Blood Type (19 page)

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll figure out something. Good luck on the showing.”

She gave my shoulder a farewell squeeze and then was gone. I
glanced around me and then
sighed. “Thanks for lunch,” I said to no one in particular.

By eight o’clock I
’d organized
my dresser drawers
for lack of anything better to do. John had texted me a few hours earlier that he might be getting off sooner rather than later and that he’d keep me posted, but not to hold my breath. I’d yet to hear from him again. So
at
half past eight I
got
in my car and dr
ove
to The Marauder’s Cove. If he couldn’t come to me, I figured I’d go to him
and hope
he could score a
fifteen-minute break
.

The Marauder’s Cove
turned out to be
this dinky
little hole-in-the-wall
and
nothing like I’d expected
. Based on Olivia’s description, I envisioned walking in on some grand-scale orgy in which half-naked women gyrated their backsides against
eager
men
with
fistfuls of dollar bills
.
I breathed a sigh of relief that
there was no
thing of the sort
going on
.
It looked like a fairly respectable place,
not that I had a lot of experience with bars
.

Someone had tuned the
flat-screen in the corner to
a
baseball
game
, and a motley group of guys crowded around to watch.
A few were definitely blue-collar,
and some
had
obviously come from
their
late-night
office jobs and had the silk ties and gold cuff links to prove it.
A drink
before heading home
to their families
, under the guise of working
.

A raised stage took up most of the opposite side of the bar. Members of some
local
band were busy unloading their equipment
,
getting ready to play
a gig
, but a
lone
guy at the
piano
tinkled out
vintage Billy Joel. One of the
men
watching the game stood up suddenly and shouted for him to shut the bleep up if he wanted to keep his fingers, but the piano man only raised his eyes in a disinterested way and kept
playing
. I waited
t
o see if a fight would break out, but the guy went back to watching his game without another word.

I scanned the place, looking for John, but didn’t see him right away. A pool table
stood
in the middle of the room and left very few places to sit, but I found an empty spot near the back and eeled my way through the crowd to get there.

Someone grabbed my arm, his fingers digging hard into my skin.
“Hey
there
,
sweet thing
.
I’ve never seen you here before.”

M
y breath
caught
in my chest.
The guy
wasn’t outwardly intimidating
.
Had I met him anywhere else
,
I might have totally
crushed on his Chris Hemsworth looks
.
But something about him
here, in this place,
totally put me off.

“It’s my first time,” I said, trying to imbue my voice with confidence. 

His smile widened.
“Is it now?”

I pointed vaguely toward the rear of the bar.
“I, uh.
I’ll just be on my way.
If you don’t mind.”

He bent his mouth to my neck and deposited a small kiss, soft as a feather. “Save me a little, will you?”

I jerked back and had my hand poised to
give him a good slap
, but he let go of my arm and walked off without another word. I watched him disappear behind a
black velvet
privacy curtain
stretched floor to ceiling
.
I didn’t even want to think about what was going on behind it and finally
understood what Olivia had meant about the place
being a total
Freakville
. 

I reached the table and sat down, slumping low in the seat. I felt incredibly out of place in my
linen ruffled
skirt and wedge heels. I clasped my hands in my lap to hide the small diamond my parents had given me for my sweet sixteen the previous year. I had a feeling this was not the place to flaunt it.

After a few minutes, one of the waitresses sidled up to the table and frowned down at me from under her mane of kinky black curls. Her brown eyes narrowed, and then one pencil-thin eyebrow arched.
“
Hey there.
Are you sure you’re in the right place?
”

I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders. “
To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.
”

“
Usua
lly they go straight to the back.
Didn’t anyone tell you?
”
She pointed to the curtain where the Chris Hemsworth look-alike had disappeared.

“I’m
actually
meeting someone
.
” I said, wondering what
kind of a girl she thought I was.
“Privately.”
I cringed. That definitely didn’t come out right.

Both brows went up this time as she openly appraised me.
“A private meeting
, huh?
He’s one lucky guy. Or she?” the waitress added, with
a hopeful tone
.

“He,” I clarified, my cheeks burning.

The waitress shrugged and, seeing that I wasn’t about to elaborate, asked if I
wanted something
while I waited.
There was no menu on the table, and she hadn’t offered me one. “I don’t know. What do you have?”

Her generous mouth broke out into a slow smile, and she ran the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip. “Usually
it’s
customers who want to know, and not the other way around.”

“Um, I guess I’ll just have a Coke. Heavy on the ice, please,”

“A Coke.”
She smiled and sho
ok her head.
“
All right, little girl.
I’ll be back in a minute
.”

I watched the waitress maneuver her way through the crowd to the bar, presumably to place my order with the man behind the counter. I saw her point in my direction, and the man
and I
b
rief
ly made
eye contact before I turned away and pretended as though I hadn’t been staring in the first place.

I scanned the place again for John but didn’t see him. I wondered if he’d already left for the night and was on his way home. Maybe we’d totally missed each other. I dug my cell out of my purse to check for missed calls or texts, but there were none.

Some of the guys in front of the TV were getting riled up over something that had happened in the game, and there was a lot of ugly name-calling going on. I was thinking that I should just get up and leave—I really didn’t belong in a place like The Marauder’s Cove—when I looked over and caught the eye of the guy at the piano.
He’d obviously
been staring at me, and I wondered for how long. He had this sort of Rastafarian, struggling-artist look about him, not at all my type. I wasn’t into
dreds
, especially on
skinny
white guys.

