I almost sagged in relief. “It was on sale.”
She came forward and laid a hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”
“Believe me,” I said with the utmost sincerity. “At any second, I could throw up.”
“Well.” She looked around the place once more with that little frown and then shrugged. “I’ll call next time. I thought we could go out to dinner, but…oh, do you want me to bring you in something?”
“No!” Too emphatic. I softened my tone. “I mean, thanks, but I don’t have an appetite. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
With far less force than I’d used with Bones, I propelled her to the door. She just looked at me and sighed.
“That headache is making you act very weird, Catherine.”
I actually pressed my ear to the door after I closed it behind her to make sure she was really gone. Some paranoid part of me thought she’d only pretended and was waiting to fling it back open to catch me with my undead lover.
A noise made me turn around. Bones stood in the bedroom doorway, dressed now. I managed an uneven, fake laugh that didn’t even resemble humor.
“Whew, that was close.”
He stared at me. There was no anger to his expression anymore, and maybe that’s what made me nervous. Anger I could handle.
“I can’t stand to see you do this to yourself.”
I regarded him with wariness. “Do what?”
“Continue to punish yourself for your father’s sins,” he replied steadily. “How long are you supposed to pay for them? How many vampires do you have to kill until you and your mum are squared? You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, yet you’re scared to death of your own mum. Don’t you realize? It’s not me you’re hiding in a closet—it’s yourself.”
“That’s easy for you to say, your mother’s dead!” I sat on the couch with a huff. “You don’t have to worry if she’ll hate you for who you’re sleeping with, or if you’ll ever see her again if you tell her the truth! What am I supposed to do? Risk my relationship with the only person in my life who’s been there for me? She’ll take one look at you, and all she’ll see is fangs. She’ll never forgive me, why can’t you understand that?”
My voice broke over the last sentence and I buried my head in my hands. Great. Now I wasn’t faking it. I was getting a migraine.
“You’re right, my mum’s dead. I’ll never know what she would have thought of the man I’ve become. If she’d be proud…or despise me for the choices I’ve made. I will tell you this, though. If she were alive, I’d show her what I was. All of it. She wouldn’t deserve any less, and quite frankly, neither would I. But this isn’t about me. Look, I’m not insisting to meet your mum. All I’m saying is that sooner or later, you’ll have to come to terms with yourself. You can’t wish away the vampire in you, and you shouldn’t keep atoning for it. You should figure out who you are and what you need, and then don’t apologize for it. Not to me, to your mum, or to anyone.”
He was at the door before I realized what he was doing.
“You’re leaving? Are you—are you breaking up with me?”
Bones turned around. “No, Kitten. I’m just giving you a chance to think about things without me to distract you.”
“But what about Hennessey?” Now I was using him as an excuse.
“Francesca still doesn’t have anything concrete, and we’ve struck out searching for him on our own. Won’t hurt to give it a small rest. If anything does come up, I’ll ring you. Promise.” He gave me a last, long look before opening the door. “Goodbye.”
I heard it shut, but it didn’t register. I sat there for twenty more minutes staring at it, and then magically, there was a knock.
I leapt up in relief. “Bones!”
It was a young man in a uniform. “Pizza delivery,” he said with mechanical cheerfulness. “That’ll be seventeen-fifty.”
In a daze, I gave him a twenty, told him to keep the change, and then shut the door behind him and started to cry.
TWENTY
TIMMIE LOOKED AT ME WITH THE MORBID fascination you’d give an unpredictable virus under a microscope.
“You’re having another pint?”
I paused with my spoon over the chocolate ice cream, raising a challenging brow.
“Why?”
He glanced at the two empty containers near my feet. Or he could have been staring at the bottle of gin balanced next to me on the couch. Whatever.
“No reason!”