chapter Sixteen
PARTY OF FIVE
JOSIE Lynn knew she should have been totally mortified to walk out of a bedroom where she’d just made love to a man she barely knew in the bed of a couple she knew even less, but aside from being a little sheepish, she simply felt good.
Okay, good was an understatement. She felt amazing, giddy, like she was walking on air. She knew that by all appearances she’d just found herself involved with a man who was the stereotype of all things she’d sworn to herself she’d avoid. Sexy, too charming for his own good, wicked in bed, and a Bourbon Street guitarist to boot. But she found herself trusting him.
Her—trusting a man. She never thought she’d say that. Or at least not for a good long time. But something about Drake made her believe.
She followed Drake out of his roommates’ room and across the hallway to his room. They’d been so close to making love in the right room, she smiled to herself at the ludicrousness of what they’d just done. The liberating wildness and excitement of what they’d done. She hadn’t felt this free and happy in months—honestly, maybe not for years.
“Are you okay?” Drake asked as he crossed his room, which now that she was in, she could tell was his. It was as rakish as he was, with a huge burgundy velvet canopied bed covered in black silk sheets and tons of pillows. A guitar lay on the bed. And he had two armoires that looked expensive and antique. Like the bed.
“I’m great,” she assured him, stepping farther into the room as he went straight to one of the armoires. While he looked for clothes, she wandered around, running her hands over his finely made furniture, torn between admiring that and Drake’s finely made rear end.
“All of this furniture looks old,” she said.
He gave the room a cursory glance, then returned to rummaging through his clothing. “It is. Most of it has been in my family for years.”
She touched the velvet of the bed’s canopy. There was an almost otherworldliness to the pieces. Like it all came from another time, which of course it had. But she was also reminded of how Drake could have moments where he seemed like he came from another time, too. There was a gallantness to him. And a strangely proper way of talking. And even when they’d been having sex up against a door, she sensed something almost proper—or elegant—or something, about him.
Maybe she’d just never met anyone like him before. She glanced over at him, standing there totally naked, still managing to look regal.
No, she’d definitely never met anyone like him before. Katie and Stella said he’d come from a privileged background. For a moment, a rush of insecurity filled her. What did she know about privilege? Nothing. She was just a bayou girl trying to make something of herself. And failing thus far.
“You are looking far too serious to be feeling great,” Drake said, pulling her out of her reverie.
She smiled, although some of her giddiness tamped down a bit. “I was just thinking about finding out what happened last night.”
That was sort of true.
“Right,” he agreed, pulling out a pair of jeans and a black shirt. “We need to get back to work finding those Chers.” He tossed his clothes on the bed, eyeing it. “Or we could just stay here a little longer.”
Josie Lynn genuinely laughed at the naughty glint in his dark eyes. “I think we’d better behave for just a little while.”
He walked over to her and pulled her into his arms. “Okay, super sleuth, but promise me you’ll come back here with me after we are done. Because, my love, I am not done with you.”
She smiled, but her heart seemed to beat both with joy and pain. She didn’t want him to ever be done with her. But it was far too soon to make admissions like that. She did know enough about men to know talking commitment too soon was a surefire way to send them running for the hills. Or in her experience, another woman.
“I’d love to come back,” she said, keeping her tone light and flirty. Even as that bittersweet pain filled her chest again.
Drake kissed her, then returned to getting dressed.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” she told him, pointing to the door, feeling the need to get herself together a little. She was sure she looked like—well, like she’d just had the best sex of her life, which was great for her mood, but probably not so great for her hair and clothing.
“Beware the bird.”
She shuddered. “That’s not even funny.” She poked her head out the door to make sure the coast was clear.
“You’ll take on a gator, but a parrot scares you.” Drake chuckled.
She made a face at him, then stepped into the hallway. She could hear Cort and Wyatt in the living room. They seemed to be discussing where to find the person who owned the parrot, or at least that’s what she thought.
She started to head toward the bathroom but changed her mind. Between the two glasses of wine and crazed lovemaking, she was beyond parched, and the refrigerator stood out like a beacon. Cold water. Yeah, that’s what she needed.
She tiptoed to the kitchen, mainly to avoid the attention of the bird rather than Drake’s bandmates. She opened the fridge to find it empty except for a six-pack of beer, a bottle of vodka and large blue Tupperware pitcher. Water? Juice? At this point, she didn’t care, she just wanted something cold.
