“I am sorry, but that is not possible,” the woman said, her accent French, her manner calm and professionally polite. She wore designer glasses, and her dark brown eyes behind the lenses barely swept over him. Considering no vampire had bad eyesight, they were clearly intended to make a certain impression. “Johnny Malone is on the list, and so I must proceed accordingly.”
“I don’t care that he’s on ‘The List.’” Stella made air quotes as she spoke. “He’s not dead! It was just a simple misunderstanding.”
Nice of Stella to put it that way. Frankly, it had been a bumble-fuck on his part. Feeling pressured by a pregnant girlfriend, though he used that term loosely, and knowing full well that as a vampire he was shooting blanks and could not be the father, Johnny had gotten the incredibly stupid idea that it might be a spot of fun to fake his own death to shake her loose. Okay, so maybe it had been a bit cruel to put his sister and his friends through that, and maybe he would have been super pissed if someone had done that to him, but it had been an impulse. A very bad, very stupid impulse. He hadn’t thought it would result in all his friends getting shit-faced drunk at his wake and blacking out for an entire night. Nor had he thought it would result in Miss Paper Pusher showing up on Stella’s doorstep.
Not wanting to stress his sister out any more than he had already in the past few months, he decided he needed to be the one to deal with this little mix-up.
“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” he asked her.
“Lizette Chastain.”
It was a name for a silent film star, not this woman whose bun was wound too tight. Though she was attractive underneath the thick layer of boring, he had to admit that. She had long cheekbones and creamy skin that gave away her French heritage, and perfect, raspberry-stained lips that would form a perfect O while she was having an orgasm . . .
Whoa. Where had that thought come from? Johnny shifted, suddenly aware of his dick, which hadn’t seen much action lately since the debacle with Bambi and her baby-daddy accusations. He couldn’t say that he missed Bambi, but he could use a little horizontal shuffle, clearly.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she continued, her delicate hand coming out to offer a handshake. “May I inquire as to your name?”
Johnny forgot about her bone structure and his boner and realized this was not going to be as easy to fix as he’d thought. So he said, “My name is Johnny Malone, and I’m very much alive. So why don’t we head down the street, sit somewhere quiet, and discuss how we can fix your list?” He figured Stella had earned the right to be exempt from mopping up his messes.
She hesitated. “I would prefer we take care of this as soon as possible.”
“We will,” he assured her. “But let’s do it with our butts on a barstool instead of standing in Stella’s doorway. We’re letting the cool air out of the house.”
Her lips pursed, and then she nodded. “I would prefer a coffee shop.”
Johnny shot Stella an amused look and waved to her. He indicated to Lizette that she should head out of the house in front of him. “We want to go right. We can go to a coffee shop if you’d like, but the walk will be longer. A lot longer. The closest one is on Dumaine, whereas the nearest bar is—here.” He pointed to the corner, which was only one house down from them. “I don’t mind walking, though, if you’d really prefer coffee.”
“I have no objection to walking,” she said. Right before the spiked heel of her shoe got caught in a giant, gravel-filled pockmark of a hole that characterized all the sidewalks in the Quarter.
She made a sound of distress, her ankle turning, and she would have gone down in a French fumble if he hadn’t grabbed her arm and managed to keep her upright.
“Oh, pardon!” she said, clearly flustered, straightening her glasses and adjusting her purse on her shoulder. Smoothing her hair, she eyed the crumbling walkway with suspicion and added, “Perhaps the bar is not such a bad idea after all. It is rather warm as well, yes, especially for the evening?”
“It’s hotter than a crotch,” he told her as they walked the few feet to the bar and the magic of air-conditioning. “It’s New Orleans in June. The only thing worse is New Orleans in July and August.”
“Hotter than a what? I do not recognize that word.”
Oops. Now that he had to define it, he realized that might not have been the classiest thing to say to a woman like Lizette. “Um, it refers to the area down south,” he said, trying to be vague.
“Geographically? Yes, this is the South, but I still do not understand.”