Wicked Game (5 page)

Finally she turns and shoves her lip out at me in a pout.

I frown back at her. “Just leave him alone.”

At the sound of my voice, Shane’s head turns, pivoting like a praying mantis’s. With his hands together on his
beer bottle and elbows propped on the railing, the resemblance to the insect is uncanny. I step back.

A moment after his eyes meet mine, they soften, losing the leave-me-the-fuck-alone aspect. “Ciara.”

“Wow, you do know each other.” The bride-osaurus smooths her veil. I wonder why she hid her ring if she’s still got that thing on her head. “I’m Jolene. And you are?”

Shane gives me a quick scan, then shifts on the bar stool to face us. Face
me
, really. He hasn’t looked at Jolene yet.

I give him an apologetic smile. “Sorry to bother you, Shane.”

“Shane!” Jolene tries to plop her formidable ass on his lap. “Great name. Do you want to party, Shane?”

He glances at the cleavage she shoves toward him. His eyebrow twitches, and his gaze sticks there for a moment. I suddenly long to wrap Jolene’s veil around her throat and pull until she passes out.

“We’ve got a limo and a hotel room in the city,” she says—not to me, naturally. “There’s plenty of room.”

To my dismay, he stands and edges closer to Jolene, letting her press against his chest. I wish Regina would walk in and knock this girl’s teeth out her ears.

Shane mouths
Help
to me over Jolene’s head.

“Come dancing with us!” She gyrates unsteadily against his hip. “My friends would love you. I promise we won’t take too many pictures.” She finds this last statement hilarious.

I take a final loving sip of my martini and wait for a guy passing on the right to walk behind me. When he does, I step hard on his toe. He howls and pushes me forward, sending my drink—and all its chocolaty goodness— cascading over Jolene’s fresh white tank top.

She shrieks. “Clumsy bitch! My maid of honor stenciled this for me.”

“I’m so sorry.” I wipe at her top, pressing the liquid into the material. “Go to the ladies’ room and I’ll come help you clean up.”

“You better.” She stumbles off toward the restrooms, shaking drops of martini out of her veil. “Hurry!”

The moment she’s out of sight, I grab Shane’s hand. “Let’s go.”

We duck out a side exit, which leads to a long hallway. I drag him halfway down at a trot, then realize we’re running from a drunken bachelorette, not the Mafia.

When I try to let go of his hand, Shane takes my wrist and pulls me to a stop. “Thanks,” he says. “I owe you.”

I try not to look at the place where our skin is touching. “It was the least I could do.”

“Is she your friend?”

“More like arch-nemesis. But I feel bad for the guy I stepped on.”

“Collateral damage,” he says.

“I didn’t know how else to get rid of her. She didn’t care that you were ignoring her.”

“I considered glaring her away, but I have to be careful.” He shifts his glance above my shoulder. “It sounds wacked, but some people get a little out of control when I look directly at them.”

“Oh.” I have just enough martini in me to say, “Because you’re a vampire.”

He drops my wrist and leans back against the wall. “So you know.”

“I read the brochure.”

“What do you think?”

“I quit.”

“Oh.” He nods, then turns and saunters down the hall toward the exit, his gait suggesting a contained swiftness, like a greyhound on a leash. I accompany him to see his reaction, and because the only other way out is through the bar.

After a few steps he says, “Did you quit because you don’t want to work with vampires or because you don’t want to work with crazy people?”

“You’re not vampires, and you’re not crazy. It’s a good joke. I just found a better job, that’s all.”

“Doing what?”

“Working for an account exec at a PR firm in D.C.”

“That’s a commute from hell, but congrats, anyway.” Shane opens the glass door at the end of the hallway, which leads to a painfully bright liquor store. He heads to the beer fridge. “Do you want to get something to go?”

“Go where?”

He opens the refrigerator, then looks at me through the door. His breath fogs a circle on the cold, clear glass. “Your place?”

Normally with someone who looks and moves the way he does, I’d purr, “The sooner the better.” But even I have my taboos. Men who belong to psychos, for instance.

“What’s the deal with you and Regina?”

Shane shuts the refrigerator and leans against a pyramid of twelve-packs. “Regina and I have a special connection.”

“Does this connection include sex?”