She pulled out the pitcher and set it on the counter, then she opened the first cupboard next to the fridge. It was empty.
That’s weird. It seemed as if Drake and Cort and Katie had lived here for quite some time. Although she didn’t exactly recall Drake saying that. She guessed she’d just assumed they had from the way Katie and Drake had been teasing each other about his frequent nudity. That seemed like the kind of joke old roommates would share.
She moved to the next cupboard, which was also empty. Finally, at the last cupboard, she found glasses. And only glasses. Regular drinking glasses, wine goblets, beer mugs.
Okay, these guys must definitely eat out a lot.
She reached for a plain juice glass and returned to the pitcher. Just as she lifted it, to start pouring a drink, she heard the loud flap of wings and a high-pitched caw.
“Jack and coke. Jack and coke.”
She instantly jumped and screamed, both the pitcher and the glass crashing to the floor.
She spun to see where the parrot was, terrified it was near her. She located the red bird perched on the top of the refrigerator, regarding her with unblinking, beady eyes. Evil eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Josie Lynn looked away from the bird to find both Cort and Wyatt in the kitchen doorway.
“I’m—I’m fine,” she managed, casting another wary look toward the bird. “The bird startled me. And—and I kind of made a mess.”
She looked down, then blinked. The drinking glass had broken, and whatever had been in the pitcher had splattered all over her bare legs and the floor. And it definitely wasn’t water, and it didn’t look like juice either. Whatever it was looked dark red and viscous. Like blood.
“That fuckin’ bird,” Cort muttered, walking farther into the room. He held out his arm, and Josie Lynn flinched as the bird spread its wings—huge wings, as far as she was concerned—and flew down to land on Cort’s upper arm.
“He is pretty much a drunken jerk,” Cort told her, “but overall, he’s harmless.”
The bird waddled up Cort’s arm and proceeded to bite his ear.
“Ouch, damn it! Okay, let me amend that,” Cort said, still wincing from the bite. “He’s mostly harmless to everyone else, but for some reason, he has a love/hate thing going on with me.”
“I can see that,” Josie Lynn said, though now her attention had gone from the bird to the stuff spilled all around her. What the hell was that?
“Here,” Wyatt said, hurrying over to her. “Let me clean that up. Don’t you even worry about it.”
He placed a hand on her back and arm to usher her away from the mess. She kept looking down. That wasn’t juice. It beaded down her bare legs, reminding her of times she’d cut herself shaving.
You are standing in blood, she thought. Even the way her footprints looked on the floor pooled and congealed like bloody imprints.
But it can’t be blood. Why would they have blood? In a pitcher? In their fridge?
“What happened?” Drake came rushing into the room, his jeans on, but unbuttoned, and his shirt in his hand. He looked down at the floor and at Josie Lynn, and she could have sworn he saw a flash of dread before he masked it behind a look of concern.
“Are you okay?”
Josie Lynn nodded, even though she felt more confused than okay.
“I’m going to clean this up,” Wyatt repeated. “Why don’t you take her to the bathroom so she can wash up?”
Drake nodded, placing an arm around her and leading her down the hall. Again she had the feeling they all just wanted to get her away from whatever was splattered everywhere.
“You didn’t get cut, did you?” Drake asked as he led her into the bathroom and turned on the faucet in the tub.
“I don’t think so.” But how would she know? Her legs and feet looked like Carrie at the prom.
He urged her over to the tub and had her sit down on the edge, then he tested the water.
“It feels warm enough. Go ahead and put your legs in.” He turned to grab her a washcloth from the rack by the sink.
She did as he said, as if in a daze.
He sat down beside her and began mopping the sticky redness from her pale skin.
“What is this stuff?” she asked, her voice quiet, not sure she really wanted to know.
Drake shook his head, giving her a bewildered look of his own. “Some gross protein shake that Cort drinks. I think it’s whey and pomegranate or acai berry or whatever is hip with health nuts at the moment. It’s disgusting. I think he bought it through Amway.”
Josie Lynn stared down at her legs as the redness rinsed away, turning the water pink, then swirled down the drain.
A protein drink. Pomegranate. That certainly made more sense than blood.
