Must Love Fangs

Chapter Seven

I was just sitting down to one of my puzzles when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey. You asleep?” It was Josh.

Oh, if he only knew the answer to that question. “I’m not tired,” I lied. “Why?”

“I have to run some errands today and I was wondering if you wanted to come along.”

I tapped a puzzle piece on the table, thinking. Was this a trick question? My suspicious mind automatically wondered what he was up to. “Exactly why would I want to come along with you to run errands? Are you bored?”

“Nah. I just like spending time with you.”

“You do?” I blurted out, surprised. Josh . . . liked to spend time with me? Immediately I wondered if it was just another flirty come-on and felt stupid. Of course it was.

“I do,” he responded cheerfully. “Plus, I have a surprise for you if you spend the day with me. It’ll mean an all-nighter for you, but I can handle it if you can handle it.”

I couldn’t resist the smile tugging at my mouth despite myself. “I’m used to all-nighters,” I told him. “But tell me the surprise first.”

“Nope. It’s a secret. I’ll tell you if you spend the day with me.”

“Is this bribery?”

He laughed. “Of course it is. It’s the only way I can get you out of your pajamas and into my arms, so I’ll use it.”

I blushed and put down the puzzle piece. “I’m not falling into your arms.”

“I’ll settle for spending some time together, then. Come on. What do you say?”

I hesitated.

“Remember, big surprise at the end of the day,” he teased. “Well worth the missing hours of sleep.”

“I’m getting dressed,” I said, standing up and heading to my bedroom, curious despite myself. “Are you coming by to pick me up, then?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Only ten minutes? I thought you lived farther away.”

“I do. I’m already on my way there.”

Figured. “And what would you have done if I’d said no?”

His chuckle was warm. “I knew you wouldn’t say no. You find me irresistable.”

“Batarde. I do not.” I hung up before he could come back with something suitable. I couldn’t stop smiling, though. Okay, Josh irritated me, but it was a fun kind of irritation. He was incorrigible and flirty as hell, but I enjoyed his antics.

I’d barely finished dressing when I heard a knock at the door. Sure enough, Josh was ready and waiting, all grins. He didn’t look the least bit tired, even though I knew he’d been up all night, just like me. He held out a cup of coffee as I opened the door. “Ready to go?”

I nodded and locked the door, pocketing my phone. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Thanks for being my company,” he said cheerfully. “It’s the least I could do.”

“So where are we headed?” I asked as we trotted down the stairs and back out to the parking lot.

“We’re going by Carol’s place first. She promised to make me breakfast.”

I gave him a cross look as we got into the car. “We’re doing all this so you can get a free breakfast?”

“Not exactly. Free breakfast is just a perk.”

We were quiet as Josh pulled onto the highway and began heading south. I sipped my coffee, content with watching Josh and the road. The neighborhoods got progressively worse and worse the longer we were in the car, and by the time we pulled into an apartment complex, I was ready to lock my doors and not get out of the car. “Carol lives here?”

“Rent’s cheap, and she doesn’t make a lot of money,” Josh said. “Come on. She’ll be thrilled to see you.”

I followed him through the parking lot, trying my best not to be judgmental. The building could have used a good coat of paint, and the long carport stretched out in front of the building looked as if it was on its last legs. Graffiti covered a nearby Dumpster, and as we walked to Carol’s first-floor apartment, I noticed dirty window-unit air conditioners hanging out of nearby windows. Classy. One of her neighbors had foil in the window. Double classy.

There was an enormous box on Carol’s doorstep, and Josh immediately moved to it. “Can you hit the doorbell? I’m going to start moving this for her.”

I did as I was told, and a moment later, Carol opened the door, giving Josh and me a beaming, wrinkled smile. “Josh, my love. You brought a friend today. Come on in!”

“This the entertainment center you ordered, Carol?” Josh hefted it, his voice strained as he carried the massive box into the house. “Or did you order a box of bricks?”

“Silly boy,” Carol said, tittering. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

“Of course not,” Josh said, moving into the living room of the tiny apartment and setting the entertainment center box against the door. “I knew you’d fix me up something delicious. That’s how I talked Marie here into coming over.”

She beamed a smile over at me. “Why don’t I make some coffee?”

“Coffee sounds great,” I told her, reaching down at the cat rubbing on my jeans leg. When she left the room, I looked over at Josh, who’d pulled out a pocketknife and was slitting open the sides of the box. “Is that what you came over for? To put together an entertainment center for her?”