Shane glances at the gangly guy behind the counter, who watches us without embarrassment, then turns back to me. “Not anymore.”

“How long anymore?”

He squints at the ceiling as if the answer is written there. “Maybe two years.”

He’s telling the truth. I’ve learned a thing or ten about spotting a liar.

I don’t trust him enough to bring him home, however. Not yet.

I step forward and open the refrigerator. “Let’s take a walk.”

We stroll down Main Street, in the general but not specific direction of my apartment. Sherwood’s downtown measures only four blocks by three blocks, so we’ll have to double back soon.

The night swelters and the popcorn we bought at the store parches my tongue. I’m dying to break out the beers, but every so often a cop car cruises by, slow and predatory as a shark. Aside from domestic disturbances and drunken students, the police don’t have much to do here, so their presence is more annoying than comforting.

“So what were you before you became a vampire DJ?”

“Something much more monstrous. I was a wedding DJ.” He pulls his wallet from his jeans, then hands me a tattered business card.

MCALLISTER MUSIC, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO
. Aha—I thought I heard a hint of that distinctive Pittsburgh-northeast Ohio dialect.

“Do you still hear ‘The Electric Slide’ in your sleep?”

“Actually, I had a reputation as the DJ for cool couples. They knew I’d play what
they
wanted, not what their parents wanted.”

I turn over the card. Small block letters read,
NO CHICKEN DANCE
.

“Problem was,” he continues, “the parents usually paid for the weddings, so I also got a rep for being difficult.”

“I can’t imagine you in a tux.”

“Neither could I, which didn’t help.”

We stop to sit on a bench in front of the library, where hedges and trees curve around pebblestone paths to form a little park. During the day homeless people hang out here while the shelter is closed, but right now the park is empty.

“So what is it with bachelorette parties?” Shane asks.

“You mean why do otherwise decent women turn into complete ho-bags? Because it’s their last chance to be bad, and for some it’s their first chance.”

He makes a skeptical noise. “I’ve seen bridal narcissism from every angle. My sister made our dad take out a third mortgage to give her the same kind of wedding all her rich college friends had. It was bizarre, because otherwise she was so down-to-earth.”

I catch the verb tense. “
Was
down-to-earth? Is she— still around?”

“She’s alive, if that’s what you mean.” He creases the fold of the liquor store’s paper bag. “I just don’t see her anymore.”

I give him a moment to elaborate, which he doesn’t. “Is your family in Youngstown?”

“As far as I know.”

“But you don’t talk to them.”

He rests his elbow on the back of the bench, in a studiously casual pose. “I could explain, but you’d laugh.”

“The vampire thing again?”

He sets down the bag and shifts to face me. The tree beside us casts him in shadow, but his pale blue eyes seem to burn into mine. I recall the alleged power of a vampire’s gaze.

Glancing away would make me superstitious, so I don’t. I narrow my eyes, challenging him. He just keeps staring.

“I don’t know what you think you’re ...” My voice fades. I forget what I was going to say. It doesn’t matter. Slowly my face goes slack and my vision blurs, but I can’t stop it. I don’t want to stop it. I want to sit here forever.

Shane leans forward and dips his head close to mine. My skin heats, and my hand reaches for the edge of his shirt to pull him closer.

“Someone’s coming,” he whispers.

“There she is!” screeches a voice behind me.

I blink hard, then turn to see Jolene and a posse of Bridesmaids 2B. They stalk down the middle of the empty street, almost in formation, like Sharks preying on a lone Jet.

Swiftly and without a sound, Shane moves to stand between me and the small-town gangsta-ettes.

I scramble off the bench. “I can defend myself.”

“Against nine of them?”

“What could they possibly—holy crap!”

Jolene wields a serrated knife, which I recognize as the one Lori uses to slice bar fruit. Chocolate still stains her wet tank top.

I turn to Shane. “Let me do the talking instead of your testosterone. I don’t want to start anything that’ll involve blood and prison bars.”

He crosses his arms and stands with feet apart. “I’m here if you need me.”

They stop in front of us. The bridesmaids copy Shane’s defensive stance. I wonder if they’re also packing bar-accessory weapons, like ice tongs or double jiggers. I wouldn’t want to get whapped with a cocktail strainer.