“You finish washing off, and I’ll grab you something to wear.”
She nodded, accepting the washcloth.
He stood and headed out of the room. Josie Lynn rewetted the washcloth and swiped it down her leg, most of the mess already gone. A glob of the stuff still clung to her inner thigh, and for a moment, she considered dabbing her finger in it and tasting it. But instead she wiped the spot away with the damp cloth.
She finished up and reached for a dry towel. After she patted all the water from her legs, she hung the towels over the shower rod and headed toward Drake’s room.
“Damn, that was close,” she heard Wyatt say from the kitchen.
“Yeah, that could have been bad,” Cort said.
“Jack and coke. Jack and coke.”
“Okay, I hear you, Winston. Man, this bird has a serious problem.”
What did they mean that was close? And it could have been bad? Then she decided she was clearly making far too much of nothing. Cort and Wyatt could be referring to anything. After all, they were also talking about what appeared to be an alcoholic bird.
“Hey,” Drake greeted her from his doorway. “I found a shirt for you. You’ll probably have to make it into a dress again. But you seem to have a knack for that.”
She smiled at him, deciding to let the past fifteen minutes go. What did she know about Amway protein drinks? They probably all looked like blood for all she knew.
She went into his room and quickly dressed using Zelda’s belt to cinch this shirt, a sort-of-retro paisley shirt in greens and blues.
“Wow,” Drake said, when she walked into the kitchen, which was now spotless. “I gotta say, I like this look even more than the pirate shirt.”
“I think the pirate shirt might be ruined,” she admitted. “I think pomegranate stains.”
“Thank God,” Drake said.
She laughed, knowing he truly hated that shirt, at least on himself. “I have to admit you look a lot better, too.” She admired the way his jeans clung to his narrow hips and his black shirt fit his broad shoulders.
“Are you saying plastic turquoise isn’t me?”
“You were actually sort of rocking them,” she said with a teasing smile.
He chuckled. She loved his husky, rich laugh.
“Ready to go find some Chers?”
She nodded and was pleased when he took her hand. Damn, this night had really gone far differently than she imagined it was going to.
“Where did Cort and Wyatt go?” she asked as they left the apartment.
“They went to meet up with Stella and Katie and to get that damn bird a drink before it pecked Cort’s eyes out.”
Of course, she thought wryly. What a night indeed.
“They are going to meet us at Queen Mary’s. I figured if we’re going to confront a gang of Chers, we better have the numbers going in.”
“Good call,” Josie Lynn agreed, and they shared a smile.
It was funny. She still needed to find out what happened to save her business reputation and to make sure that Zelda and Saxon didn’t somehow blame her for the bizarre outcome of their wedding, but she didn’t feel nearly so stressed about the whole thing. Maybe because she now knew Drake believed she wasn’t involved.
“Thank you,” she said to him as they walked down Toulouse toward Royal.
“For what?” He gave her a cutely puzzled look.
“For believing me.”
She didn’t need to explain any further. He squeezed her hand.
“And you can always trust me.”
And amazingly, she believed him.
* * *
“ARE YOU JUST going to pretend that nothing happened?” Dieter said.
Lizette carefully studied her magazine on the plane and didn’t look at her assistant, who had been studying her far too intently for the last several hours. “Yes.”
“That’s not emotionally healthy, you know.”
She paused on a Chanel ad, wishing beyond anything that Dieter would just drop it. “I wasn’t aware you are a therapist.”
“How about I am just your friend?”
That guilted her into looking up. She sighed. “I appreciate that, thank you. But the last few nights have been challenging for me. It’s very disturbing to wake up and not remember what you did or where you went. I never want that to happen again.”
Especially not now that she was flying over the Atlantic, panties on, suit nicely pressed, hair wound up in a tight bun, feet encased in a pair of pumps. Not her lost Louboutins, but classic, black, quality heels that made her feel in control.
“I can understand that. But that doesn’t mean you just sweep it under the rug and run away.”
That made her feel defensive. “I am not running away. I had to return to Paris, yes? It’s where I live.”
“You have some unfinished business with Johnny Malone.”
There was a definite pang in her heart that she chose to ignore. “The case will be reassigned, but I think it should be fairly open-and-shut. I do not believe he is lying about his identity.”
