Eight
Corbin gave a quick apology to Sam and the class, grabbed Brittany’s cell phone off the floor, and headed out after her. He deleted the picture she had taken, glancing briefly at the disturbing image of Austin in the air with nothing holding him. The lack of a reflective image for a vampire was something he had never been able to fully explain with science.
Brittany was sitting on a bench wiping at her eyes.
“Hello,” he said, sitting down next to her.
“Hi.” She sniffled, her voice wobbly, mouth turned down.
“I am sorry.” Corbin turned her cell phone around and around in his hands.
She sighed. “It’s not your fault. I just wasn’t expecting that. And I don’t feel good. My stomach is upset. That’s why I came in the room in the first place.”
“Shall I take you home then?” He put his hand on her knee, not knowing how to fix this. He didn’t even understand fully what he felt for Brittany, and he had no comprehension of how to handle their relationship. Didn’t know what was expected of him, or what he was entitled to.
“Actually, I think I’ll call my sister to come and get me. I want you to finish the class.” She stared out the window in front of them at the dark parking lot.
There was a distance in her voice and he didn’t like it. “I am trying to be normal,” he said, frustrated.
“I know.” She turned to him and gave him a wan smile. “And I’m trying to pretend I can be a soccer mom. I never thought I was trying to defy my childhood, but I think in some ways all I’ve ever wanted as an adult was to just be normal. I mean, I became a dentist. Can you get any more suburban than that? But the thing is, Corbin, we can try, but we can’t change the core of who we are. You’re a vampire, and in my heart, I’m still a wild child, happy-go-lucky daughter of a stripper. We can’t change that, and I guess, ultimately, I don’t want to. But I’m not sure being parents meshes with who we are.”
Corbin squeezed her knee, his heart searing at her words. He had failed her by the simple fact that he was not the man she had expected to meet and marry. He was not the man who could give her that completely innocuous bourgeois existence. Regardless of her feelings toward him, he would always represent the loss of that dream. That made him very sad, very sorry.
But he also disagreed with her.
“The ideal parent is not based on where you live, or what you can provide your child with. A good parent is simply one who loves his child and teaches them values and boundaries in a nurturing environment.” He hadn’t been watching Supernanny religiously for two months without learning a thing or two. Or how to articulate what he suspected he had known instinctually.
He turned to her, touched her chin, brought her gaze around to his. “We have that, ma chйrie . If we were bad parents, we would not worry this much. But we worry, because we care. And ultimately, that is the most important thing our child needs. Two parents who would do anything for him or her.”
Big fat tears spilled out of her eyes. “You’re a good man, Corbin Jean Michel Atelier,” she whispered.
He kissed her forehead. “Let me take you home.”
“No, you should stay. You’re learning a lot.”
“That is true.” He gave a rueful smile as she pleased him by dropping her head down onto his shoulder.
It was a comfortable feeling, her resting on him, and they sat in contentment. Silent, but together.
And after Alexis had picked Brittany up fifteen minutes later, Corbin strode back into the classroom. He had to do this. He had to show Brittany they could be normal parents, whatever normal might be defined as.
“Alright, men,” Sam was saying. “Down on the ground.”
The guys all glanced at each other, unsure what to do.
“I mean it! Down on your stomachs. Crawl. You need to get a perspective on what the world is like for a baby down there. Then we’ll talk safety and babyproofing.”
Determined to do this right, Corbin got down into an army crawl beside Travis, the floor hard and cold.
“It’s freezing down here,” Travis complained.
“Point number one. Always bring a blanket for the baby to lie on. The ground might be cold or hard or covered with nasty germs.”
Corbin glanced around as his fellow classmates all crawled around the room, trying to get into the exercise, but all looking distinctly uncomfortable, except for Dave, whose enthusiasm had him zipping around the entire room. Travis had flopped onto his back.
“Is it time for my bottle and a bath yet?” he asked Corbin, and they both started laughing.
If this was Brittany’s idea of normal, then Corbin was damn grateful they were probably never going to fit in.
