Chapter Eleven

Upside #11: The only person you have to explain things to is yourself. Like why you haven’t done laundry for a week.

“I told you this city was haunted.”

Jake shook his head. “The vampire thing is fucking weird. Maybe I can handle the torturous ghosts, but vampires?”

I sucked my frozen cocktail up through the straw. The ghost tour had finished almost an hour ago, and we’d ducked into a small bar just off Bourbon Street so he could wrap his head around it.

It didn’t seem to be going well.

“Is now a good time to tell you that we have an active vampire population in the city?”

He blinked at me. “There is a never a good time to tell anybody that.”

“Oh, okay. Well, there’s an active vampire population in New Orleans.”

His lips flattened and spread into a grimace. “I don’t want to know, but at the same time…”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

“Good thing I’m closer to a lion than a cat. Go ahead. Tell me. I’ll only Google it and get stories to give a tougher man than me nightmares for the next six years.”

I bit back a laugh and looked up at him through my lashes. “Okay. It’s not that crazy. I don’t think. They don’t like…Ugh. It’s weird when you say it out loud. Some drink blood, and others do some psychic shit to get energy.”

“They drink real blood? Human blood?”

“And animal.” I paused and bit the inside of my cheek. “The general idea of it is that they need energy from somewhere other than where humans get it. Some drink blood, some do psychic or astral stuff, and others have sex.”

“I’m so confused.” Jake frowned. “This doesn’t…bother…anyone?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “New Orleans is a weird place. We’re tons of different cultures mixed together, and half our history is based on the paranormal. They don’t bother us. They’re not, like, chasing us down and attacking us in dark alleys. It’s all…consensual.”

“People allow other people to drink their blood?”

“I sense that bothers you more than the whole drinking it thing.”

“No. No, it doesn’t. I’m trying to understand one thing at a time.”

I laughed and propped my head up on my hand. “I don’t understand it, and I’ve never really tried to. But trust me, we have a lot of weird in New Orleans, but at least the vampires aren’t throwing vases at each other’s heads.”

He tipped his cup of beer toward me with an incline of his head. “True. For all the eccentricities in this city, humans are by far the weirdest.”

At least we agreed on something.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask you. How are you after last night?”

I put my drink down and shrugged. “I’m fine. I managed to sleep well, so after the mutterings and complaints about the employee review system that starts tomorrow, it was a good day.”

He almost winced, but he had the good grace to look sheepish. After all, he’d basically dropped the news and ran, leaving me to deal with the questions. Sure, he’d had an appointment with his lawyer, but that wasn’t the point.

I was not amused at his bullshit.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “We had to make a couple of urgent changes to the contract with the construction company. I couldn’t get out of it.”

“It’s fine. Mostly the newest members of staff complained to the managers who relayed it to me. I told them I’d take their concerns to the boss because I was nothing to do with the idea.” I widened my eyes innocently and sipped my drink.

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Wow. You’re really throwing me under the bus as the bad cop, aren’t you?”

“Me? No.”

“And after I bought you donuts, too.”

“You made me go on the stupid ghost tour. Your donut argument is irrelevant.”

“It won’t be if I buy you donuts tomorrow, too.”

“My pants would rather you didn’t buy any more. The button is resisting.”

“So, don’t wear pants.”

I blinked at him. “My skirts are joining the resistance of the pants. If I eat any more donuts, everyone will be asking me who the father is.”

Jake burst out laughing. “Tell them it’s me and really freak them out.”

“That would get back to my grandmother in a heartbeat, and she’d have you on one knee in the next. Don’t even go there.”

“I don’t know. Can you cook? I’m not that great at it. I’d marry someone solely based on their ability to feed me.”

“How did we go from vampires from this?”

He pushed his cup to the side then leaned his forearms on the table, wearing a stupid grin on his face that made my stomach flip. “I believe it started when you glossed over me essentially telling you that pants are unnecessary.”

“No, I understood what you were saying. I simply chose the professional response. You know—since we work together?”

Something flashed in his eyes, and his grin changed from wide and bright to a slow, sexy smirk. “Right. Do you usually take your bosses on ghost tours?”

“No, but then they don’t usually bribe me with donuts, either, so you know. It’s a trade-off.”

“Hey, look, it worked, didn’t it? We both won here.”

“I had to listen to ninety minutes of things I already knew while walking. The only thing I won at was drinking.” Which was becoming a problem since the previous week, I’d noticed. “Talking of which…” I held up my cup. “This is empty, and I have to be at work at eight tomorrow. It’s already past my bedtime.”

Jake checked his watch and nodded. “You’re right. It’s getting late. We should go.”

We both got up from the table, leaving our cups there. It was dark, and the city was bursting with people. We’d barely stepped outside the bar when we were almost knocked over by a couple of drunk people.

And by we, I mean I was nearly knocked over, because why would it happen to Jake when Captain Calamity here is around?