“I agree, but that’s not what I was talking about.” Dieter was a big guy, and he looked stuffed even in the seat in first class where they were sitting. If they were in coach, he would be eating his knees.
It was a seven-hour flight from New York to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, and Lizette envied the other passengers who were all snoring away on the nighttime flight. This was her day and she was spending it wide-awake with a magazine, replaying every minute of her single night with Johnny.
“I know. I am just choosing to feign ignorance.” When she was miserable, which she was, she didn’t want to discuss it.
“What does that accomplish, precisely?”
“It makes it easier to ignore my feelings entirely.” Because if she allowed herself to consider those, she might agree with Dieter that she had run away. That for all her frustration with Johnny’s behavior, she had not behaved with excessive amounts of maturity herself. In fact, she had been childish. She had run away.
And she had never disclosed why the VA and secrecy were so important to her to Johnny. She hadn’t told him the truth about Jean-Baptiste and his torture. She was so used to steering clear of those emotions that she hadn’t trusted Johnny with the truth when it probably would have gone a long way to helping him understand her dedication. Her paranoia. She sighed and slapped her magazine closed. “Dieter, have you ever met someone who shook your whole view of the world?”
“The woman who turned me into a vampire certainly changed my view of the world.” He smiled at her.
It occurred to Lizette that she didn’t even know how Dieter had died in his mortal life. “Good point. I suppose we all have that in common.” But it also made her realize that in keeping her life so secretive, in working so hard to ensure the secrecy of others, she may have denied herself deep, meaningful relationships.
And what was the point of being alive if she had no one to share her life with?
* * *
QUEEN MARY’S WAS nothing like Madame Renee’s, and Josie Lynn could see why Madame Renee was threatened. This burlesque club was lavishly decorated with lush overstuffed sofas in burgundies and golds. Huge crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the stage looked like something from the set of Moulin Rouge. It made Madame Renee’s look even more pathetic.
Even the clientele seemed more upscale; businessmen, women out for a fun ladies’ night, and tourists with money to spend seemed to be the crowd here.
As they approached the dark wood and gold-accented bar, Josie Lynn saw that Wyatt and Cort were already there. With the parrot. Josie Lynn made sure all the men were between her and the bird as she took a seat, although the icky winged creature seemed far more interested in his drink than anything else.
“So any sign of the Chers?” Drake asked.
“Not yet.” Wyatt said. “But a helluva Lady Gaga impersonator just finished.”
Cort leaned forward to look down the bar at them. “Did you happen to see the Dancing Vagrant?”
Drake shook his head. “Sorry. You’re stuck with the bird for a while longer.”
Cort sighed. “Well at least this time the damn thing didn’t rob anyone.”
No sooner had he said that than a Cher impersonator, this one dressed as Moonstruck Cher, approached them.
“There you are,” she said to Cort. “Do you know that damn bird of yours stole one of my earrings last night? And it was an exact replica of the ones Cher wore to the Oscars in 1988.”
“Of course he did,” Josie Lynn heard Cort mutter and reach for his wallet.
Josie Lynn studied the Cher, then leaned in to whisper to Drake. “He’s one of the five. He was dressed as Believe Cher last night.”
“Are you sure?”
Josie Lynn nodded.
Drake stood up and walked over to the Cher.
“You were at the wedding last night. You crashed it.”
Moonstruck Cher gave Drake a slightly offended look. “Crashed? I don’t think so. We were a gift to the bride.”
As if they realized one of their own was being confronted, the four other Chers appeared from backstage, making a very impressive beeline toward them.
“Great,” Wyatt muttered, “we’re going to end up in a tranny brawl.”
“Well hello, wild ones,” Half-Breed Cher greeted them, hardly looking ready to fight.
Josie Lynn then realized she was talking to her and Drake.
“Wild ones?” Drake said.
If You Could Turn Back Time Cher clucked her tongue. “You two were naughty, naughty, naughty.”
“But so much fun,” Sixties Cher said.
Josie Lynn exchanged looks with Drake. This wasn’t going at all like they thought it was going to go.
“We hung out with you all last night?” Drake asked.
“Obviously,” Cort muttered, handing Moonstruck Cher a wad of cash. “Damn bird.”
“Yes,” Bob Mackie Cher said, “But clearly none of you remember it either.”
“Either?” Wyatt said.
