I glance at Dante to see if he’s another poor maligned soul that doesn’t ‘do’ holidays.
He shrugs and then breaks my damn heart with his next words. “I live alone. I’ve been living alone longer than most of you have been alive, combined.”
If he thought that would convince me we don’t need to bother with celebrating this year, he’s dead wrong.
Even Silver is frowning in sympathy for this poor vamp who just reminded us about how sad and lonely he must have been.
Fuckingdecadesalone. I barely survived the past few weeks, and I still had people around me.
I guess I’m just a slut for attention from people I care about.
But he’s not gonna be lonely anymore, not on my watch.
“We’ll cook all the best stuff. Sing until our ears bleed and maybe you’ll even get lucky and get a holiday smooch, D-man.”
“Are you sure—” Silver starts to say, but I cut her off.
“If you’re gonna talk about how injured and weak I am, you can stop right there. I’m fully healed and back to normal. And I would love nothing more than to do a holiday dinner for all of us, sweetheart. We don’t have to do presents, but a big family meal with everyone together is happening. This week.”
There’s a lull in conversation after my grand declaration. I guess I’ve amazed everyonethat much. They’ve fallen silent.
I realize pretty quickly that noteveryonewill be here, since Ember is still presumably at the vamp’s place in Arcanum Heights. Silver’s magic, and all of us religiously wearing the Pretty Princess jewelry, has been doing a good job blocking histelepathy, meaning we haven’t had any unwanted voices in our heads for a couple of weeks now.
Ember’s not the only one missing, though. The Big Cheese himself who has enough sway to veto the idea isn’t here either. That’s Fabian, by the way. He’s working again, instead of spending time with his family and his gorgeous sweetheart.
The fucker better pull his head out of his ass soon. Maybe I should have lobbed a stapler at his head instead of at the wall and it might have knocked some sense into him.
“Attendance will be mandatory,” I tell them all.
Una giggles again, then Mona joins in until I cross my arms and stick out my tongue at them.
“I’m not kidding. Day after tomorrow, seven PM. I expect you all to be here and I’ll drag Fabian up here if I have to knock him out first. The idiot’s eyes are gonna fall out if he doesn’t take a break soon.”
As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I want to shove them right back in. Reminding everyone that Fabian isn’t here is not my smartest move. It’s also something that clearly hurts Silver, if the look of barely disguised pain around her eyes is anything to go by.
Dammit.
I know Fabian has a lot going on in the district, and Z and I haven’t exactly been around to help him out since Felix snuffed it. But that doesn’t mean he should ignore everything else in the world aside from work.
All those weeks where he’d forgotten Silver, and she stood there and acted like it wasn’t a knife stabbing into her chest.
Now it’s like he’s forgotten her all over again, with work being the only thing at the forefront of his mind.
No way, Nelly. Not on my watch.
I’m gonna make Silver happy if I have to tear the world apart to make it happen.
“You think it’s a good time to have a jolly family dinner?” Zeph asks.
“Yep. Of course, it is. I can’t see the Bad Vamps giving up soon, so we should all suck up and enjoy the good moments, since we don’t exactly know how many more we’re gonna get.”
Fuck. That came out way more depressing than I meant it to.
“Sorry guys, my near death experience has clearly turned me into a sage mage.”
So damn wise.
Silver gets up from her chair and comes around to where I’m sitting. I push my chair back from the table and cock my head to one side to look up at her, since I’m not entirely sure what to expect from her. My insides go all warm and gooey when she plops down on my lap and gently tucks a loose piece of my hair behind my ear, and I shiver at her gentle touch.