Without a word—but his smirk firmly in place—he grabbed my hand and hooked it through his elbow once more. I couldn’t even argue with it. Not that I minded. I’d spent enough time hanging off his arm tonight, so what was another twenty minutes as he walked me home?

That’d already been cleared up, and I hadn’t dared argue with him. Not that I would—it was Saturday night in New Orleans, after all. It wasn’t exactly safe.

We walked the streets in silence, slowly moving further and further away from the craziness of the Quarter and the surrounding area. It went from bar to bar and shouting and screaming to the odd bar mixed in with eclectic tourist-type shops.

From crazy to calm.

I breathed in the fresher air now we were away from the hustle and bustle. It was so quiet here, and I felt so much more relaxed than I was back in the Quarter.

Well, I usually did. Tonight, it felt weird. Weird because I was too close to Jake, yet I couldn’t bring myself to pull my arm from his.

It was because of the cracked sidewalk. I could catch my toe and slip at any point, couldn’t I?

Yes, yes I could. It was nothing to do with how comfortable it was to have my skin against his and the security of him right next to me.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Even the silence was comfortable, and as someone who generally didn’t stop talking, it was alien.

Truth was, I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to break this moment.

Not that we were having a moment.

What even was a moment?

Not this, that was for sure.

“So, the vampire thing,” Jake said, glancing down a small alley. “They’re not gonna jump me out of an alleyway?”

I side-eyed him. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

He chuckled. “No, but I will call a taxi. Just in case.” He winked at me as we turned onto my street. “Better safe than sorry.”

“They’re not Dracula. They’re not going to bleed you dry. They’re about as scary as Edward Cullen.”

“Who’s that?”

I stopped at the bottom of the steps that lead to my small porch. “Never mind,” I replied, shaking my head, then turned and walked up my steps. He followed me up the few steps and pulled his phone out.

“Just calling now.” He waved it and dialed while I dug in my cross-body purse for my keys. I unlocked the door while he called and got one booked to come and get him from here. “It’s gonna be a few minutes. Do you mind if I wait here?”

“No, it’s fine.” I put my purse just inside the door and left the door cracked open a little. I leaned against the door frame. “Well, I hate to admit it, but I kinda had fun tonight.”

Jake raised his eyebrows, leaning himself against the pillar opposite me. “Really? You’ve done nothing but complain all night.”

“I started having fun when I realized you’re afraid of vampires.”

“I’m not afraid of vampires. I’m…apprehensive.”

“Apprehensive,” I echoed. “Sounds like a bullshit way of admitting you’re scared.”

He held his arms out. “What do I have to do to prove I’m not afraid of one?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You could tell me you’re not afraid and make it believable. Your twitching eye doesn’t help your cause at all.”

Jake immediately clapped his hand to his temple, and I burst out laughing. I was totally bluffing, and he’d fallen for it. I didn’t even know his tell for lying—as far as I knew, I’d never seen him lie.

“Fucking hell.” He dropped his hand and laughed, too. “All right, you win this round. But I’m warning you—tomorrow, I’m bringing two donuts to work, and they’ll both be for me.”

My jaw dropped. “That’s just cruel.”

He held his hands out as the tell-tale glare of a taxi light rounded the corner at the far end of the street. “You play the vampire card, I play the donut card. All is fair in war and war.”

I pouted, glaring at him. “You’re so lucky that’s your taxi, or I’d kick your ass.”

He grinned, pushing off the pillar. “Big talk for someone six inches shorter than me.”

I kept on glaring.

He kept on grinning. He closed the distance between us and tugged on a lock of my hair. “Thank you for tonight. I had fun. Even if you didn’t.”

“I just told you I had fun!”

“Goodnight, Mellie.” He dipped his head down.

I turned my head.

His lips touched mine.

I froze.

Heat flooded right through me. My heart thundered against my ribs, and I squeezed my eyes tight shut.

Oh, my God.

He was kissing me.

I was kissing him.

What was happening?

It lasted only a second, but it felt like time had stopped. A thousand things whirred through my brain, things I couldn’t grab hold of and comprehend, because how was I supposed to know he was going in for a cheek kiss and how could he know I was about to turn to go inside and oh God how had this happened?

We both pulled apart. My cheeks burned bright red, and I stared stupidly at him for a moment, looking into those damn gray eyes of his.

“Okay, thanks, goodnight!” The words left me so fast they practically became just one word, and I turned faster than I ever had to my front door. My foot caught on the bottom of the frame, and I almost fell through the door instead of running through it.

I was pretty sure I heard him chuckle as I spun and slammed the door shut.

“Your key is still out here,” Jake called.

I tugged open the door, yanked the key out of the hole, and slammed it back closed, blushing all over again.

This time, I was definitely sure I heard him laughing as he went down the steps.

If he noticed that the accidental kiss was bothering me, he…well, he wasn’t hiding that fact at all.