Suddenly, my inability to have kids didn't seem all that b-wait, the last time I had sex was in a tiny single dorm-room bed, and my partner said we had to hurry because his roommate would be back from unloading his clothes from the laundry room any minute. And that was months ago. I had a single mom's sex life without ever having a kid. That might actually be more tragic than the whole orphan thing.
I shuddered.
"Yep, Mad Max is a good idea," Jane said. "I'm going to go get some more blood."
"I'll get it for you," I told her, hopping off the couch. "As a peace offering."
"Thank you," Jane said, slowly breathing out of her nose. "Because now I'm going to have to Google ‘Firthing,' and I think it's going to make me really angry."
"Those poor people on the Internet," I muttered, walking out of the living room.
I poured Jane a generous helping from the very last of the Rothschilde, shaking my head at my own inability to make conversation like a normal person.
A soft voice behind me asked, "So you and Ben were friends at school?"
"Yipe!" I yelled, dropping the bottle. But thanks to my quick reflexes, I caught it before it hit the tile near Gigi's feet. "What the hell?"
"Sorry," she said, grimacing. "I thought you would hear me. Jane said your senses are off the charts."
"They are, if I'm not berating myself for insulting my sire's favorite things," I told her. "Yes, uh, Ben and I met at school, at a party at my dorm."
Gigi's brows rose.
"What?"
She shook her head. "Oh, it's nothing. It's just when we were together, Ben never wanted to go to parties. We watched a lot of Netflix, hung out with his parents, that kind of thing."
Gigi's big blue eyes took on this wistful, faraway quality. Was she pining for the nights she spent on the couch with Ben or just pining for the days when she was still human and could eat the comfort food Jolene and Nola were throwing back? What the heck had happened to her to make the Council establish a poison-screening policy? Was that the sort of question you could casually ask someone at a girls' night? Why did being a vampire have to make socializing so complicated?
"Um, I think Jamie made him go. Ophelia threw the party. It was a mixer for human and vampire students, you know, living-undead unity and all that."
///
Gigi's sleek sable brows rose more.
"It was a punishment for Ophelia, for beating up her roommate."
Gigi nodded. "The world makes sense again."
I narrowed my eyes. "You know, everybody makes these little comments about Ophelia. I mean, I get that she can be sort of difficult, but she's been really nice to me. Even before I was turned, we were friends."
Gigi poured herself a glass of blood from the warmer. "Yeah, I tend to hold grudges against people who hire witches to have me magically contract-murdered. I'm funny that way."
My jaw dropped. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Girls! Tom Hardy's sweaty and covered in sand, and you're missing it!" Iris yelled from the living room.
"Coming!" Gigi yelled back, and gave me a little smile before walking out of the kitchen.
"Who says something like that and just walks out of the room?" I asked no one in particular. "Who are these people?"
With no more contract-murder info forthcoming, I delivered Jane's blood and retreated to my couch corner to enjoy a non-Austen movie. Jane and Company kept up a pretty steady streaming commentary on Tom Hardy's various disgruntled faces, Immortan Joe's stick-on abs, and potential water-shortage solutions that didn't involve humans as dairy cows. It was like watching the DVD extras but with more cursing and spilled blood. When I tossed in the occasional joke, Jane grinned broadly at me, like she wanted to take a picture and label it "Baby's First Snark."
Max was sitting back and letting Furiosa handle her postapocalyptic liberation like a boss when I heard a car pull into the driveway. I craned my neck to peer out the front windows. A tall, deliciously handsome blond man climbed out of a black SUV and jogged up the front steps. He knocked softly on the door and poked his head into the house.
"Permission to cross the border into feminine territory?" he asked in a slight Russian accent.
My eyes went wide. Was this the Russian guy Jane had talked about? The one who could help Morgan pass Russian Literature? Because I could take a summer class in Russian Literature.
"Nik, honey, I've told you, that's a super-creepy way of putting it," Gigi scolded, bouncing up from the couch and throwing herself into the hot Russian's arms.