Jolene gestures with the knife. “You ruined my bach-elorette party. You’re going to pay, all of you.”

“I said I was sorry. What do you want from me?”

“I want your shirt.”

My favorite red top? Fuck that. “It won’t fit,” I tell her.

She advances on me. “What do you mean, it won’t fit?”

“It won’t fit you because I’m too—” Dissimilar to a heifer. “—flat-chested.”

Jolene examines my figure, doubt tingeing her eyes. “Give it to me anyway!” She brandishes the knife again, with less conviction.

“Give me yours. We’ll trade.”

She clutches the hem of her tank top. “But my best friend made this for me.”

“I’ll mail it back to you tomorrow.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“You know where I work.” I hope Shane isn’t blowing my cover with a questioning look. “Besides, why would I want to keep a Bride 2B shirt? I’m not engaged. It’d be like a Red Sox fan stealing a Yankees cap.”

My argument makes just enough sense for drunk logic. Jolene nods slowly, her eyes vulnerable. “Promise you’ll mail it?”

“Yeah, express. Can we get out of the street now? Someone might want to use it for driving.”

We move into the library’s little park. I point to two groups of shrubbery, one on either side of the path. “We can change behind those. Shane’s the go-between.”

Jolene brightens at the idea of him seeing her half-naked. She hustles behind the bush on the right. I collect the beer and popcorn from the bench and retreat behind the other hedge to wait. The bride-goons keep watch.

A few minutes later, Shane appears with the white shirt.

“What took so long?” I ask him.

“There were conditions.” He turns toward the street as a car approaches. “Cops.”

Sure enough, a bright light sweeps over the library’s brick facade, then halts. A car door creaks open.

I snatch the bags and dash around the library toward the parking lot. Though I can’t hear his footsteps over the pulse in my ears, I know Shane is right behind me. His shadow keeps pace with my steps.

The pebbly sidewalk curves downhill around the building. I almost topple over a waist-high barrier that keeps skateboarders from speeding out in front of departing cars. Shane leaps the barrier with an Olympic hurdler’s ease.

“Which way?” he asks.

I guess he’s going home with me. I’m about to wave him to follow when I notice what he’s still holding.

From the other side of the building, Jolene shrieks my name in a parade of profanities, culminating in, “Cheap-ass, double-crossing, shirt-stealing bitch!”

“We should let these beers rest.” I stuff the six-pack in my fridge. “They got shaken up when we ran from the police.”

Shane hands me Jolene’s shirt, glancing around my apartment with the caution of a trespasser. I plug the kitchen sink and turn on the cold faucet.

“I hope she didn’t already try warm water. That’ll set the stain.” I soak the shirt and gently rub the brown blotches. “This top’s big for me, but I could sleep in it.”

“You said you’d mail it back to her.”

“I never got her address. Hey, what do you think she meant when she said, ‘You’ll pay, all of you’?”

Shane emits the vocal equivalent of a shrug.

I smooth my hair back off my neck, then let it drop behind my shoulders. “Sorry it’s so hot in here. Only the bedroom’s air-conditioned.” I wonder if he thinks that’s a come-on. I wonder if it
is
a come-on.

He doesn’t seem to hear me as he scours my walls with a nervous gaze.

“I live alone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Shane offers a sheepish half smile. “I was, uh, never mind.”

“What were you looking for?”

He scratches his shadow of light brown stubble. “Crosses?”

I laugh. “Don’t worry,” I say in a stage whisper. “No crosses here.”

He spots my bulging photo album on the coffee table. “Can I look?” he asks with a little kid’s eagerness.

“Sure.” No guy’s ever wanted to see my photos before. I turn on a lamp and join him on the couch. He whips open the album as if it contains the secrets of life.

“Whose dogs are these?”

“Not mine. I volunteer with a mutt rescue group. I’ve sponsored these dogs, paid for them to stay at a local kennel. Gets them out of the pound where they might be put to sleep.” I point to a photo of a giant white blur. “That’s Banjo. Last week he went to his forever home.”

Shane’s eyes widened. “He died?”

“No, he got adopted. On Saturdays I’d go to the kennel and try to teach him manners so he’d be more appealing. These days it’s not enough just to be cute.”

He flashes me a look of amusement, and I wonder who he thinks I was referring to. “That’s really noble.”