Anyway, next time he came out.
God, how to describe? Taller than me by a couple of inches. Super-short black hair and the most wonderful green eyes, bright and piercing. He was probably wearing clothing; I couldn’t get past his face. And he was super nice, politely but firmly telling us to fuck off. I was alternately embarrassed to be there and thrilled I’d come.
Then, the best thing, the most perfect thing, he makes a Better Off Dead reference. A couple of the guys there were from the Strib and the Press, so he mutters, “Four weeks, twenty papers, that’s two dollars. Plus tip!”
When opportunity isn’t just knocking but kicking my door in, I go with it. I walked right up to him and introduced myself with, “I want my two dollars!”
He grinned—God! What a smile! I said my name, first and last, and he gave me his, just the first. Then we traded lines from the movie back and forth, and then he did a sublime impersonation of Bobcat Goldthwait, and that led us to Say Anything (we both agreed Cusack must have had some wondrous upper-body strength to hold up a boom box so long; impressive for a skinny guy), and before I knew it we were talking. Just talking.
He’s so beautiful.
But then it was like he remembered this was business and not pleasure and sort of walked me off the lawn. I didn’t care, I couldn’t look away from those green eyes. I was babbling something—I don’t remember what—and walking backward, and then those eyes got big and startled and he lurched forward and shoved and I went flying. And I just lay there looking up at the sky and thinking, I knew it was too good to be true. My own fault. My own fault; how often have my sources told me I’m alone?
And then I sat up. And I saw what Marc had done. He’d shoved me out of the way of one of the news vans. The driver, in the deepening gloom, hadn’t seen me walking. (I’d been walking backward, so I couldn’t really call the guy on his carelessness.)
He didn’t just save me from a nasty accident. He had the nasty accident instead. I could actually see the bulge in his jeans (not like that, unfortunately) from the broken bone, halfway between his knee and his ankle. In the winter gloom the blood trickling through the denim looked black.
I babbled something (“Oh my God I’m so sorry are you okay I’ll call an ambulance no wait I’ll drive you to the ER I’m so sorry thank you thank you for saving me please let me help you oh your leg your poor leg”), and he was all “No big, I’ll be fine,” stands up on his broken leg and starts limping back to the house. Just a sprain, he says. (Gorgeous, but thinks I’m an idiot.)
“I’m coming back!” I said, grabbing at his arm. I’d been frozen, staring at him as he limped out of my life, and finally woke up enough to run after him. I caught his arm and helped him up the steps. “I’m coming back,” I said again, quieter.
He was all stiff, not friendly anymore, no trace of that smile. “Don’t. It’s fine. Don’t.”
“Not about that,” I said, waving at the mansion to indicate my sudden lack of interest in Vampiregate. Who gave a shit about vampires when this enticing mystery was in the same house? “I want to see you. Check on you, I mean.” That sounded casual, right? “You saved me. Of course I’ll come back.”
“Don’t,” he said again, but he gave me a long look before he got the seriously heavy door open and limped inside, out of my life.
“I’ll come back,” I said, and it’s true. It’s the truest thing I’ve ever said in twenty-seven years.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
“I think it’s time you went to Hell,” I told the king of the vampires.
“Ah, darling. Is it over between us already?”
“Very funny. Just for a visit, like last time. I’ve got no plans for you to be there forever, any more than I plan to be there forever.”
Sinclair was trying his damnedest not to look over the moon, and failing. Adorable! “As you will, my own.”
“Marc, Tina, I’d like you to come, too.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: everyone liking smoothies was so handy. We were almost always in the kitchen. Super easy to have meetings. Not like Hell, where everything was scheduled and when I wasn’t pissed I was bored and when I wasn’t bored I was overwhelmed. Tempting to just dump it all on Father Markus.
Yeah, right. Just a daydream. And a dangerous one.
“Of course, Majesty.”
“Sure!”
“Not right this second,” I added, looking at my phone, “because apparently my mom’s on her way.”
“Dr. Taylor is coming? Oh, dear . . .” Tina hopped off her stool and checked the fridge. She knew my mom liked a nice glass of Chardonnay now and again, and she tried to keep some on hand for the rare pop-in. “Ah! Still here.”