I gasped and reared back. “You. You.” I shook my head and scowled,shooting lasers at him with my eyes. Vlad didn’t even glance at the bachelor he’d won. He just stood there looking smug. I pulled back my arm with the paddle as if to hit him, before thinking better of it.
Jessica fanned herself. “Is anyone else feeling heated?”
I glanced at Tyrone, who looked confused, which made sense. My ex was spending ten thousand dollars to send a message. A message to both of us, really. Hopefully Tyrone liked a challenge.
What kind of idiotic grand gesture was this?
Gasps could be heard throughout the gym at the outrageous bid, the loudest from Mariah B. Gary, who, after she’d caught her breath and fanned her face, repeated, “Ten thousand dollars! Valentine, meet your new daddy! Daddy,” she said in a very serious tone, “what’s your name?”
Vlad only had eyes for me, his gaze smoldering a path all the way from his blackened soul to mine. Without looking away, he said, “Vlad.” He dropped the name with all the subtlety of America entering a foreign war.
“Well, Vladdy”—Mariah looked right at Vlad—“you can have me instead if you want, or as part of the package.” She winked. “I’m available.”
It took all my willpower not to slap Vlad across the face with my paddle. He had followed me to Valentine, moved into my house, and now outbid me at the bachelor auction.
Jessica waved coquettishly at Vlad and did a shoulder shrug. To me, she said, “Your ex is sexy as hell.”
“Not once you know him.” Actually, he was. But I would never tell him that, especially after tonight.
There was a brief interruption as a woman charged up the stage and took the mic. She whispered to Mariah B. Gary, who said, “Linda isn’t on the program, but she should have been. Here we go, Valentine.”
In a pair of Carhartt double-knee loggers and a flannel shirt, Linda gave Mariah B. Gary a single nod of thanks. Damn right she should have been on the program.
Mariah flipped her hair imperiously. “Tell us a little about yourself, Linda.”
“I’m a fifty-eighty-year-old lesbian. I own a van. I’m a plumber.”
Fuck it. I held up my paddle. “Three hundred dollars.”
The place went deadly silent.
“Sold for three hundred dollars to the princess fromLord of the Rings! That’s it for our bachelor auction. Merry Christmas, Valentine!”
Jessica nodded in my direction. “I like your style, Tiff.”
I shrugged and headed to collect my date. I held out my hand for Linda and helped her down the stage like the true prize she was and said, “I’ve been looking for a plumber.”
Stick a fork in me because I was done. My two boyfriends were gonna go on a date. And the two of them were both giving me trouble. How much more clearly did I have to explain that I was a vampire? I had bit Tyrone in the neck and he still didn’t want to believe me. And Vlad—what was that, a grand gesture or an act of spite? It was like he’d never watchedSay Anything.
Heaven gave me a side hug as we left the gym. “It’s okay. He’s cute, but I don’t know…seems like he’s got issues.” She dragged out the wordissuesinto two long syllables to make it sound like a disease.
“Tyrone is a saint. I’m the problem.” I defended him without a second thought, but she could be right. It’s not that Tyrone didn’t understand what I was saying. He didn’t want to. Who would want to hear that the woman you’re dating is a vampire?
“I was talking about Vlad, but they both got issues.”
Dr. R popped out from behind Heaven and nodded her head dramatically to back up Heaven’s diagnosis. I was officially not living the dream.
My drunk therapist obviously couldn’t drive herself home. “Do you need a ride, Dr. R?”
“Uhhhhh…” She got stuck on that word for a long time like she forgot what she was doing. Then she blurted out, “Yes! I would love a ride.” She whispered, “I don’t handle alcohol well.”
“What? I never would have guessed,” Heaven said with a glance at me. “You have a lot of private information…You shouldn’t be drinking like this in public.”
Dr. R dramatically mouthed, “Iknow,” and laughed. “I would have been better off as a gynecologist. I knowwaytoo much about everyone. I’m sorry, I normally don’t act like this. You can have your next session for free,” she said to me, clinging to the exterior wall of the gym like it was the only thing holding her up. Heaven took her by the arm and shot me a you-owe-me look.
When Dr. R saw the hearse, she blinked hard. “Is this a—?” She started laughing in an unhinged, I’ve-been-holding-it-together-for-too-long way. “Tiffany,” she managed, “we gotta talk this through, babe. But first, come here.” She made a motion to give me a hug. I tried to resist but she wrapped her arms around me and swayed. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Then she buried her face in my shoulder and drunkenly confessed, “I needed a hug too.”
