She nods. “Right.”
“What else are we not going to do?”
“We’re not going to ask if we can ride them, or if they’re temped to kill us and eat us.”
“Right. Good,” I tell her. “What about if we meet a vampire?”
She thinks for a moment, then says, “We aren’t going to ask them if their skin glitters like inTwilight.”
“Excellent. That’s my girl.”
By the time we get settled into our room at Pebblebrook, it’s around seven, and Jules is still groggy from the holiday dinner. Quinn offers us some warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and we take those back to our room and watchElf, because as Jules points out, “It’s officially Christmas season now!” She falls asleep halfway through, and I text Nic that we aren’t up for getting together tonight.
He understands, because of course he does, and sends three selfies with slightly different excited grins when I ask him to meet me and Jules for breakfast at Hot and Steamy the following morning.
We meet him outside the cafe at nine. The way he strides confidently toward us with that easy smile fills me with warmth. I didn’t realize my teeth were grinding until the sight of him loosens my body. It’s not just the way he makes me laugh and pays attention to the signals of my body when we’re together intimately, there’s a cellular reaction to his presence at this point.
Shouldn’t I still be afraid of him, though? Maybe not pepper-spray-in-hand afraid, but like, keep-my-head-on-a-swivel afraid? I search deep inside the anxious part of my brain––which is almost all of it––and come up empty. Myintuition is usually great at detecting danger, but whenever I’m with this goofy undead man, fear is never present. Instead, all I feel is peace.
I watch Jules’s eyes widen the moment she sees him coming. I nudge her side, and she does her best to mask the shock, but she’s a kid, so it’s still pretty obvious. Nic ignores it and offers his hand.
“Delighted to finally meet you, Jules.” His movements are slow, and his voice is soft. My heart squeezes the moment I notice. He doesn’t want my baby to be afraid of him. Meanwhile, her jackass father won’t even let her buy anything pink when he’s around. “Your mom is really proud of you, you know. Will not shut up about how awesome you are.”
Jules tentatively shakes his hand, her cheeks rosy, then leans against my side, suddenly shy. “Nice to meet you too.”
“You hungry, muffin?” I ask, patting her back as if to say,It’s okay, he’s one of the good ones.“Want to get some food?”
We go inside and grab a table by the window after we order. She starts to open up as Nic asks questions about school, music, and her friends, while I try to keep my heart-eyes hidden behind a large mocha latte. When we’re done eating, he pulls something out of his coat pocket. It’s wrapped in gold tissue paper, and she’s practically beaming when he hands it to her.
It’s a makeup bag with illustrations of Sabrina Carpenter wearing her different performance costumes. She gasps and clutches it to her chest as she looks at me with a glimmering smile.
I cannot believe he remembered. I think I mentioned her liking Sabrina Carpenter once on Halloween night.
“Wow, that’s a pretty great gift, huh?” I ask her.
“Thank you, Dominic.”
He bows his head. “You’re very welcome.”
While she zips it open and examines it more closely, I lean toward him. “Where did you find that?”
“Didn’t you hear? The internet delivers right to your door.” Then he winks, and I want to smack him and kiss him at the same time.
After that, the three of us head to the grocery store so I can get the ingredients I need for the party, and we drive in separate cars to the bar. It won’t open for another hour or so, which gives Nic the opportunity to show Jules around and play with the jukebox while I set everything up in the kitchen.
Jules mixes the cake batter while I prepare the pizza rolls, and we work together on making the buttercream frosting. She’s a messy cook, but I can’t get mad when she ends up with flour on her nose.
Anton, the kraken cook, arrives shortly after we make the gluten-free pizza rolls, and I’m impressed to see Jules confidently introduce herself despite his many tentacles and gigantic head. She doesn’t even ask him what he is when one of his suction cups sticks to the inside of her palm, which is nothing short of a miracle. She just laughs it off and says it tickled.
Nic finds us near the fridge, and we go over the menu items I suggested during my last visit. Anton has been working on an antipasto salad with waffle fries, and a flatbread with shaved Brussels sprouts and their very own spicy maple syrup. Nic urges me to provide notes on each one that Anton made yesterday and kept in the fridge. Both are delicious, but I make suggestions on small changes he can make to see if that improves the overall taste. Anton is jovial and receptive to everything I say, and Nic has said that he’s having a blast trying out new dishes.
His many tentacles also make it easy to do multiple steps of a recipe at the same time.
Taste is such a subjective thing, so I don’t exactly feel qualified to tell a professional cook how to do his job, but ifthey get these dishes right, they could have a new wave of locals coming through the doors.
Since Nic is working until close tonight and Natalie has the day off, I take Jules over to Natalie’s house once the pizza rolls and cupcakes are done, wrapped, and stored in the bar fridge.
“Jules!” Natalie shouts as she ushers us inside. “Look at you. Give me a spin.”