“Brian and I here,” Bob Mackie Cher said pointing to Half-Breed Cher, “ran into a couple of your friends. The ones handcuffed together. And it was clear they didn’t remember partying with us either.”
“So you didn’t drug and rob us?” Josie Lynn said, thoroughly confused.
All five Chers looked appalled.
“Would Cher rob anyone? Please,” said Bob Mackie Cher.
“She is a goddess,” If I Could Turn Back Time Cher stated adamantly. “Not a common criminal.”
Josie Lynn supposed that was reasonable logic.
“Plus, we really are friends of Zelda’s,” Sixties Cher said.
“So who the hell drugged and robbed us?” Drake asked.
“Oh, we can tell you that,” came a voice from behind them.
They all turned to see Johnny, Zelda, and Saxon—and behind them were two people wearing black leather masks with zippers over their mouths and cuffs on their wrists as they were being dragged along by dog collars and leashes. One of the leashes was the one Josie Lynn had used on Waldo, which meant the gator was probably on the loose again.
“Saxon figured out who drugged and robbed us,” Zelda said proudly, and clearly fully recovered.
“Who?”
Saxon peeled back one of the masks on the bound couple, while Johnny pulled off the other.
“Eric,” Josie Lynn said, not totally surprised. But her jaw dropped when she looked to the other culprit. “And Ashley?”
* * *
“WHAT THE HELL is going on?” Believe Cher asked. “Isn’t that Madame Renee’s daughter?”
Johnny wanted to laugh. He wanted to sit down in a chair and laugh his fucking head off at the sheer ridiculousness of this night, and his life in general. Here he was, standing in a burlesque club with five men dressed as Cher while Saxon revealed the culprits in the Great Wedding Dress and Drug the Vampires Caper. It felt like he’d fallen into an episode of Scooby Doo and he was the dog going, “Ruh?”
When Saxon had called him for backup after Lizette had taken off, he had shown up at Zelda’s and found her with her new husband in the Dungeon, trussing up a couple of college kids like they were Christmas geese. Or worse. Now he was being told that this blond girl, Ashley, who had looked so sweet passing out crab cakes at the wedding, but was hissing defiantly now, was a transgender vampire’s daughter?
Johnny didn’t need his acute senses to smell bullshit.
“You’re Madame Renee’s daughter?” Josie Lynn gasped, standing close to Drake. “But he’s so . . . old. And so fond of sequins.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to boom-boom with a young thing in his room,” Bob Mackie Cher said.
Gross.
“So who drugged the punch?” Drake asked. “Was it these two?”
Neither Ashley nor Eric said a word, but it was clear from their silence that they were guilty as sin. Johnny’s urge to laugh disappeared completely. Not only had Lizette disappeared on him tonight, probably on the first flight back to France, but now he also found out that a kid with daddy issues had drugged a whole roomful of vampires? It was mortifying.
“I saw her do it,” Saxon said. “But since she was the catering assistant, I thought, like, she was supposed to add stuff to the sherbet. But when I thought about it, I realized you probably don’t add pills to punch.”
Johnny looked at Saxon, whose crimped hair was going limp in the humidity, and wanted to slap him upside the head. But he restrained himself. “So why didn’t you black out like the rest of us?” he asked him.
“I didn’t drink the punch. Dude, I don’t do rainbow sherbet. I’m a purist. Orange only. I should have been more specific with Josie Lynn when we ordered it.”
“Poor baby,” Zelda cooed to him. “I’m sorry you didn’t get your special sherbet. We can get some later and I’ll feed it to you.”
Johnny gagged a little in his mouth. Zelda had her foot on Eric’s back to hold him in place after the kid, looking more bored than terrified, had sat down on the floor and was holding his head up with his palm. Johnny couldn’t say he approved of the whole masks-and-leashes approach to the situation, nor was he okay with the image of Zelda feeding Saxon orange goop. He wanted to go home, desperately.
So he decided to take charge of the situation. “Okay, look. Eric and Ashley. You’re fired, obviously. But that’s the least of your problems. We can press charges for drugging us, but we’ll go easy on you and let the whole damn thing drop if you tell us exactly what went down and then promise to never show your face in the Quarter again. Where do you live, by the way?”
“Mid-City,” Eric murmured sullenly.
“So do we have a deal?”
