When I returned, Joseph was sitting casually at the center of the sofa. No matter where I sat, I’d be within touching distance from him. I wondered if he’d done that intentionally.
I regarded a chair on the other side of the room. Well, I couldn’t sitthere. It would be weird and insulting. I took a seat on the sofa and carefully handed Joseph his blood, so that my thigh wouldn’t rub against his.
“You didn’t decorate this place, did you?” he asked, looking around.
I chuckled. “Is it that obvious? No, it was all Robert.”
Joseph gestured at the rug I loathed so much—the one that looked like amoebas. “If you don’t mind my saying, that rug is atrocious.”
I threw my head back and cackled, feeling mighty vindicated. I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought it was ugly, despite Robert protesting otherwise. “Don’t I know it.”
“Did you have a nice time at the wedding? It was sweet how you cried at the ceremony. You humans are so sentimental.”
I pretended to be outraged. “I’ll have you know, there were vamps crying, too.”
“Aye,” he agreed. Smirking, he added, “But none as hard as you.”
We sipped our drinks in silence for a moment, then I commented, “You were right about vampires getting weird around you.”
“As I said, they avoid me like a leper.”
“I think it’s because they’re afraid of getting on your bad side. Like you’d have them killed for forgetting to saybless youafter you sneezed.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I don’t sneeze, Olivia.”
“You know what I mean, smart ass.”
His half-smile morphed into a full-on grin. I wondered when the last time was when someone had called him out and lived to tell the tale.
I amended my previous statement. “Actually, they either avoid youorkiss your ass so hard that it’s embarrassing. It must get old.”
He shrugged. “Comes with the job, but, yes, it does get old. Very few speak to me as frankly as you do.”
“It was lovely, though, the wedding,” I said, and he nodded.
Contrary to Joseph’s teasing, the happy couple had left few dry eyes in the house during their nuptials. Jerry and Tim had chosen classic cream as their wedding color, with accents of gold. The flowers were crisp, plentiful, and white: roses, gardenias, calla lilies, orchids, and apricot blossoms. Their first dance as a new couple was to a soulful Motown ballad. The main meal was salmon for the human guests and a blood fountain for the vamps, who made up about ninety percent of the attendees.
One of the best parts of the wedding—for me, at least—was that Robert and Serena didn’t make an appearance, a fact Joseph was wise enough not to address. Jerry was also savvy enough to overlook Robert’s absence, though his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw that I was there with another vamp. Hedidn’t seem aware that Joseph was in the VGO, so I didn’t mention it for fear of upsetting Jerry’s big day.
And Joseph? He was an unexpectedly fun date who cracked lots of jokes and made witty conversation. He also danced in a cool, self-deprecating way. He didn’t even mind too much when a pack of inebriated human women tried to lift his kilt on the dance floor, wanting to know if he was a “true Scotsman.” I about died laughing when he explained it was code for wearing nothing underneath his kilt—a.k.a. going commando—though he declined to confirm. When it came time to catch the bouquet, I stayed seated. Joseph tried to nudge me out of the chair, but the steely look I shot him put an end to that quick. Then, he, too, was cracking up. I’d had such a good time that I’d nearly forgotten how I’d been in front of him only a short time ago, pleading for my life.
He took a sip of blood. “Strange, though, that kid staring at you all night. What was up with that?” Joseph useda lotmore slang than Robert, who would never phrase a question in such a way. It only endorsed how different the two vamps were.
I frowned. “A kid at the wedding? I didn’t see any.”
Then again, what would a vampire as old as Joseph deem a kid? I was a kid to him, if you wanted to split hairs, though we appeared similar in age physically.
“He was a teenager. You really didn’t see him? I thought he was being obvious.”
I shook my head. “No, not at all. Was he looking at me in a creepy way? Like checking me out?”
Joseph thought a moment. “I wouldn’t say he was creepy, no. If he was doing that, I would have said something to him.”
Poor him, I thought.
“It was more like he was observing you. Like he was curious.”
“Hmm, that’s weird.” Could Robert have sent a spy to seehow well I was doing without him? Now I was just being pitiful. As if he cared. “Was he human or vampire?”