“Why couldn’t he drive you home?” Alexis demanded, peeling out of the hospital parking lot at sixty miles an hour. Brittany thought sometimes Alex forgot how strong she was post–blood drinking. With little effort, she could probably push that gas pedal through the floor, literally.
“Can you stop with the lead foot? You’re going to get me killed. Not to mention the whole reason I wanted to leave was because I have a stomachache.”
“Sorry.” Alexis eased up on the gas. “But what a shithead, I swear, Brittany, the hell with him. You don’t need to be treated like this.”
Rubbing her stomach, Brittany tried not to notice that her sister smelled tinny. Like she’d just been hitting the blood buffet. Since her pregnancy, her own sense of smell had heightened, and this was a bit gross. A lot gross, actually. But it was still Alexis, her sister, and she was going to have to get used to it. She was surrounded by bloodsuckers. Regardless of whether or not she and Corbin ever got their act together as a couple, he was still the father of her child.
“Alex, calm down. Corbin is not a shithead. He was going to drive me home, but I told him to stay. The class was helpful for him, since he knows as much about babies as I know about raising alpacas—which is nothing, by the way. The instructor had his baby there and Corbin was playing with him. He likes kids, Alex, he just doesn’t have any experience, and so his confidence isn’t all that great. This class was good for him, and I wanted him to finish it.”
Alexis was grimacing, focused on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel of her huge black SUV. Brittany had often thought Alexis was compensating for her lack of height with her beast of a car.
“If I could change one thing in life, I would have you pregnant with a normal man’s baby. This just complicates everything.”
That stung. Brittany knew Alexis wasn’t being judgmental, she just wanted everything to be easy for her, but it still hurt, like a paper cut. Small and unintentional, but powerfully painful.
“I didn’t set out to complicate everyone’s life. And while I’m sure you, Ethan, and Corbin all wish we could go back in time and erase the fact that we had unprotected sex, we can’t. So get over it. This is reality, and I’m trying to learn how to deal with it, and I’d appreciate you helping me instead of complaining.” So there.
Alexis slammed on the brakes on the side street that led to Brittany’s apartment complex. “Brit, geez, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Flicking her blond hair out of her eyes, she shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded… I just want to make things easier for you, sweetie.”
“I know. But there is no easier. This is it.” Brittany patted Alexis’s knee. Her sister looked sick, her light blue eyes clouded with anguish. “And it’s not so bad, honestly, in terms of me and Corbin. I know you don’t like him, but we get along. He treats me really well.”
“It’s not that I don’t like him, I just don’t approve of his research. He’s dabbling in scary stuff. And he killed a woman.”
“That was greatly exaggerated.” Brittany found it interesting that when her sister raised doubts about Corbin, conversely Brittany’s own doubts evaporated. “And he says once the baby is born and we get married, he’s going to retire.”
“Get married?” Alexis’s look of terror warring with extreme disgust showed Brittany her sister’s take on her getting hitched to an undead outcast. “That’s… that’s… ”
“A possibility, not a given. We’ll see how it goes.” Brittany felt remarkably clearheaded. This conversation had been good for her. It had shown her how futile worrying was. What she needed to do was just live her life. Take charge and stop waiting for everyone else to act, while she would react. “I think there’s a car behind us. You should probably start driving again.”
Alexis made an incoherent sound, but she lifted her foot from the brake and started them rolling forward.
“Does Gwenna have e-mail? I was hoping I could ask her a few questions. Mother to mother.”
Pulling into a visitor’s spot, Alexis shook her head. “I doubt it. According to Ethan, she lives in some moldering old castle in York. No electricity. No cell phone tower. It’s like the land before time. Ethan sends her stuff snail mail, or if it’s important, global express. But the thing is, and do not repeat this to Ethan, but… ” Alexis bit her fingernail and gave her a shrug. “I think Gwenna’s a few cards short of a deck. Not the best person to be doling out advice.”
Brittany discounted that. Alexis was such a logical, tell-it-like-it-is person that anyone who was slightly left of center struck her as weird. She saw life as black and white. But Brittany figured everyone was weird to a certain extent, and a little oddness hanging around a person didn’t mean there wasn’t a little brilliance in the mix as well. She wanted the comfort of talking to another woman who had given birth to a child with unique genetics.