“What do you want to know?” Ashley asked, flipping her hair back and meeting his gaze head-on.
“Is Renee your biological father?” Johnny was just too damn curious about that not to ask.
“Yes. He’s not gay, he just likes to cross-dress.”
Huh. He knew that Renee hadn’t been a vampire for very long, and had wondered why the man had waited so long to cross over. Who wanted to be an old vampire for all eternity? But apparently Renee had been committed to being a dad and had put that before immortality. He had to say he admired the man’s commitment to his daughter, even if she had grown up to be a conniving criminal with poor planning skills.
“So why did you drug us?”
“To rob you and frame the Chers for it.”
Turn Back Time Cher gasped. “What! How dare you?”
Oh my God. Johnny looked to Drake for help, but Drake was too busy undressing Josie Lynn with his eyes to be of any assistance. How come Johnny was the one with the broken heart and the one dealing with divas and morons? This was not his usual role, being the responsible one, and he wasn’t really digging it.
Fortunately, Wyatt stepped in and helped him out on this one. “Ashley, why would you do that?”
“Because my father’s club is going to go bankrupt. It’s not fair. I just wanted to get rid of some of his competition.”
It was twisted and stupid and guaranteed to fail, but Johnny appreciated her loyalty to her family. He personally would do a lot for Stella. “What about the wedding dress?”
“I didn’t take the wedding dress!”
Bob Mackie Cher looked a little guilty. “Okay, that one is on me, I admit it. Zelda and I were in the ladies room powdering our noses and we had a girl moment where we traded clothes. Only I may have slipped out of the reception before we could trade back, because, honey, that leather bustier was the tits.” He held his hands out dramatically. “Eve presented me with the apple and I bit, I am sorry. I couldn’t resist. I’ll dry-clean the damn thing and return it.” He sighed forlornly. “Though it may kill me.”
Zelda cracked a whip in Bob Mackie Cher’s direction, looking furious. He squealed and ran behind Sixties Cher for protection. Johnny felt a headache coming on, one no acetaminophen was going to fix.
“So where does Eric fit into this?” Josie Lynn asked, frowning at her former employee. “Why would you do this to me?”
“I just wanted to hook up with Ashley,” Eric mumbled, rubbing his eyebrows. “I might have, like, a thing for her.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say Eric has learned his lesson.” Katie reached over and undid his restraints. “Go home, and next time think with your head, not your heart.”
“Babe, I don’t think it was his heart he was thinking with, but another body part,” Cort told his wife with a grin.
“Your sweetness is my weakness,” the parrot squawked.
Stella let out a laugh. “Is the parrot quoting Barry White again?”
Johnny felt like sighing. His heart was broken. Did no one notice that? Or were they all just blinded by bedazzled men and hoodwinking juvenile criminals? It wasn’t every day Johnny found himself in love with a woman, and yet no one seemed to notice.
Once freed, Eric made a break for the front door, abandoning Ashley. So at least Johnny wouldn’t be the only one not getting laid that night.
“Are we all done here?” he asked, waving his arms around. “Has every question been given a stupid answer?”
“I think we need to march Miss Ma’am here on down to her daddy,” Believe Cher said, taking Ashley by the arm. “And have a little chat about what is ladylike behavior and what isn’t.”
As long as it didn’t involve him, he was cool with it.
* * *
JOSIE LYNN DREADED talking to Zelda and Saxon. She couldn’t have known what Ashley and Eric had planned. But she knew she had to say something. It had been her employees that had ruined their special day.
“Zelda,” Josie Lynn touched the Amazonian woman’s arm. “I’m so sorry this happened, and on your wedding day.”
To Josie Lynn’s surprise, Zelda just smiled.
“Honey, this is New Orleans. I never expected to have a normal wedding.”
“Right,” Josie Lynn agreed, because she wasn’t quite sure what else to say.
“Just like I didn’t expect to find myself married to a real vampire,” Zelda said, smiling at Saxon. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
Saxon put his arm around his wife, looking almost tiny beside her. “She didn’t even believe me until today.”
Josie Lynn frowned, casting a baffled look between the two of them. Vampires? Okay, maybe her employees weren’t the only ones who were nutso.
Zelda gave Josie Lynn a conspiratorial look. “Well who actually expects to marry a vampire? But then again, it appears you are also involved with a vampire, so you understand.”