Josh nodded, peeling tape back from the box. “Her last one broke a few days ago. I told her to buy one and I’d put it together.”

Carol returned to the room, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. There were layers to Josh that I was just beginning to discover, and every time I thought I had him pegged, he surprised me.

Carol was a much better cook than the one at the diner. Her coffee was great, and her pancakes amazing. As she loaded me with breakfast food, Josh took bites between working on the furniture. It was clear that she was pleased that she had company, and I began to warm up to our visit. After a while, she pulled out some photo albums and showed me pictures of her family, all deceased.

I was starting to realize why Josh visited Carol so much, and my estimation of him grew. He worked hard on the entertainment center, screwing and bolting together the wood as if it had been no big deal, and looking pleased to do so.

Hours later, when it was all put together and we’d gone through all of Carol’s pancakes, Josh set up her TV and programmed it for her.

“That’s wonderful, Josh. You’re such a good boy.” She reached up and ruffled his hair, as if he’d been a child. “Do you think you could stop by Lula’s place after you go? Her toilet won’t stop running and she said her water bill was ten dollars more last month. She’s quite concerned.”

“You know I will,” he said easily.

We said our good-byes to Carol, petted her cats one more time, and left. Josh immediately went next door and knocked.

“Lula?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I said honestly. At this point, I was more curious about how many people Josh stopped to help than anything else. I eyed the foil in the window and felt bad for internally mocking it when we’d first arrived. Was she trying to lower her power bill? A few dollars wasn’t much here and there, but maybe she didn’t have the money.

Lula was a wizened old woman with thick, outdated glasses and a floral muumuu. Her hands were twisted from arthritis, and she gave Josh a toothless smile. “There you are. Are you here to fix my toilet?”

“That I am, Miss Lula,” Josh said cheerfully. “Why don’t you show it to me?”

As she shuffled inside, I followed Josh, noting the dark interior of the apartment and the spotless floors and counters. Miss Lula was old, but she wasn’t feeble. It was clear she was pleased to see Josh, talking a mile a minute and gesturing at her toilet as if it had been the biggest problem in the world. He listened politely, then set to working on it.

My estimation of Josh grew more. He was patient and kind—kinder than I was—and unfailingly nice. This didn’t mesh with my mental vision of the careless, wild playboy that I’d always thought he was.

After a few minutes, Josh replaced the tank lid. “I need to get my toolbox, Lula. Can we come back in an hour?”

“Of course, of course,” she said with a wave of her small hands. “I’ll make you sandwiches for lunch. Does that sound nice?”

“You know it does,” he told her. “We’ll be back very shortly.”

We piled back into Josh’s car, and I gave him a curious look. “Where now?”

“To my place—the Russell place. I need to borrow some tools. That okay, or are you too tired to go on?”

“I’m fine,” I told him truthfully. “And I want to come back.”

• • •

The drive out to the Russell house was long but pleasant. Josh and I bickered over radio stations, and it turned into a game—find an obnoxious song on the radio and see if you could annoy the other person. It was childish, but it made me laugh, and the time with Josh passed so pleasantly that I couldn’t remember why I’d ever been irritated with him.

When we finally parked in the driveway, I was surprised to see that a few cars were already there. “Someone home?”

He laughed. “I live with my brothers and cousins. Someone is always home.”

Good point.

The Russell house was a two-story monster of a house out in the country. It was spare on furnishings, which wasn’t surprising, considering the fact that only men lived there. The place was clean and neat.

“I need to go find the toolbox,” Josh told me. “It’s in the garage. Just wait here a minute.”

“Can I see your room?” I was suddenly wildly curious to see what kind of digs Josh had.

“Why, Marie,” he said with amusement. “You want to see my bed?”

“Just curious is all,” I said lightly, ignoring his innuendo.

“Go right ahead. Last room at the back of the hall upstairs. I’ll just be a minute.”

I waited for him to disappear, then headed up the stairs to his room. The door was shut, and I pushed it open slowly, feeling very much like an invader.

His room was messy in typical guy fashion. His clothes hamper was overflowing with laundry. The bed was covered with dark plaid blankets, tossed into a ball. Pillows were strewn all over the mattress, and magazines lay scattered in a nearby chair. I picked one up. Science magazine. The one underneath it was about cars, and the one below that was travel. Okay, that told me nothing about the man. I glanced over at his dresser. A few photos were stuck along the edge of the mirror, and a scatter of small objects decorated the surface.

