He gaped incredulously. “Hmm. I wouldn’t have taken you for a literature buff.”
“I’m not. I saw the movie,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“Oh. Well, still…it’s a decent idea and—hey! Maybe you could help me help Newton,” he declared.
“Me?” I pointed at my chest. “I don’t know shit about relationships. Good luck, G. It’s all you.”
“Hmph. I’ll leave it alone for now, but if Newton tries to involve me, I may need to do some research.”
I sipped my beer. “I don’t think he’ll want to recite literature. He wants to know your secret.”
“My secret?”
“Yeah. How’d you get her to notice you?”
George frowned. “Uh…I don’t know. I was drunk.”
“You must have some signature moves. Show me what you’ve got.” I urged, licking sauce from the side of my thumb.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I caught him staring at my mouth as he shifted on his stool, raking his teeth over his bottom lip.
“Uh…I don’t have any moves. I think she asked me about my cape. We started talking about superheroes, and the next thing I knew we were in a dingy corner…sucking face.”
My lips twitched in amusement. “It must have been the cape.”
“Maybe. She said she had a thing for Marvel superheroes—and then she…kissed me.”
“Ah! So, she made the first move.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t put up much of a fight. Like I said, I was a bit tipsy, and I didn’t think it was a big deal either.”
I nodded solemnly. “Agreed. Kissing is like a handshake…with tongue.”
George chuckled. “Maybe. On the bright side, I know Susie wasn’t confused by my intentions. We had a brief awkward exchange about it the following day. She isn’t interested in me.”
“Did she figure out that you’re more of a vampire than a superhero?”
“Probably. I’m not sure how anyone could mistake me for a superhero. I don’t fit the mold.” He bit into a slider and pointed at me. “But you do. You look like Captain America.”
I scoffed. “Forty pounds ago.”
“No, I’m serious. And you were heroic today. You literally saved me.”
“Nah, I—okay, fine. Maybe I did.”
George beamed a radiant grin my way and yeah, that was…sexy.
Wait. Sexy?
“See? My hero.” He stood quickly, pulling the drawstring and draping the fabric over my shoulders. “I hereby bequeath this cape to you…for an hour.”
I tuned out the warning bells like a champ, but it was hard to think with him standing so close. I sat stoically while he fussed with the tie and straightened the folds of the fabric so it lay evenly over my plaid shirt, mumbling something about lumberjack vampires.
George flopped back onto his stool and drained the last of his beer, then flashed a wicked grin that made me think we might be sharing a hilarious joke. I wasn’t sure what that might be, but I smiled like a fool ’cause it felt really nice to be in his orbit and be part of something…silly.
“Thanks. It’s oddly comforting to know you’re still into creepy shit.”
He opened his mouth in a wide O. “Creepy shit? Pray tell, whatever do you mean?”
“You always loved scary movies, graveyards, Dracula, Stephen King books, and those old hokey Movie Macabre films Elvira used to host,” I replied quickly, somehow plucking those details out of thin air.
“Those movies were so good,” he enthused.
“They were terrible, and you know it. But I give Elvira points for trying to make spooky shit seem sexy.” I tugged at the collar of the cape where it chafed my neck. “Maybe this is a little hot. Everyone in the bar is staring at me now. Guys, girls…they’re all checkin’ me out.”
No one was paying any attention to us.
He snorted. “I don’t think so, Romeo.”
“They’re just playin’ it cool. You’ll see. You should pull out your NASA badge and your glasses. That’ll work too.”
“How? My work badge is for restricted access only, and I wear contacts. I don’t think I’m going to impress a mate that way.” He narrowed his gaze a moment later. “Did that sound geeky?”
I grinned. “Nah. Not at all.”
“It doesn’t matter. Science is my passion, my vocation. Macabre shit, as you so eloquently put it—is fun. You’re allowed to like more than one thing, you know.”
“Oh, yeah? Hit me, Murphy. What else do you like?”
He wrinkled his nose and launched into a quirky list of B-movies and indie music. Somehow, our conversation turned to likes and dislikes of the culinary variety before veering to strange things people keep in their cars.
I almost spit my beer out at George’s incredulous expression when I told him about a blowup doll I’d encountered sitting in the passenger seat of a Prius on a roadside rescue.
“No way!” he laughed.
“Way.”
“What’s the deal with those things anyway? I don’t get the appeal.”
I howled at his perturbed expression. “There’s no big mystery there, G. You fuck it.”
“I know that!” he snorted. “I meant…I don’t know why anyone would want to do that.”