“Damn,” was all he could say to Johnny, because he understood how the guy must feel. He’d be devastated if Josie Lynn just walked out on him.
He looked toward where she’d just been talking to Zelda and Saxon, but she wasn’t there. And the newlyweds were headed toward the bar. He frowned, looking around to see where she went, but he didn’t see her amidst the opulent furniture and patrons.
“Hey, where’s Josie Lynn?” he asked Saxon when his friend reached his side.
“She left.”
“What?”
Saxon shrugged. “She just suddenly got all weirded out and said she had to go.”
“Go? Where? Why did she get weirded out?”
Saxon looked confused by the barrage of questions. “I don’t know where she went. We were just talking about the wedding and she suddenly said she had to go.”
Why would talking about the wedding make her suddenly leave? Had she headed back to the reception venue to gather her stuff? But why wouldn’t she tell him? Why wouldn’t she think he’d want to go with her?
“What did you say about the wedding?” he asked. This just wasn’t adding up.
“Just that she didn’t need to apologize for her employees. No one expects a New Orleans wedding to go normally.”
Drake frowned. Why would that upset her? That should have eased her mind.
“I mean, Zelda just married a vampire. Who’s in a vampire band.”
Drake gaped at his flaky friend. “Did you actually say that?”
Saxon thought for a moment. “Yeah, something like that.”
Drake grabbed his friend’s upper arms and shook him. “You told her we’re vampires?!”
“Dude,” Saxon said, looking down at where Drake held him. “You need to work on your Zen, man.”
Work on his Zen. How the hell was he ever going to be Zen again? The first woman he honestly believed he could love with for all eternity had just run off, either thinking he was insane, or thinking he was really a vampire. Or both.
Behind him, he heard Johnny give a bark of bitter laughter. “And just like that. Gone. Dude, we’re going to be a couple of old single creepy vampires living in some duplex together, aren’t we?”
Drake shuddered. He liked Johnny, but yeah, there was no comparison between eternity with him and Josie Lynn.
Chapter Seventeen
CRUEL SUMMER
JOHNNY removed his sunglasses, as instructed by the French version of TSA, and tucked them into his sweatshirt pocket. That had been the longest flight of his life. Literally. When he’d come over from Europe to the States he had taken a boat. He had to admit flying was more convenient, but it had still felt like half his life. The whole time he had been wondering if he was going to get to Paris and Lizette was going to slam a door in his face. Or worse, if he was walking right into a VA trap.
But he’d had to come here. He had to make it right. He’d been sitting around surly for a week and he’d decided the only way to fix the situation was to get his sorry ass on a plane and make things right with the VA. And hopefully right with Lizette. She hadn’t returned his calls, and at the very least he wanted to let her know what Saxon had told him about the infamous night of the wedding.
“Is your suitcase locked?” the customs official asked him. She was a petite woman in her forties, yet she looked like she wouldn’t hesitate to billy-club him.
“No.” Johnny tried not to look illegal or vampiric. This whole process made him nervous. Everyone scrutinizing his passport and giving him beady-eyed stares. He had a little better understanding of Lizette’s fears after having just made his way through three airports. The world at large was much more suspicious than the average person in the French Quarter.
“I’m going to open it and look inside.”
Great. “Okay.” Johnny shifted on his feet, already knowing what the woman was going to find.
Yep. There it was.
As her gloved hands peeled back a pair of jeans, the vibrator Lizette had ordered was revealed. He had taken it out of the box to save space.
Her eyebrows shot up and she gave him a look.
He remained stoically silent. Let her think what she wanted. Everybody had their thing, and he wasn’t going to be embarrassed. Much.
Then she found the six pairs of sheer panties and the crotchless one-piece teddy. The corner of her mouth twitched. Damn it. When more digging revealed the heels Lizette had ordered, she was clearly biting back a grin. She also was studying all of it with way more attention than any of it deserved. He started to lose patience.
“Those are gifts for my girlfriend,” he told her, because girlfriend was a better explanation than his one-time lover who had ordered all of this under the influence, then had ditched him to go home to France. This customs chick was already being judgmental. He didn’t want to add fuel to her fire.