One Lucky Vampire(80)

“Okay, we’ll go, baby,” he said soothingly.

Nicole stood uncertainly, eyes wide. “But Jake is making coffee and—”

“I don’t drink coffee,” Melly reminded her.

“Well, he’s boiling water for you,” Nicole said grimly.

“I don’t care. I want to leave.” Melly said simply and then turned to Joey and demanded imperiously, “Take me shopping, Joey.”

“Of course,” he said quickly, taking her arm to usher her to the stairs. “I’ll buy you something shiny and pretty.”

“And expensive. It should be expensive to make up for this,” Melly informed him.

“Of course,” Joey assured her.

Nicole stared after them with amazement as the couple descended the stairs out of sight. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen and heard. Good God—

“She must give one hell of a blow job.”

Nicole jumped and turned at that dry comment from Jake. He stood behind her, hands on hips, a disgusted look on his face. Eyes wide with amazement, Nicole asked, “What?”

He shrugged, his mouth twisting. “Well, it’s true. She must be beyond amazing in bed for Joey to put up with that crap. She’s a bitch and he grovels and panders to her like a peasant in the presence of a queen.”

“Yes,” Nicole agreed on a sigh, glancing out the large front window as Joey ushered Melly to his car in the driveway. “She’s perfectly horrid.”

“Hmm.” Jake nodded, watching the couple as well. They both simply stood there, silently watching until Joey had Melly in the car, got in himself, and backed out of the driveway. As the car drove out of sight along the road, Jake announced, “The coffee should be done and the cake is sliced up. Want some?”

“Oh yeah,” Nicole said with feeling, turning to lead the way into the kitchen.

“I cut four slices,” he commented. “I thought slices rather than bringing the cake out would help prevent Melly from eating three or four slices to purge.”

“I guess we’ll just have to have two slices each,” Nicole said, brightening somewhat. Chocolate always helped, and she suspected it would take two slices to help rid her of the bad taste in her mouth. She couldn’t believe Joey was with that horrible woman. Melly was rude, and arrogant and—Really, Nicole couldn’t think of a single nice thing to say about the woman . . . except, “She’s beautiful.”

“She would be if she kept her mouth shut,” Jake responded dryly as he fetched two cups and began to pour coffee. Then he added, “Actually, no that’s not true. She’d have to stop thinking too. I was trying not to listen, but could hear her thoughts plain as day and not one of them was pleasant. What she actually said was the cream of the crop. That was just selfish stuff. The rest was nasty, critical crap.”

Nicole tore her gaze away from the four plates with cake on them that sat on a tray on the kitchen counter, and peered at Jake curiously. “You were trying not to listen? You make it sound like her thoughts are a radio playing. Don’t you have to actually read people’s thoughts?”

“Sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “It’s different with different people. It’s—” He stopped, frowning as he carried the coffees to the table. Nicole suspected he was trying to figure out how to explain it and waited patiently. As she did, she picked up two of the plates, grabbed a couple of forks and followed Jake. They were seated and fixing their coffees with cream and sugar before he continued.

“Okay, close your eyes and imagine you’re in a room full of people. At an art show maybe, a big art show and everyone is standing around talking,” he said.

Nicole took her spoon out of her coffee, set it on the edge of her plate and closed her eyes. The scene he suggested immediately sprang up in her mind. A room full of people, drinks in hand, circulating, talking, laughing . . .

“Now, hear their voices. Some are louder than others, right? I mean you can stand in the middle of the room and while most of the talking is just an indistinguishable murmur, you can catch bits of conversation from others more clearly. There’s a sudden burst of laughter to your right. Someone to your left is saying in a high, distressed voice, “Oh my God, I can’t believe he did that to me.” Behind you a sharp angry voice is saying, “What a bitch.” Someone else is telling a joke in a too-loud voice that’s clear as a bell above the rabble and so on.”

“Okay,” Nicole murmured when he fell silent. She could picture the whole scene pretty clearly, and imagine the conversations.