“I don’t care. I want to talk to her. Can Ethan contact her? Or would it make her more comfortable if I flew over there?”
“Good gravy, don’t do that. Just sit tight and I’ll have Ethan talk to her.” Alexis gave her a stern look. “Promise me you won’t go running off halfway around the world. I’m serious.”
Brittany tucked her hand under her thigh and crossed her fingers. She wasn’t making any promises she couldn’t keep. While she had no intention of jetting off to Europe at the moment, she wanted to leave her options open. Her answer was deliberately vague. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
Damn, Alexis knew her too well. “Okay, I won’t fly to England immediately. Or without consulting you first.”
Alexis sighed and popped the locks on the car so they could get out. “You are going to be the death of me.”
“You can’t die.” Brittany pointed out the obvious with a smirk.
“Brat.”
Brittany laughed. It was nice to know that some things would never change.
“Hey, you want to grab a beer or something?” Travis asked Corbin when they finally emerged from the classroom, overloaded with info and a new understanding of the words big responsibility .
Corbin had scrubbed his arm down in the men’s room and checked his shirt to see if there was a visible spot from Austin’s spit-up. It looked presentable, and he suspected only vampire nostrils could detect the sour scent. “Sure.”
“Dave, Jason, you in?” Travis asked the others.
“I’m in,” Jason said, running his hand through his short hair and rubbing his scalp. “I need a cold one after all of that. Jesus Christ. Parenting is like police work—rules, regulations, and paperwork.”
“I need to get home,” Dave said with a regretful shrug. “My wife hates being alone.”
As he waved and trotted down the hall, Travis shook his head. “That guy’s whipped.”
“Seriously,” Jason agreed. “And I figured hey, we might as well go out while we can, right? I mean, there won’t be any grabbing a beer once the baby gets here. At least not for a while.”
“You got it.” Travis hit Corbin in the chest with the back of his hand. “Alright, you guys call your old ladies, then I’ll call mine. Let them know what’s up.”
“Oh, I don’t need to call Brittany,” Corbin said, shaking his head at Travis’s offer of his cell phone. “But you two go right ahead.”
They both gaped at him. Travis looked horrified, Jason skeptical.
“Your funeral, man,” Jason said.
“She went to her sister’s,” Corbin hedged, a little embarrassed that he and Brittany were not married. “She wasn’t feeling well, so her sister picked her up.”
“Yeah, but she’s not going to sleep there, and she’ll be pissed if she gets home and you’re not there.”
Corbin made a noncommittal sound and said, “Go ahead and call your wife.”
Travis cocked an eyebrow. “Dude, did you two argue or something? If she’s trippin’, you need to deal with it. All those hormones and shit, you need to work it through, you know what I’m saying? My dad always said never go to bed wanting to kill the bitch, and that’s good advice.”
Corbin almost laughed. It reminded him of a conversation he had had with his own father regarding marriage. Better to despise each other and have exceptional sex, than to get along but be bored in bed. It hadn’t made sense to Corbin at the time, and he wasn’t sure it did two hundred years later, either. But apparently his father hadn’t been the only sire doling out questionable advice.
“We are not arguing. The truth is that we do not live together, so she is not expecting me this evening.”
“You don’t live together?” Travis said, his bellowing voice ringing in the empty hallway. “You’re married but you don’t live together? How the hell’d you manage that kind of arrangement?”
Corbin shifted and stuck his hand in his pocket. “We are not married. I never said we were married.”
“Oh. Shit. Okay. Sorry. Let’s go grab that beer.”
Apparently grabbing a beer in Vegas meant doing it in a dark bar with glossy seats and women dancing around poles on a pink-lit stage.
Corbin stared at the brunette critically. She looked bored, and harbored a certain sense of entitlement. For every little shake and slide, she seemed to expect money. There was no effort, no emotion. Corbin felt as bored as she did. There was nothing enticing or appealing about a woman just gyrating naked. Where was the aura of sensuality? Where was the buildup, the tease, the hint at a woman’s body, the titillation? This woman was naked, yes, but she was exuding as much sensuality as a stick.