I gravitated to the photos, mostly a montage of shots of Josh and his brothers on vacation. There was a photo of Beau, much younger, hanging off Josh’s shoulders, both of them in swim trunks. And there was an older man who resembled Josh—his father? I’d heard Beau mention once that his father was deceased. Poor Josh. I knew what it was like to lose a parent.

An answering-machine light flickered, and I checked the display, curious. Thirty-one messages. Good Lord. If his messages were anything like the ones he got at the dating agency, they were all from women. My fingers hovered over the playback button, and I fought the urge to listen to them. That would be a major invasion of privacy.

“Whatcha doing?”

I whirled around, my face hot, to face one of the twins. I didn’t know if it was Everett or Ellis. They looked exactly alike to me. “Um, hi.”

He took a bite out of an apple, giving me an interested look. “Checking things out?”

“Um, no. I was just, uh, looking around. Josh is getting a toolbox.” I stepped away from the answering machine, feeling guilty. “We’re about to head back out.”

“Mmmhmm.” He took another bite of apple, still watching me. After a moment, he said, “He keeps it full on purpose.”

“Huh?”

“The answering machine.” He nodded at it. “Keeps it full on purpose. If it’s full, no one can leave him a message. He prefers that. The girls don’t leave him alone otherwise.”

Oh. That was interesting. “I see.”

“You were wondering about it, admit it.”

I would admit no such thing. “You know, they might leave him alone if he’d actually pick up the phone. It’s what normal people would do.”

He snorted, as if I’d said something funny.

“You tellin’ all my secrets, Ellis?” Josh appeared, clapping his cousin on the shoulder. “Maybe you should learn to keep your mouth shut.”

Oh, hell. Now I was really caught red-handed.

“Eh,” Ellis said, unafraid. He took another leisurely bite of apple. “I figured if you let her up in your bedroom unattended, she’s probably pretty special.”

“Probably,” Josh agreed with a drawl.

“So he doesn’t normally let women hang around in his bedroom?” I asked Ellis, unable to stop myself.

He only grinned, and I felt silly for asking.

“Come on, Marie.” Josh nodded at the door. “We need to get a move on if we’re going to fix Lula’s toilet for her. We have to be done by five.”

“Why?” I was curious despite myself. “What happens at five?”

“We have to leave for our date.”

“Date?” I sputtered. “Are we going on a date?”

“We’re going on a double date,” he told me with a grin. “A pair of newly turned vampires. I figured you’d want to ask them some questions.”

Ellis gave me a speculative look. “What kind of questions?”

Excitement flared through me. “None of your business. Josh, do you mean it?”

He nodded at me, looking pleased with himself.

I sucked in a breath in excitement. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “I know.”

• • •

My palms were sweaty with excitement. I slid them up and down the legs of my jeans to dry them and tried not to look overeager.

Josh, meanwhile, sat next to me in the booth, his legs sprawled under the table as if he’d had not a care in the world. His beer was coated with condensation, however, and the large plate of food in front of him sat untouched, a sure sign that Josh wasn’t nearly as relaxed as his manner suggested.

The restaurant was crowded despite the late hour, but dimly lit. Josh and I occupied a booth near the back, close enough to the bathroom that I looked up every time someone came near our table.

Here I was, dying to date a vampire—no pun intended—and I couldn’t get them to go out with me. Yet all Josh had to do was snap his fingers and they’d come running to do him a favor.

I’d have resented it if I hadn’t been so utterly thankful that he’d set this up. “You’re the best, Josh,” I told him again.

“I know,” he replied, not looking at me. His gaze was rooted to the door. “You can thank me later.”

I lightly smacked his arm, just imagining what that thanking would involve. “So they know about . . . me?”

He shot me a look at that, and I nearly melted at the heat in his gaze. God, Josh was sexy when he was riled up, and he was definitely riled up at the moment. “They know what I told them.”

“Which is . . . ”

“That you’re dating a vampire, so you want to know what vampire society is like from reliable, unbiased sources.”

That sounded about right. What surprised me was Josh’s reluctance about the meeting.

I nudged him with my elbow. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he said in a flat voice.

