“You have a wonderful selection,” she said, her dark eyes boring through me.
“Thank you. Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Not quite. But this will do for now.” Her voice was flat as she handed me cash, which was quickly becoming my favorite medium of payment.
“Well, please come back. And let me know if I can help you find it.”
“I’m sure you can,” she said, smiling at me with an intensity that, frankly, was starting to weird me out a little.
She faded into the crowd (crowd!) of customers and out the door. An hour before closing, my feet were so sore I didn’t even think of asking Andrea whether she’d noticed Creepy Cameo Chick. Instead, we totaled out the drawer, rejoiced over every large bill, and promised each other that Cindy the Goth Good-Luck Charm would be welcome to free lattes whenever she wanted them.
Mr. Wainwright and Jettie reappeared and admitted to a tiny fib. Mr. Wainwright couldn’t stand the idea of missing my big night and had spent most of it watching the sales floor in invisible ghost mode. Mr. Wainwright waxed poetic over every sale and declared that the shop had probably made more in-store customers that night than in the previous year. He declared Andrea and me to be marketing geniuses. Aunt Jettie just smiled and claimed to have “known it all along.” Dick popped a bottle of champagne so expensive I dared not ask where he got it, and we sat at the coffee bar toasting a good night.
All in all, Gabriel certainly picked the right moment to walk back into my life.
“Jane?” he said, tentatively walking toward me, holding a bouquet of fat, vibrant yellow sunflowers tied with raffia and ribbon.
I was surprised at how much trouble I had looking him in the eye as he crossed the room, and at how gratifying it was that he looked like ten miles of bad back-country road. Gabriel was paper pale, the hollows of his cheeks dramatic and drawn. And if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a little nervous twitch to his upper lip. If he felt half as bad as he looked, well, the vindictive part of me thought that was a pretty good start. And I was touched that he knew I would know that sunflowers meant “adoration” and “warmth.” But even after weeks of missing his voice, his face, I found that more than anything, I just wanted him gone. I didn’t want to have this conversation now. I wanted to bask in my success for just a little while longer. I should have known better. If my history has taught me anything, it’s that once I start enjoying a little good fortune, the karmic balance shifts to kick me in the face and restore the status quo.
“Hi,” he breathed, as if he had spent an entire evening planning that single syllable.
“Hi,” I conceded after considerable thought.
“How have you been?” he asked.
Really? We were starting off with awkward pleasantries? Because I was in an “apologize or be destroyed” sort of mood. Hmm. How have I been? Sharpening a lot of stakes. WatchingKill Billover and over again …
Gabriel pressed the flowers into my hands as I asked, “What are you doing back?”
He shrugged and smiled. “It’s your big night. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Well, you did miss it. You’ve missed a lot of nights recently. So many nights, in fact, that I started to think maybe you weren’t coming back. Thanks for putting me in that position.”
“Jane, that’s not fair,” he said quietly as Jettie and Mr. Wainwright disappeared. Dick and Andrea had a sudden and overwhelming desire to reshelve misplaced stock.
I sat down and laid the flowers aside. “Look, Gabriel, I’m tired, and I don’t have the patience for empty banter. I’ve had a very long night. A great night, in fact. And you weren’t here for it. I did all of this without you. The funny thing is, I didn’t need you. I didn’t need you to protect me or take care of me or shield my delicate self in your big strong manly arms. I’m getting to the point where I kind of like not needing you. In fact, I’ve decided to start a no-strings-attached, purely carnal relationship with Dick to meet some of my needs, so you don’t even have to show up for that.”
Dick’s smirking face rose over the diet and health-maintenance shelves. “Well, Stretch, if you’re offerin’—ow!” he cried as Andrea’s hand snaked up from behind and slapped the back of his head.
Gabriel pushed through an obvious distaste for the mental picture the words “purely carnal” invoked and said, “Jane, let me explain. I haven’t called because I’ve been stuck in meetings every night for the last few weeks. First, a manufacturing plant I’d hoped to purchase in Leeds had labor problems. And then a real-estate deal fell through in Italy. I had to soothe some very insulted Czech tempers when my interpreter called one of them a ‘horse’s ass’ when I was trying sell them a film-processing plant—”
“You’re lying to me.” At this point, I was thankful for the gut-burning anger that was preventing tears from welling up.
