiled to herself. “Beneath all his bull and his charm, Dick’s a good guy.”
We turned to the door as the bell jingled. It was Adam, still wearing his soft blue scrubs from the Half-Moon Hollow Veterinary Clinic. I smiled up at him, and he responded with a dazzling grin.
“Wow, so this is where you work?” he marveled, taking in the disheveled surroundings.
“This is great, Jane. Really, really great.”
“Well, actually, it’s my shop now. My boss just passed away, and he left it to me,” I said, crossing to him and leaving a confused Andrea standing at the counter.
“That’s great,” he said.
I’d never noticed before how much Adam used the word “great.” Instead of offering him a thesaurus, I said, “This is my friend Andrea.”
Adam didn’t even acknowledge her presence. He was totally focused on me, looking at me the way I’m sure I looked at him all those times in math class. As if he were trying to memorize every word and gesture, so he could replay it in his head later. Now that it was turned around on me, I had to say it was unnerving.
“What brings you down here, Adam?” I asked.
He shrugged and stepped closer to me. “I just wanted to see you again.”
Giving me a confused look, Andrea made quietly for the office door. Whether it was emotional fatigue from Mr. Wainwright’s death or his being in the store where my friends could see him, it seemed wrong for Adam to be there. I couldn’t really be angry with Gabriel for sneaking around and not being honest with me when I hadn’t been exactly upfront about Adam. I could lie to myself and say I didn’t know what Adam was hoping for. But even I could recognize the signals he’d been sending out. And I’d done nothing to discourage him. Out in the open like this, the fairy-tale, adolescent-fantasy haze seemed to be stripped away, and I saw exactly how wrong I’d been. Some instinct had me backing away with every step he took closer to me.
“Have you recovered from your babysitting adventure?” he asked, that warm, familiar smile dimpling his cheeks.
“Yeah. Nevie may never be the same, but every kid needs something to talk about in therapy. So I feel I’ve served some purpose.” I tried to keep my tone even and friendly, even as I was cornered against the counter.
He laughed, but his expression turned serious as he asked, “Have you given any more thought to us spending more time together?”
My heart sank a little. I’d really hoped to avoid this. “I’m still seeing Gabriel.”
Adam huffed, “But I thought we talked about that!”
I chose my words deliberately, in that even voice that seemed to soothe Fitz when he was riled. I ended up sounding like a mother talking her toddler down from a tantrum. “You said if my situation ever changed, I should come talk to you. My situation hasn’t changed.
I’m still with Gabriel.”
“But I thought you were going to change that. I thought you were going to leave him so we … I thought we were building on something, Jane, this tension between the two of us.
We’re good for each other. I can make you happy. Like that kiss the other night, that meant something.”
“It was a kiss on the cheek, Adam,” I said, alarmed by how quickly he’d gone from a normal tone of voice to this angry whine.
“But it meant something to me, Jane,” he insisted, wrapping his fingers around mine.
“I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression. I’m not the kind of person who dumps one man to be with another.”
Adam’s blue eyes flashed. “But that’s exactly why you should leave him. He’s never around. I’m here. I’m right here. If he cared, he’d never leave you alone.”
Adam’s words stung. And the fact that they were probably true didn’t make me any happier with him for saying them. This was all wrong. It was nothing like what I’d pictured. In my efforts to get away, somehow Adam had maneuvered so that I was backed up against the counter, trapped. With a feverish glint in his eyes, he plunged his hands into my hair and pulled my mouth against his. All of my emotional channels opened wide, sending a flood of images into my head. Adam kissing me in my kitchen. Adam standing in the florist, wondering what sort of flowers I would like. Adam sitting by the phone, dialing my number, and then hanging up before it rang. Adam and me talking at the funeral. But even in these fragile, human memories, I could tell that Adam didn’t really see me, just an exaggerated version of me. My smiles were sharper. My eyes shone with a vicious glint.
My boobs were much bigger.
Tentatively, I flexed the invisible muscles in my mind, reaching into Adam’s memory.
Images raced through my head, so quickly I couldn’t grab onto any of them. Like a spinner on a child’s game, the muddled pictures slowed to a stop. On Adam, walking into Whitlow’s Funeral Home with his mother’s layered salad. He was wondering how much time he had to spend at Bob’s visitation to satisfy his family’s obligation to the deceased and whether he would be able to catch the final quarter of the ball game when he got home. He stopped in his tracks when he saw me standing across the room with dishes in my hands. I looked vaguely familiar and definitely hot. There was something intriguing about my smile, something sharp and slightly intimidating. He knew he’d seen me around town before, but he couldn’t remember my name. In the corner of my mind where I was able to feel my own emotions, this hurt. He hadn’t had any clue who I was.