“You don’t sound fine. You sound grumpy.”

He glanced over at me, his mouth pulled into an unhappy line, arms crossed over his chest. “You know I’m not a big fan of all this vampire business.”

“I know you’re not. I appreciate the effort, though.”

His gaze softened and he leaned in closer to me, as if he was about to kiss me. I tilted my face up toward his.

Josh’s nostrils flared and he sniffed the air, then slid back into his seat again, moving away from me. “They’re here.”

My heart leapt in my chest. I immediately craned my neck, trying to see around Josh to the restaurant floor. “I don’t see anyone.”

“You’ll recognize them when you see them,” Josh said, placing a hand on my shoulder as I leaned over his lap. “Sit down.”

I did, forcing myself to be patient. I could have contacted a vampire or two myself through the agency, but they tended to be suspicious and, because I was human, reluctant to open up. The fact that two were willing to come and sit down with me and talk was flat-out amazing . . . and I owed it all to Josh.

I squeezed his arm happily at the sight of the couple approaching the table. I recognized the tall, lanky man with the wild tuft of hair and the short, curvy woman at his side. “Valjean! Ruby! Hi there!”

Valjean had been my client for about a half a minute before he’d shacked up with Ruby, and he’d been on my dating list for vampires. Ruby had only used the agency a few times herself, but I was familiar with her, since her sister, Jayde, was one of our more notorious clients.

I glanced over at Josh. “You didn’t tell me it was going to be them.”

“They’re both fairly new to the vampire world,” he said with an easy shrug of his shoulders, leaning forward. “Thought it might be good for you to get their perspective.”

“Pleasure to see the two of you again,” Valjean said in a courteous voice, smoothing a hand down the front of his coat. He gestured for Ruby to slide into the booth and she did, her glittering gaze focused on me in a look that wasn’t exactly friendly.

Oh, dear. Was she feeling territorial? I knew from dealing with her sister that were-jaguars tended to be a bit . . . demanding. And given the fact that Ruby was the other vampire, I wondered how it affected her nature. My suspicions were confirmed when Valjean slid into the booth next to her and she immediately latched onto his arm, her lips tightly pursed, as if she wanted to bare her teeth at me.

As if sensing the mood at the table, Josh casually threw an arm over my shoulders and tugged me close, as if I’d been his date. Ruby immediately relaxed, her smile growing a bit more genuine. I realized in that moment that it wasn’t territory that was freaking Ruby out—it was Valjean. She was worried I’d try to snag him from her or something, and she was staking her claim early.

I would have been amused by it, except that a picture flashed in my mind of Josh going out with another woman, and I felt a distinct flash of rage. My fingers curled into my jeans and I bit the inside of my cheek to blot the thought from my mind.

“Thank you both for coming,” Josh said. “I appreciate you taking a bit of time out of your schedules to answer Marie’s questions.”

“We’re visiting Ruby’s family,” Valjean said easily. “Then it’s back off to Rome for us. I promised Ruby a sightseeing tour for her birthday.”

A flash of a smile crossed Ruby’s face, and I peered at her teeth. No sign of fangs. Of course not. Why did I think these new vampires would be different from any other vampire I’d seen or dated? The fangs were retractable. For feeding, they extended several inches, like snake fangs. Any other time, they remained hidden and looked like nothing more than sharp incisors.

“Rome sounds nice,” I said conversationally, not sure if I should jump right in with the vampire questions or if that would be rude. “Have either of you been before?”

“I visited when I was first turned,” Valjean said, steering the conversation to the subject I wanted to hear about the most. “I—”

“What was it like?” I blurted, wanting to keep the subject on vampires and turning. I felt desperate to get some answers. “Did it hurt?”

Not that it mattered. I was pretty sure it hurt less than dying. But now that it felt within my grasp, I was . . . curious.

“I don’t remember.” Valjean grimaced apologetically. “I was drunk and passed out when I was turned.”

“And I was dying from being shot in the back, so I’m no better with that answer,” Ruby offered. “All I remembered was that Michael put his mouth on my neck and the world was getting foggy.”

“Michael?” I asked curiously.

To my surprise, Valjean blushed bright red. Ruby gave him an amused, affectionate glance. “His vampire name is Valjean. Real name is Michael. Now that we’re together, we’re trying to switch to new names, but we keep forgetting to use them from time to time.”

“New names?” I asked politely. “Is that a thing with vampires?”

