Chapter 27
“You sure this is a good idea?” my dad muttered. He peered into the oven at the fancy hors d’oeuvres which I’d carefully selected from the frozen food aisle of the local warehouse store.
“Nope!” I replied cheerfully. I dumped a bag of chips into a large bowl and set it on the table with the various other foodstuffs. “But I figure we might as well let people see the place while it’s still kinda decent, and then we never have to let anyone in ever again.”
He barked out something close to a laugh, poked at one of the tidbits with a fork. “I guess you have a point. Let ’em get it out of their system.”
“Or we could keep the place kinda decent,” I said, grinning. “That’d be wild.”
“Now you’re talking crazy,” he said, closing the oven.
It had been six weeks since my conversation with Pietro, and two weeks since my dad and I moved into our new ever-so-slightly cosmetically damaged house. We’d scored a decent two bedroom prefabricated house with patched siding damage on the back. Sure, it wasn’t as solid as a house of standard construction, but it had been installed well and included a great additional front porch. Once I paid Pietro off—in a decade or so—and maybe got some extra money, we could replace that siding, but for now I didn’t give much of a crap. The damage was on the back, so the only people who’d see it were people who were welcome here and wouldn’t care.
And now here we were, throwing a frickin’ housewarming party. I checked that the beer keg for the non-zombies was tapped and that there were plenty of non-alcoholic beverages set out. The parasite considered alcohol a toxin and burned up brains to clear the body of it—a waste of brains without even a buzz to show for it.
My phone rang as I checked to see if we had any more big bowls. I dug it out of my pocket, peered at the caller ID. I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered it anyway.
“Hello, Angel. It’s Ariston Nikas.”
“Hi, Dr. Nikas!” I said brightly. “How’s it going?” I’d only been back to the lab once in the past six weeks, but he’d let me help with the monthly examination of the heads and changing the medium in their vats. Totally gross, and I’d loved every second of it.
“Good. It’s going good,” he said. “I, ah, wanted to thank you for the invitation and let you know that I won’t be able to make it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied quite truthfully, “but I understand.”
“Yes, I don’t do well in crowds,” he said, “so best to see me in the lab. Have a lovely evening, and I’ll see you soon.”
“Sure thing, Dr. Nikas,” I said. I couldn’t help but smile. I really liked Dr. Nikas, and it warmed my silly little heart that he’d bothered to call.
Marcus called out from the door as I hung up. “Anyone home?”
“In the dining room!” I hollered back. My house had a dining room. How cool was that? Sure, the place would never be mistaken for one of Pietro’s houses, but I still enjoyed a nice twinge of pride.
Laden with grocery bags, Marcus entered the dining room. He’d shed the cast only a few days ago, finally able to let go of faking his broken leg which had now “healed.” That had been weeks of torture for the poor guy, and stuck on desk duty as an added torment.
“Evening, Mr. Crawford,” he said right before I draped my arms around his neck and gave him a very nice kiss. I heard my dad mutter something in response to Marcus’s greeting, but we both ignored him as Marcus kissed me right back. The last couple of weeks of living with Marcus had sorely tested the abilities of both men to remain civil, and all three of us were seriously glad when the house was ready.
I broke the kiss, then glanced back at my dad to see him poking at the hors d’oeuvres again. “Those are done, Dad,” I told him. “You’re not used to an oven that works.”
Smiling, Marcus set the bags on the table. “What do you need help with?”
If he thought I’d give him a polite “Oh don’t worry, I have it” he was sorely mistaken. I proceeded to weigh him down with a list of tasks, and then I did my best to keep my dad from burning the finger food.
People began to trickle in, and before I knew it we had an honest-to-god party going on. Among others, I’d invited everyone from the Coroner’s Office, as well as Detectives Roth and Abadie, since I worked with them on so many scenes. Ben Roth arrived with his boyfriend, Neil, a rugged blond with a carefree smile and a great sense of humor. And, to my utter shock, Mike Abadie showed up too, though he claimed he was only there to soak up my food and beer in payback for having to put up with me. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Allen Prejean didn’t stop by, for which I was more than a little relieved. My animosity with Abadie was entertaining. Not so much with Allen. Plus, while the thin “scar” on my thumb looked real enough at a casual glance, it wouldn’t hold up to any close inspection since it was little more than a temporary tattoo. Brian had helped me out with that. Apparently I wasn’t the first zombie who found it necessary to accessorize with a fake scar.
“Not bad,” Nick said to me after the party was in full swing. He took a sip of his beer and cast his gaze around the living room.
“Thanks,” I said. “I got a really good deal on the place.”
“You’re settling in all right?”
I nodded. “It’s weird. I mean, I lived in that other house my whole life. But this one’s pretty nice.”
“I guess after what you went through, having a place of your own again has to feel good.”
“It does,” I admitted. Through the back window I could see people sitting in lawn chairs, laughing and talking. It was still a bit of a holy crap for me to realize I actually had a lawn. Pietro had thrown in all new landscaping as a housewarming gift. Grass, bushes, trees, even a frickin’ gazebo. “I mean, Marcus and I are doing great now,” I continued, “but I’m still not ready to move in for real or anything. And besides, my dad still needed a place to live.”
A combined expression of disappointment and hope passed briefly over his face before being controlled and replaced with a typical Nick disinterested expression. “Sure. Great that your dad can have that now.”