In Adam’s memory, he spotted some church friend of his mother’s at the visitation and snagged her arm politely.
“Hi, Mrs. Morse,” he said, displaying his most winning smile. Adam offered a few platitudes about the sadness of the occasion and inquired after Mrs. Morse’s health, even. listening and making the appropriate sympathetic noises over her sciatica, before he finally looked in my direction and asked, “That girl over there, holding the coffee cups? Who is that?”
Mrs. Morse, who was a bridge friend of my grandmother’s and therefore had heard a detailed account of every stupid thing I had ever done, made a sour face. “That’s Jane Jameson, Sherry’s girl. I can’t believe she had the nerve to show her face here. And that Ruthie is letting her mix with decent people.” Mrs. Morse sniffed. “Some women just have no sense when it comes to their grandchildren.”
“Why do you say that?” Adam asked.
“She’s a …” Mrs. Morse looked around to see who might be listening and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Vampire. Let herself get turned a few months ago.”
Adam’s eyes zipped back across the room to my face. Jameson—that name sounded familiar to him. He thought maybe he’d gone to school with a Jenny Jameson, a pretty blond cheerleader who was a few years ahead of him. She’d had a sister named Jane.
Come to think of it, he thought, I looked a little like that klutzy egghead girl who used to stare at him in math class. God, that girl used to annoy him, always had her hand up, sometimes before the teacher asked a question. But I sure looked good now, and I was a vampire, which was even better. He’d always wondered how far he could get with a vampire, without being bitten. And if I did bite, all the better.
He crossed the room while I had my back turned and deliberately bumped into me. In his mind, I saw my embarrassed smile flash, white and gleaming. “A-Adam, hi!” I stuttered.
Inside his head, he cringed at the sound of my voice. That much he remembered. I was definitely the know-it-all band geek. And I remembered him, as most of his former classmates did, even if he couldn’t recall half of their names. That could definitely work to his advantageI broke away from him before I could hear any more. What was worse than the direct memories were the subconscious desires I felt filtering through his brain. Adam wanted to be my pet. Well, not my pet, necessarily, but any vampire’s pet. He wanted the blood play, the dangerous, possibly injurious sex, the whole dominant female package. He could live his normal life every day but explore his darker compulsions at night. He wanted what I could give him.
I felt vaguely nauseated, glaring up at Adam as he grinned expectantly. I’d focused so much energy on this man. I’d thought of him almost constantly for years, never really getting over my infatuation with him, even as an adult. And he couldn’t even remember my name.
This was one of those defining life moments where you feel as if you’re standing on the edge of a slippery cliff with barbells tied around your neck. I could do this. I could be a Marianne. I could be impetuous and adventurous, live in the moment. I had wanted Adam for years. And I could have him, even for a short while. I could throw myself headlong into a fling without thinking of the future or how it would affect the people around me. I could think about me for once. And it wouldn’t be completely superficial. A part of me still hoped for something as human and seminormal as a relationship with Adam. Maybe we could make it work …
And then the Elinor part of my brain kicked in. I would lose Gabriel. I would lose his friendship, his compassion, our conversations, everything I loved about spending time with him. Everything I’d built with him in the last few months would be gone. I would be trading someone who had saved a total stranger for someone who didn’t care enough to remember the name of a girl he’d known since kindergarten. Adam was only interested in me now that I was dangerous. And he was kind of a tool.
Besides, Marianne ended up with Colonel Brandon, the handsome older guy with the mysterious background. And I already had one of those waiting for me. If I lost him, it would be because Gabriel left me, not because I ruined it all for my own personal Willoughby.
“You faked it,” I said, laughing bitterly. “You pretended to remember me at the funeral.
All you knew was that I looked like that ‘annoying band geek’ who used to sit behind you in math. You had no idea who I was. You didn’t care enough to remember my name.”
“Yeah, but then I got to know you again,” Adam protested. “And I’m so glad I did, because otherwise, I might have missed out on us.”
“There is no us,” I said, peeling his fingers from my arm with just a tiny bit more force than necessary. “There’s me, and there’s you. And you are about to leave.”
“Jane?”