He rose from the bench and I looked down, finding myself suddenly very busy with the contents of my purse. I counted to three-Mississippi, half expecting him to sit down across from me at any second and start flirting, but he didn’t. I finally looked up, and my heart leaped into my throat.

The strange cowboy I had once run into downtown, still clad in his black trench coat and hat, had his hand in the middle of the guy’s chest. Wyatt Earp, or whatever his name was,
shook
his head at the piano player. The guy tried to push past, but Wyatt stopped him with a shove that sent the other man rocking back
on his heels. I saw the cowboy’s lips moving, even though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The piano player looked
once
at me and nodded, and then he stalked off in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing here?”

I jumped in my seat as John set the glass of Coke down on the table in front of me. “Jesus, John. You scared me half to death,” I
said with a laugh, my hand going to my chest to still my racing heart.

John looked down at me. He had a gray bucket tucked under one arm and a soggy dishtowel slung across his shoulder. “
I told you I would call you
when I got off
.
I’m a little busy at the moment.
”

I looked around the place and then back up at him. “
Y
ou
weren’t kidding when you said this place is intense.
”
I laughed
again
, trying to make a joke of it.

“
Yep
,
”
he said. H
e didn’t sound at all happy to see me
, which gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach
.

“
I guess I didn’t totally believe you,
”
I said.
He still looked mad so I
added
, “Hey, you want to hear a coincidence?” 

John sighed and slid into the seat opposite mine. “Sure.”

“That man over there?” I
raised
my chin in the direction of Wyatt Earp.
“That
cowboy
?
I ran smack into him once. It was so embarrassing. I can’t believe he’s here. I actually thought he was homeless.”

“That’s Josiah,” John said, without bothering to turn around. “He’s sort of like a bouncer.”

“
Well,
I’m not sure how seriously people will take him
, not with the way he’s dressed
.”

John finally cracked a smile. “That’s just Josiah.
And people would be foolish to underestimate him.
Anyway,” he said, getting up
again,
“I have to get back to work. I’m definitely stuck here for a while. We just got in a fresh shipment.”

“Okay
.
” I got up, too, leaving my drink untouched. I pulled out my wallet, but John put his hand on mine to stop me.

“Don’t worry about it.
I’ve got you covered.”

I shoved my wallet back in
to
my purse. “Thanks. So you’ll call me tomorrow?”

“Definitely.”

We said goodbye and I made my way to the exit. Just outside the door, Josiah was leaning casually against the wall. Our eyes met and he nodded his head, touching the brim of his hat with his free hand.
“See you around, Blake.
” 

I nodded back but didn’t say anything, only quickened my pace to my car.
It was only after I’d gotten home and was on the verge of falling asleep that I replayed the scenes from The Marauder’s Cove in my head. And the part that stuck with me the most was
,
how in the world did Josiah know my name?

October 27

I made the five-minute drive up t
he hill to John’s house
in three and
took the steps two at a time
. I
pounded my fist against the door
, and i
t swung open a few unbearable seconds later.

“Blake,” Ian
said,
genuine surprise in his voice. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“I’m not here as your personal blood bank, so
just keep the fangs away from me.
” I pushed my way inside.

“Well, ye look and smell like a horse’s arse. I canna think even the most hungry of my kind would want a taste of y
our
blood.” His grin widened. “Y
ou
’re like a great slab of molded meat.”

“Thanks a lot.
”

“So if y
ou
’re not here for my pleasure, why are y
ou
here?
You
broke wee John’s heart when you sent him away. Have ye changed your mind then?”

With every word that came out of Ian’s mouth,
I
felt
a little less sorry about
ratting
him out to Josiah.
“Don’t you feel the least bit sorry for the position you’ve put me in?
Do you feel any remorse at all?
”

Ian leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, regarding me with narrowed eyes. “I do, to be sure, but
only for myself and my own weakness for blood. I couldn’t help it at the time. I had a terrible hunger.”

A flush of anger rose to my cheeks, and I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind. But Ian cut me off before I could get a word in edgewise. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, aye?
John
loves you, in case you didn’t know it. Perhaps what I did could be seen as speedin
g
things along between the pair of you.
M
aybe
a little
thanks is in order.”

I
gritted my teeth
, unmoved by his pretty speech and disgusted by his excuses. “Surely John told you I have no intention of letting him turn me. I want no part of living in your world.”

“I can see as that’s true,” he said, gesturing at my wilted hair and pale, sweaty face.
“And for what reason?
Because ye think we’re monsters!” Ian laughed out loud. “I’ll tell you what. I have seen more atrocities suffered at the hands of humans than I ever have from any
one of my kind.
I honestly don’t know what he sees in you. It’s you who’s lucky to have him.
”

We were silent then, each
of us
glaring at the other from opposite ends of the
foyer
. Ian broke the silence first. “If
you
care n
othing
for John, why’d ye come
back
?”

I had every intention of
l
eaving without saying a word about Josiah, but the truth of the matter was I did care about John. I banged my fist against the paneled wall in frustration. “I’ve just come from speaking
to
a man named Josiah
.
” 

Ian rolled his eyes.
“And who, pray tell, is
Josiah
?”

“
He’s
what your kind calls a Watcher.”

The grin fell at once from Ian’s mouth. His skin blanched, and a range of emotions flitted across his face. He closed the distance between us and grabbed my arms, his fingers digging into my skin.

“A Watcher?”
He shook me then, so hard that my teeth clacked together in my mouth. “Do
you have any idea what you’ve just done,
ye wee bitch?”