Jason was staring hard at the blonde, who had breasts that were too round to be natural. “My wife used to have a body like that. Before the pregnancy. Rock-solid thighs, flat stomach, tits high and perky.” He demonstrated by holding his hands up by his pectorals. “She wore a thong all the time. Now she wears granny underwear.”
“That’s rough,” Travis said. “But don’t worry, she’ll get the bod back.”
“We met at Hooters,” Jason said. “She was a waitress. I was a cook. She used to lean in to pick up those burger orders and smile at me. That’s all it took. I was gone. I really love her.”
“That’s beautiful, man,” Travis said.
Corbin took a small sip of his beer and frowned. He liked Brittany’s thongs. She was fond of bright colors, and he liked that little scrap of fabric on her fair skin. He would be sorry to see those disappear. “What is granny underwear?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Jason drained his beer bottle.
“They’re underwear that cover everything. You know, like from here to here,” Travis said, his arm moving from his thighs to his ribs. White, or maybe powder blue or pale pink, cotton, nasty stuff.”
Corbin made a face. “Well, I suppose it is more comfortable for the women.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Travis nudged him. “So how come you and the old lady ain’t living together? You break up or something?”
“We’ve never lived together. We’re sort of only partially together… it’s complicated.”
“You can tell us.”
They looked so sympathetic, that Corbin found himself divulging the situation. Leaving out the issue of his vampirism, of course. And a few other things. “We have only known each other a little over four months. We had met a few times, gone out.” They had met exactly three times, and had never gone out, unless you chose to count the night he had dragged her onto the roof of the casino. That had been outside, but not really out . All in all, they had spent approximately forty minutes total together prior to his impregnating her.
“There was an immediate attraction between us, do you know what I mean? Fireworks.” That was the whole truth.
They both nodded.
“Sure.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s how I felt when Sue used to bend over to pick up the onion rings. Like my pants were going to burn right off.”
“Exactement.” Corbin understood that feeling perfectly. “That is exactly how it was. And we both felt it. So we acted on it.”
“And… ” Travis pressed him.
“And I didn’t speak to her for eight weeks after.” Which sounded really unmannerly when he said it out loud.
“Dude.”
“Shit.”
Precisely. “She came to see me to tell me she was expecting our child. I was taken a bit by surprise, to say the least.”
“I fucking guess so.” Travis shook his head. “So you’re just trying to work it out with the kid? Good for you. It’s always good for the kid when the parents get along if they’re not together.”
“Well… the problem is I have complicated the matter. After she told me about the child, I, well, we slept together again. So I thought… but now she doesn’t seem to want to, well, anything, and I don’t know if we are together, or separate, or what exactly it is that she wants from me.”
Their expressions were almost comical, both their eyes and mouths twisted and contorted in sympathetic horror. Corbin felt better, just getting the words, his fears, out in the open. Maybe these men, who certainly had more experience with modern women than he did, would have some advice.
“You’re screwed,” Jason said.
Corbin frowned. “Well, what would you do if you were me?”
“Cry.” Travis grinned at him.
“Run,” Jason added, and they both laughed.
Not feeling too amused, Corbin took another sip of his drink, the bitter taste sliding over his tongue. “I want to work things out. It is very awkward the way it is now.”
“So talk to her,” Jason said. “But before you do that, you’ve got to know if you want to be with her or not. You do, you go in saying, ‘We should be together.’ If you don’t, you say, ‘Let’s just keep it as friends and focus on the kid.’ But you gotta be honest and you can’t play around.”
He did want to be with her. But Brittany had pulled back. Way back. And it was obviously still bothering her that he was a vampire. “I want to be with her, but I am not sure that is what she wants.”
“So ask her.” Jason turned back to the dancer on stage.
Corbin looked at Travis. “What do you think?”
“Don’t look at me.” Travis shrugged. “I don’t know dick about women. My wife, she’s a good woman, and she’s having my baby and everything, but sometimes I think we should have just been friends. There’s something missing, and I try to ignore it, but it’s there, man. That feeling like something ain’t right. I don’t know.” He drained his bottle of beer. “It’s like she’s my mother or something. It’s weird.”