“It is. It’s best, since you’re essentially making a break from your old life. Most vampires change names every twenty years or so, in order to not arouse suspicion from the locals.” Valjean’s mouth gave a wry twist. “Vampire society has a lot of rules.”

“So you were dying, Ruby? Did you not want to be turned?”

“I hadn’t asked her,” Valjean said. “I thought maybe, after a few years together, I’d broach the question before she started to get all middle-aged and saggy—”

Ruby gave a mock gasp and curled her fingers into menacing claws. At least, they would have been menacing if her eyes hadn’t been gleaming with amusement. “Don’t make me come over there,” she purred.

My face flushed. This sounded less like teasing and more like foreplay. “So you didn’t have a chance to ask her?” I repeated, steering the conversation back on track. Josh’s hand rubbed between my shoulders, a comforting, subtle presence.

“There was no time,” Valjean said. “I took a risk and hoped that she wouldn’t be too mad at me.”

“Furious,” Ruby said in that soft, rumbling purr that was anything but angry.

Valjean flushed red again and Ruby looked pleased.

“There are lots of rules with vampires, you say?” I encouraged. These two were cute and all, but they weren’t giving me much that I didn’t already know.

They exchanged a look, then Ruby shook her head. “Can’t talk about it to non-vampires. We’ll get in trouble.”

“Trouble with who?”

After a moment, Valjean said, “Other vampires.”

“Let me guess. Another vampire rule?”

“Bingo.” Ruby grinned again, and I noticed that her canines were a bit elongated. “It’s kind of like the first rule of Fight Club and all that.”

“Gotcha. But what about family?” I asked, thinking of my father. I couldn’t exactly leave him behind. I was all the family he had left in the world.

“If your family is Alliance, it’s not a big deal,” Ruby said. “Since the secret is more or less out. Non-Alliance, however, are expected to remain out of the loop.”

I swallowed hard. So either way, my father was going to lose his daughter. “I see.”

Josh pulled me closer to him, as if sensing my distress. “What else should Marie know about dating a vampire?”

“Or turning,” I added quickly, ignoring Josh’s frown.

“Lots of things change when you turn,” Ruby began, pausing when the waiter arrived with glasses of water for her and Valjean. When he left, she delicately pushed the glass to one side, rejecting it. “I don’t know about Valjean, but my appetites have changed slightly. Shifters like a heavy meat diet, but I find that I can’t stomach any of that now. As a vampire, you don’t need food or drink, just blood. And you have to drink often.”

“Exactly how often?”

“Two to three times a day, just like human meals,” Valjean said easily. He picked up his glass and took a sip of the water, as if determined to prove a point. “And eventually your stomach resettles and you can tolerate most drinks. Ruby is new, so it still turns her stomach.”

Valjean offered Ruby his glass of water. She wrinkled her nose at him and pressed fingers to her lips, as if holding back bile.

“What about sunlight?”

“Killer,” Ruby said flatly. “You sleep through it most of the time, but if you get stuck out in it, you’re hosed.”

This was sounding more and more depressing. I felt a flare of anxiety but forced it aside. This was my best option, and I was going to run with it. “So what are the perks of being a vampire, then? You’ve mentioned some of the unpleasant things, but there has to be a plus side, right?”

Josh gave me another suspicious frown.

Valjean and Ruby exchanged a look. He grasped her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing the back of it in an achingly tender motion. “You get to spend eternity with the one you love. That’s worth everything, don’t you think?”

Except I wasn’t in this for love, just survival. I couldn’t picture any of the vampires I’d met so far affectionately kissing my hand like Valjean had Ruby’s, or tenderly pulling me to his side and teasing me like Josh did.

Did I want eternity with a cold man I didn’t love? I looked over at Josh, whose normally laughing eyes were somber, his mouth drawn into that thin line again. Or did I want what little time I had left with a man I was beginning to like a lot but couldn’t have?

A few weeks ago, my answer would have been instantaneous: I wanted eternity.

But now I wasn’t so sure. All I could think about was some stranger kissing my hand, like Valjean had kissed Ruby’s . . . and how much it would hurt Josh.

My stomach flipped a little. “Eternity sounds great to me,” I said in a fake enthusiastic voice.

“It beats dying,” Ruby said dryly.

That it did. Time to change the subject. “So, vampire dating pointers . . . ?”