8
It’s important to remember to spend time with your family. It’s important to temper your absorption into the vampire culture with contact with the human world.
—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less
Destructive Relationships
When a smell is powerful enough to wake a vampire up at noon, it’s time to call an exorcist.
The sex dreams hadn’t subsided since that horrible fight with Gabriel at the shop. In fact, they seemed to grow more intense after Gabriel’s return. In this particular dream, I was strapped into complicated Victorian underwear. Gabriel was wearing an old-fashioned cut-away tux. We were in an expensive-looking hotel room, lit by gas lamps. Still clad in his white shirtsleeves, an enthusiastic Gabriel peeled my corset away, pushed me back onto the bed, and kissed his way from the curve of my linen-covered breast to the lacy little pantaloons I was wearing. He smiled up at me, the way he used to when we made love, as if I was the most beautiful creature on the planet. I felt my human flesh grow warm and pliable under his hands. He stripped the last of my underthings away, lapping away at my core with strong, sure strokes. He nibbled and kissed until I was panting. When he finally touched the very tip of his tongue to that vital little bundle of nerves, I exploded, screaming his name as I rode wave after wave of dark, shuddering ecstasy.>Zeb scrubbed his hand over his face as Mr. Wainwright faded out of sight. “I was prepared for one baby. I don’t know if I can handle two.”
“It’s a little late for that. There’s a very strict no-return policy on babies.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jane.”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Take one off your hands? There’s not much I can do, except pay someone else to babysit. Are they boys or girls?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet; it’s too early to tell. To be honest, I didn’t catch much after ‘two heartbeats.’ One of them was doing a sort of Homer Simpson shimmy. I’m guessing that’s the one that takes after me.”
“Look at it this way: you’re lucky it’s not triplets or quadruplets.”
That seemed to cheer him.
“If you keep going, you can form your own basketball team,” I suggested. He furrowed his brow and frowned at me. “Too soon?” He nodded. “I’ll fix you some herbal tea. It’s soothing,” I said, patting his hand. “How’s Jolene? Is she craving pickles and ice cream yet?”
Zeb groaned. “If only. It’s more like Canadian bacon and ice cream. Peanut butter and turkey sandwiches. Tuna noodle pie. She actually made what she called ‘bacon chip cookies’ the other day—a chocolate-chip cookie recipe with bacon pieces instead of chocolate chips. She said it’s her body’s way of getting as much protein as possible for the babies, but I swear if I see her eat one more of those pies, I’m going to yark.”
“Well, the good news, is whenever I regret not being able to eat, I’ll call those images to mind. I’ll never want solid food again.” I shuddered, rubbing my stomach.
Zeb perked up as he said, “By the way, I got a call from the reunion committee today. They wanted some pictures of you for the memorial wall.”
“But I’m not dead!”
Zeb smirked. “Well, that’s not the way the committee sees it.”
“That’s it. I’m not going to this thing.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, accepting a cup of chamomile. “You’ve got to go to the reunion. It’ll be fun! You can scare the crap out of all our former classmates.”
“It will be fun for you. You’re married to a beautiful woman who adores you to the point that she’ll probably maul the first doofus who tries to give you a commemorative wedgie. And she’ll be pregnant, so everyone will know you’ve had sex with her. I, however, will most likely be going solo which will probably just cement all those lesbian rumors. Oh, wait, dead lesbian rumors.”
“So, you haven’t made up with Gabriel yet, huh?”
I shook my head. Cindy the Goth Good-Luck Charm walked through the door, acknowledged me with a nod, and headed for the graphic novels. “You know, I used to be alone, and I got along just fine. It’s simpler this way. Less messy, less complicated. Less time wondering what the hell is going on in my own life and whether it’s my fault. At least, this way, I know it’s my fault.”
Zeb grimaced. “Well, that’s cheerful.”
“I do what I can,” I said, shrugging as the front doorbell rang. “I met a really nice doctor the other night. And then he saw me beat a guy senseless, so I don’t think he’s going to want me to call.”
“You beat some guy senseless?” Zeb cried.
“Dick made an attempt to cheer me up. It was either a bar fight or cow tipping.”
Zeb’s nose wrinkled. “You and Dick have a complicated relationship.”
I shrugged. I put a mocha latte on the counter for Cindy and left it out for her, like cookies and milk for an Emo Santa Claus. “Besides, Adam Morrow’s going to be there, and I’m still feeling a little weird about him.”
I’d had a huge crush on Adam since elementary school. He was the blond, dimpled football hero to my tuba-toting band geek. I never really got over that teeny-bopper obsession with him, which was why it was so difficult for me to see that his efforts to get “reacquainted” a few months before had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Adam’s weirdo sexual fascination with vampires. It turned out that despite attending school with me for twelve years, he hadn’t remembered the name of that “egghead who used to annoy him in class” until someone reminded him at my almost-grandpa Bob’s funeral. I dropped Adam like a clove of garlic and mended damaged fences with Gabriel before it was too late.