Gabriel started. “What?”
“You’re lying, right now. To my face.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are, because when you lie, you get this little wrinkly line between your eyebrows.” I tapped him on the forehead. “You don’t think I’ve noticed, but it happened every time you got one of those fancy linen envelopes and tried to explain it away as business correspondence. It’s like a little exclamation point in the middle of your forehead that screams, ‘I’m lying!’”
“I do not!” he cried.
“You’ve got one right now!” I yelled, pointing to his head, over which he slapped a protective hand.
“I’ve explained to you—”
“You’ve explained nothing to me. Nothing. And this is not an issue that will go away if we ignore it hard enough. Weirdly timed ‘business’ calls I’m not allowed to overhear. Secret notes at every hotel that you destroy immediately after reading. Notes that talk about what you and some other woman ‘are’ to each other. How I can’t satisfy you the way she ‘does’—”
“You read the notes?” he demanded, his voice reaching that “boyfriend in trouble” pitch that only dogs can hear.
“I didn’t want to, but damn it, Gabriel, what else what I supposed to do? Just keep pretending that nothing was going on? Pardon me if the only logical conclusion I can come up with is that you’re cheating on me. If there are other less crazy options, please tell me. I would love to hear them.”
“I can’t believe you would think, after all we’ve been through, that I would want to be with someone else!”
“Which is something that someone who is cheating would say.”
“Stop!” he yelled. “Just stop it, Jane. I’ve told you, there are things going on right now that I can’t tell you about. It’s for your own good. I asked you to trust me, and you can’t stand to be happy, can you? You’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when there are no problems, you invent them.”
“Well, that’s … painfully accurate. But let’s explore why I might look for problems, shall we?
Since I’ve met you, I’ve died. An insane blond Realtor tried to frame me for murder so she could turn my family home into a tacky condo development. My sister is suing me because she’s decided that I don’t deserve any part of my family’s history. My grandmother has stopped speaking to me, a vampire, but she’s perfectly OK with being engaged-to-be-engaged to a ghoul.
My tenth high school reunion is coming up, and I’m the only Undead American in my graduating class. Oh, and my suppliers believe I’m lonely enough to need porn.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows drew up at this, but I continued my tirade. “And despite all of that, the only thing that’s really knocked me on my ass is thinking that, yes, you’ve been with someone else.
That you’ve touched someone else, told her you love her, despite all of your sire-childe, ‘I’m drawn to you because of your innocence and how good you smell, I’m going to love you forever’ bullshit. If there’s another explanation, I would love to hear it. Because what in the world could be worse that that? What could be so bad that you don’t think I could handle it?”
“Please, just trust me,” he said, clutching my face between his palms like a life preserver. “Trust that everything I do is to protect you. Trust that seeing you being threatened tears at me in a way that I can’t explain. Just trust me, Jane.”
“Threatened in what way? What the hell are you talking about?” I pried Gabriel’s hands away.
“And why should I trust you? You’re jealous and secretive, and you have a tendency to kill people, somehow deluding yourself that it’s for my own good. I don’t want to trust you. I don’t care anymore, Gabriel. I just don’t care what you have to say. I wish you and her—at least, I hope it’s a her—my best.”
“Jane—”
“Shut up! I’ve given you a dozen chances to explain.” The more I spoke, the angrier I got, until I was shouting loudly enough to rattle the windows. “All you do is make excuses and tell me half of the truth. This is a textbook bad relationship. And you know what? I’m glad I am discovering this now, before I spent one hundred years of my life thinking that I was lucky to have you.”
“I hope all your books keep you warm at night!” he yelled, stomping toward the door.
“Hey, you’re room temperature at best, buddy. You never kept me that warm to begin with!” I shouted back, tossing a particularly weighty Tolkien volume at his retreating back.
Well, there went my “healthy, normal relationship” goal.
“Ow! What is wrong with you?” he roared, stalking back to me.