That was weird. Way too weird for Corbin to even comment on. “Maybe it’s just that your relationship has changed because of the baby. She has a different focus now, other than you.”
Travis shrugged, and clapped him on the back. “We’re a couple of fuck-ups, aren’t we? Got good women and we’re screwing it up.”
“That is true.” Corbin sat up straighter. “Maybe we should go to our women, yes, and show them that we appreciate them.”
“I’m in.” Jason waved his hand at the stripper, who looked like she could drop into a nap at any time. “These chicks have nothing on my wife. Sue is beautiful.”
“Maybe you have a point.” Travis pulled some money out of his pocket and put it on the table. “Wouldn’t kill me to think about her feelings for a change. Shit, maybe I’ll even grab her some flowers on the way home.”
“Good plan.” Jason nodded before finishing his own beer.
Corbin was going to pass on the flowers. Brittany hadn’t seemed to appreciate his previous floral offerings. But he was going to find her and talk to her. Tell her how he felt. “I am going to go talk to Brittany.”
He was standing up when he sensed another vampire in the room. Turning, he scanned the room, and was surprised as hell to see Gregor Chechikov, moving up to the bar, cigarette in hand. “Excuse-moi , I see an acquaintance.”
“Catch you later.” Travis punched Corbin in the arm and gave him his business card.
Jason shook his hand. “We should do this again sometime.”
That actually pleased Corbin. He no longer had friends. It would be nice to have other men to talk to once in a while. Carrick and others in the current administration tolerated Corbin, but most vampires were suspicious of him. It made for a lonely existence. When they had all exchanged phone numbers and made plans to get together in a few weeks, Travis and Jason left and Corbin headed over to Gregor.
Corbin was still three feet away when Gregor said, “Atelier.” He turned. “How interesting to see you here,” he said in French.
“I could say the same for you, Chechikov. It was my understanding you were in St. Petersburg.” He moved in next to Gregor and leaned against the bar counter, curious. Gregor hadn’t left the continent in centuries, as far as Corbin knew. He was a big bear of a man, intimidating in both looks and nature, and had been a political associate of Vladimir of Kiev in the tenth century, involved in dealings with the Ottoman Empire. Once powerful in the Nation, richer than God, or at least Donald Trump, he had suddenly retreated from the political arena, before Corbin had even entered the world of the undead. Now Gregor stayed in St. Petersburg, quiet except for the money that he doled out to various causes and factions he supported, including Corbin’s own research.
Gregor gave him a slight smile. “I decided to venture out for the election.”
“The primary?” Corbin found it odd. Illogical. He did not like illogical. And he could have sworn Chechikov didn’t have a party affiliation.
“Yes, and then for the final election as well. It proves to be interesting, and I have never been to Las Vegas.”
Corbin realized that was the extent of the explanation he was going to get. “It is good to see you,” he said politely. Truthfully, he didn’t like Chechikov, and wasn’t really sure why not, but he had to play nice since it was Gregor’s rubles that funded his research. And with virtually no questions asked. Chechikov didn’t seem to care what Corbin was doing in the lab, though he had expressed mild interest in gene manipulation in one of their infrequent phone conversations.
“You, too.” Gregor raised his shot glass of clear liquid and tossed it back. He set it on the counter. “Now I’m off. I am staying at the Bellagio, if you would like to have dinner one night.”
Dinner? Corbin nodded. “Certainly.” Even though he was thinking it was utterly bizarre to receive such an invitation. He and Chechikov were not on those kinds of terms.
Apparently now they were.
As Chechikov headed for the front door, Corbin stared at him, feeling a small niggle of concern. Something was wrong. This was not a coincidence for Gregor to be in Vegas right as Carrick had won the primary and the opposing party’s candidate was set to be announced.
The bartender asked Corbin if he wanted a drink and he shook his head absently, puzzled, staring at the shot glass Gregor had used. Old habits died hard. Glancing around to assure no one was aware of him, he picked up a cocktail napkin. Wiping the rim all the way around, he folded the napkin, and tucked it into his pocket.
He might not have another opportunity to add Chechikov to his DNA database.