Scooping some scrambled eggs onto her fork, Kayla was feeling more awkward than ever. Ezra was flitting around the kitchen, totally at ease, cleaning up the dishes he’d used while making small talk. At the same time, Kayla was having trouble getting her food down, despite it being delicious.

I’m engaged to a vampire, she thought to herself, wondering if that statement would ever not sound totally insane.

Now, the fact that Ezra was the hottest man she had ever laid eyes on only served to complicate things. She couldn’t be attracted to a vampire, could she? He didn’t seem to be the evil, climbing through your window in the middle of the night type of vampire, but then again, she barely knew him.

Not having to worry about making rent was great, but that peace of mind certainly came with a cost.

I feel like this whole arrangement would be easier if he wore more loose-fitting t-shirts, she mused, watching Ezra’s muscles bunch and ripple as he reached to open a cupboard.

Despite the markedly odd turn her life had taken, though, she still had to live her life like nothing was going on – go to work, chat with colleagues, hope Edgar’s coffee preferences hadn’t changed overnight – all while trying not to blurt out vampires are real! and getting herself committed.

“Breakfast was great, thank you,” Kayla said, once she was done with her meal.

“What are fiancée’s for,” Ezra grinned.

“You’re really getting into this fiancée role, aren’t you?” Kayla commented.

“The realer this thing between us looks, the better. I wouldn’t put it past Stephen to have his people check up on me here in Cleveland. And I have to say, I’m having more fun than I thought. I haven’t cooked in ages. Still got the skill, though,” he replied, leaning on a counter and studying her closely.

Feeling the weight of his gaze on her made Kayla uneasy. The way he looked at her was so intense, like the ceiling could collapse in the living room and he wouldn’t even notice. Kayla wasn’t sure if anyone had ever looked at her quite like that.

With that thought, her mind drifted back to Seth. She hadn’t heard from him since he moved out, and she didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. If he had contacted her, she wouldn’t have known what to say, or maybe she would have said too much, rambled on about how much he’d hurt her.

In any case, being ignored by someone you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with stung.

Did Seth ever look at me like Ezra is looking at me now? she wondered, trying to recall.

“So, where is my bride-to-be off to now?” Ezra asked. “I should probably know where you work.”

“WBTV,” she replied. “It’s the local news network. I’m a production assistant.”

When Ezra leaned over to take her empty plate and almost brushed his hands against hers, she quickly added “I should be getting ready,” and all but ran out of the kitchen.

Confused and flustered, she retreated into her bedroom, happier to go to work than she had been in a long time. Anything that distracted her from the handsome vampire now living under her roof was good.

* * *

“Hey, you,” a familiar voice said, as Kayla was busy typing up an e-mail confirming some guests for the morning show.

She looked up to see Melanie, her coworker from the art department stroll up to her little desk. Tall and lean, with a wild mane of reddish-brown hair and black, horn-rimmed glasses, Melanie was one of the few friends Kayla had made in WBTV. Most of the people she dealt with were too busy climbing the corporate ladder to cultivate any sort of relationship with a lowly PA, but Melanie was different.

“Melanie, hi,” Kayla smiled, swiveling around in her chair to face her.

“I was so busy with the new set design yesterday I didn’t even get a chance to swing by,” Melanie sighed, but there was a smile on her face. “Come on, let’s go get some coffee in the breakroom and you can tell me all about how your cohabitating is going,” she said, gesturing for Kayla to follow her.

Taking a deep breath, Kayla got to her feet, rushing to catch up with Melanie’s long steps. She didn’t know if she was ready to talk about how Seth unceremoniously dumped her, but then again, bottling things up inside couldn’t be healthy, either.

And if there ever was a great shoulder to cry on, it was Melanie’s. Endlessly supportive and not afraid to tell it like it was, she was pretty much the perfect friend for Kayla, who had the bad habit of making excuses for people.

The breakroom was mostly empty when Kayla and Melanie stepped inside, lunch having ended a couple of hours ago. The only people there were a couple of interns hurriedly filling their paper cups with coffee before rushing off.

Kayla grabbed two cups from the cupboard and filled them with coffee before they both went to sit on a couch pushed up against the back wall, away from the entrance.

“So, don’t keep me in suspense. Has Seth finally stopped using that amazing apartment of yours as a crash pad or what?” Melanie asked.

“He has,” Kayla admitted. “In the sense that he moved out.”

Melanie almost spat back the sip of coffee she had been taking, her eyes wide as she brushed drops of coffee from around her mouth with the back of her hand.

“He what?” she asked, loud enough to make Kayla glance at the door to see if anyone was passing by and could overhear.

“He needs space,” Kayla replied, making air quotes around the last word.

“That man does not deserve you. Never has,” Melanie said firmly, shaking her head. “I thought with the whole moving-in together thing that he might have gotten his shit together but this… Kayla, I’m so sorry.”

“I should have seen it coming, I guess,” Kayla sighed, tracing the rim of her mug with her finger. “I was only fooling myself into thinking this time it would be different.”

“It’s not your fault that you wanted to believe this could work out,” Melanie replied. “Although, I have always told you I think he’s an ass,” she added, raising a brow at Kayla.

“Yeah, you made that no secret,” Kayla couldn’t help but laugh. “The way you would always glare at him when we hung out together… I’m pretty sure he was terrified of you.”

“As he should be,” Melanie nodded. “I might still track him down and kick his ass.”

“Not necessary, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Kayla chuckled.

Melanie fixed her with a more serious look, her coffee forgotten as it sat in her lap.

“But how are you, really?” she asked. “And what are you doing at work? You should have taken a sick day and crawled into bed with enough ice cream for an entire kindergarten.”

“I can’t really afford to take many sick days, especially with Edgar as my boss,” Kayla said, and she and Melanie exchanged a look that said neither of the women were a big fan of Edgar. “I need this job more than ever if I intend to not go broke paying for that apartment.”

She was fine for now, with Ezra living with her and being very generous about it. The stack of money he’d left on her table was way over what his half of the rent was, not to mention he had fully stocked her fridge in the time she had been sound asleep.

But Kayla got the feeling this wasn’t at all a permanent solution for him, and even though he had offered to keep paying rent even after moving out to repay her for playing along with the whole vampire bride thing, she knew she couldn’t take him up on that offer.

It just wouldn’t feel right, taking his money like that.

“Hold up, are you saying Seth stuck you with the whole rent?” Melanie asked, and it was clear her offer to kick Seth’s ass was becoming more serious by the minute.

“It’s fine,” Kayla waved a dismissive hand. “I already got a new roommate, so at least I won’t be homeless quite yet.”

Melanie shook her head at Kayla, pulling her long legs onto the couch.

“There is such a thing as being too nice, you know,” she remarked. “I, for one, would be planning Seth’s murder right about now, but that’s just me.”

Kayla thought about that. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been angry at Seth, or that she still wasn’t angry. Her anger was just buried deeper, boxed away inside her under a layer of hurt and regret. And what good would somehow punishing Seth do for what he had done? It wouldn’t make him come back…

“I still care about him,” she shrugged, staring into her coffee, now getting cold.

“Oh, honey,” Melanie said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You need a rebound, stat.”

And for whatever reason, Kayla’s mind jumped straight to Ezra. The same Ezra who would probably be waiting for her at home, looking like he just stepped out of the pages of a magazine.

Oh boy. I think I’ve gotten myself into more than I can handle.