I did my business, aware that she did the same. I stopped at the mirror, undoing my hair and rebraiding it, waiting on her. Women wearing stockings or pantyhose took longer than women in jeans. The lighting claimed I needed some color. Lipstick. Blush. Mascara. Something. I braided my hair, watching her feet in the stall. If they spread and braced she might be pulling a weapon.
Adelaide flushed, opened the door—no weapon—and left the stall, meeting my eyes in the mirror; she washed her hands at the sink, standing beside me, still holding my gaze. She was amused, as if she had been betting with herself that I was watching for a gun. I couldn’t help it. I grinned back. She said, “You do yank their chains.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“As often as possible,” she amended.
I gave a head shrug, a tilt of acceptance. “You wow them with your looks and charm, and keep them in their places panting after you. Looks and charm aren’t my strengths. I have to make do with moxie and muscle.” We still hadn’t met eyes directly, the mirror acting as intermediary. But this woman wanted something from me, and I hadn’t figured out what.
“You really have no idea how beautiful you are.” It was an incredulous statement, not a question, and she looked sad.
I snorted, not trying to be delicate. “I know exactly how beautiful I am. I’m not. I have good bone structure, but striking is the best I can do. Now, when I get all doodied up, and my pal Molly does my face, I do better than striking. But I’ll never be beautiful.”
“Mmm.” Adelaide pulled towels and dried her hands. “They all stared at your backside when you left the table.”
“I have a nice butt. Great legs. No class.”
“You chose to display little class,” she amended again.
I leaned my weight on both hands, against the counter, still holding her eyes in the mirror. I let a bit of snarl enter my voice. “Are you trying to be my best pal?”
“You aren’t making it easy,” she said, exasperated. She leaned in as well, her posture copying mine. “Do you know how difficult it is to find a friend who is as tall as I am? Who doesn’t make me feel like a lumbering giant? Who might understand the life of a blood-servant? Who isn’t chasing after me to get close to my mother?” The last was said with a soft undertone of old anguish.
My face fell. Crap. She was serious. After a long, silent moment, I said, “Yeah. To the tall part.” I studied her cornflower blue eyes. They were earnest, a hard emotion to fake. “So . . . you really are trying to be my friend?”
“And I have no idea why I’ve bothered. You are a pain in the ass.”
I laughed. She didn’t. I stepped away from the mirror and looked at her. She stepped back and met my gaze. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay? Okay what?”
“Yeah. Okay. Let’s be friends.”
An expression I’d never have expected flashed across her face. Delight. Which was just weird. Weird that someone wanted to be my friend. And not because I was famous—sorta—or different, or killed vamps for a living. But because I was tall. And because I understood.
Even Molly had become my best pal because I’d intervened between her and a pack of witch-haters way back when. Adelaide wanted to be my friend because she was tall. And lonely. And that I understood totally. I let one corner of my mouth curl back up. “You do know that I’ll never love dressing up like a girl. We’ll never go shopping or to the spa for facials and pedicures. We’ll never have anything in common.”
“Except height and similar awareness of life-with-vamp,” she said.
“Yeah.” I put out my hand, knowing that this part might ruin the possibility of friendship between us. “Jane Yellowrock. I kill vamps for a living.”
She took my hand. “Adelaide Mooney. I sleep with vamps for a living.”
Which shot ice water through my veins. I clasped her hand tighter, electricity zigzagging through me, chilling my skin. Her palm was soft and delicate, her fingers long and slender but powerful, holding mine. “You don’t have to,” I said softly.
“Neither do you.”
I felt the grin pull across my face. “I don’t want to like you. But I do.”
“Good. BFFs. For real.”
No one said BFFs anymore, but she was eighty years old. It was hard for the older servants to keep up with current jargon. “Okay. Deal.” And honest to God, she teared up, her bluish-lavender eyes swimming. “If you cry every time we agree on something,” I growled, “it’s going to be annoying.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “We aren’t going to agree on much.”
I laughed, her tinkling laughter skipping across mine like stones on a lake. “There is that,” I said.
Slowly she let go of my hand. “Thank you.”