Josie Lynn stopped gaping at Zelda to stare at Drake. He stood beside the bar, talking to Johnny. A vampire.
Then all the things she’d seen and heard came back to her in full clarity. The way Katie and Stella talked about Drake’s past. Those moments when he seemed from another time. The talk of their kind. The mentions of bats. The blood—it had been blood in the fridge. Even his furniture.
Could it be true?
She looked at him again. She’d fallen for a vampire. And even if it wasn’t true, she’d fallen for a man who very likely thought he was a vampire. She looked back to Zelda and Saxon. They all thought they were vampires.
Oh my God. She had to get out of here. She’d promised herself not to ever have feelings for a bad boy again.
Well, she should have told herself not to fall for madmen either.
* * *
“YOU HANDLED THAT well, my friend,” Drake said, clapping Johnny on the back. “I felt like I was watching Perry Mason at work. Questions answered. Mystery solved. Even if it was the worst plan for a crime that I’ve ever heard. Framing a tranny gang of Chers. Only in New Orleans.”
“Yeah, only in New Orleans,” Johnny agreed, only half hearing his friend, his thoughts back on Lizette. How could she just leave without letting him explain? Apologize? Beg?
“So I see you got free from the uptight little Frenchie,” Drake said.
“Don’t call her that,” Johnny snapped.
Drake raised his hands. “No offense meant.” He looked around. “Where is she anyway? I’d have thought she’d want answers, too.”
“She’s gone.”
Drake didn’t speak for a moment. “You fell for her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Johnny wasn’t even going to deny it. Or play it down. He had fallen for her. Hard.
“And she just took off?” Drake said, his expression of sympathy making Johnny feel even worse.
“Fucking took off, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Just gone. Goddamn Raven. She wouldn’t even let me explain.”
“Raven? Figures that asshole is involved. Sorry, man.”
* * *
DRAKE COULDN’T RECALL ever seeing his friend look so upset. Johnny was all about a good time, all the time. He was also about keeping things light. No heavy emotions. No getting too invested. No falling in love.
Drake understood that philosophy. He’d always been the same way. He’d been burned way too many times. But just like Johnny, he’d let that rule fly out the window tonight. He was thoroughly smitten with Josie Lynn and he was well on his way to truly being head over heels.
“Damn,” was all he could say to Johnny, because he understood how the guy must feel. He’d be devastated if Josie Lynn just walked out on him.
He looked toward where she’d just been talking to Zelda and Saxon, but she wasn’t there. And the newlyweds were headed toward the bar. He frowned, looking around to see where she went, but he didn’t see her amidst the opulent furniture and patrons.
“Hey, where’s Josie Lynn?” he asked Saxon when his friend reached his side.
“She left.”
“What?”
Saxon shrugged. “She just suddenly got all weirded out and said she had to go.”
“Go? Where? Why did she get weirded out?”
Saxon looked confused by the barrage of questions. “I don’t know where she went. We were just talking about the wedding and she suddenly said she had to go.”
Why would talking about the wedding make her suddenly leave? Had she headed back to the reception venue to gather her stuff? But why wouldn’t she tell him? Why wouldn’t she think he’d want to go with her?
“What did you say about the wedding?” he asked. This just wasn’t adding up.
“Just that she didn’t need to apologize for her employees. No one expects a New Orleans wedding to go normally.”
Drake frowned. Why would that upset her? That should have eased her mind.
“I mean, Zelda just married a vampire. Who’s in a vampire band.”
Drake gaped at his flaky friend. “Did you actually say that?”
Saxon thought for a moment. “Yeah, something like that.”
Drake grabbed his friend’s upper arms and shook him. “You told her we’re vampires?!”
“Dude,” Saxon said, looking down at where Drake held him. “You need to work on your Zen, man.”
Work on his Zen. How the hell was he ever going to be Zen again? The first woman he honestly believed he could love with for all eternity had just run off, either thinking he was insane, or thinking he was really a vampire. Or both.
Behind him, he heard Johnny give a bark of bitter laughter. “And just like that. Gone. Dude, we’re going to be a couple of old single creepy vampires living in some duplex together, aren’t we?”
Drake shuddered. He liked Johnny, but yeah, there was no comparison between eternity with him and Josie Lynn.