14
There are rewards to being a sire: companionship, passing along your knowledge, and keeping up to date with the more modern generation. And the added bonus of having someone who will honestly tell you, “Do not leave the house in that outfit.”
—Siring for the Stupid:
A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Newborn Vampires
With the household’s teen crisis averted and the research into Ray McElray and exorcism at a standstill, I went about trying to solve the wedding-dress problem in a way that did not involve further shopping.
For one thing, I resisted shopping whenever possible. And for another, I didn’t have a car. The reports had been dutifully filed with the insurance company and Ophelia, who, mysteriously, had come to the house to collect them. If she kept up with the visits, I was going to have to buy Jamie a case of that stupid Axe stuff.
Jamie, for his part, was trying to make up for his scampering off by being more helpful around the house. Even his room was less of a pit. And when he heard the faint whisperings of my grandmother’s voice, he either told her off or came to me to tell me what she’d said. Grandma Ruthie was becoming quite the slippery little specter. Neither Jettie nor Mr. Wainwright could seem to catch up to her when she made her appearances in the house. She was always one room away, just a little bit too fast. She was the freaking Hamburglar of the ghost world.
Big Bertha was a total loss. Even Dick’s numerous contacts didn’t have the power to resuscitate a car from the dead. Her carcass was sitting at the Half-Moon Hollow Scrap ‘n’ Salvage waiting to be cubed. Gabriel had offered to let me use his car. Heck, he’d even tried taking me down to an all-night dealership in Murphy to pick out a new one as an early wedding present. But I wasn’t ready for another car yet. And I was sulking a little.
So, Friday night found me in front of the mirror, trying on every dress I had, trying to salvage some sort of wedding outfit that would keep me out of the bridal shops. My choices so far had included a navy-blue church dress with a sailor collar that my mama had purchased for me in high school and a vintage red dress of Aunt Jettie’s that I’d worn to a Christmas party here at River Oaks. There was also a strapless black number that I’d worn to Jolene’s engagement party, only to be found by Zeb’s mother, rumpled and pantiless in a parking-lot clutch with Gabriel.
Wearing the black dress, I stood in front of the mirror, considering the red. It was perfect—fabulous, even. Cinched at the waist with a scarlet sash, the luscious, floaty material fell in a perfect bell around my knees. I even had a pair of sassy pomegranate-dyed pumps to match, thanks to my many turns as a bridesmaid. It was sort of sweet to have something of Jettie’s to wear as my wedding dress. And the idea of a vampire wearing a blood-red dress down the aisle tickled me. But it wasn’t the gray dress.
I sighed. With a couple of quick phone calls, Iris could do away with the whole Austen theme. Hell, she could probably work with this dress and turn the wedding into some mod 1960s masterpiece. I was just going to have to suck it up and make the best of it.
Jolene came into my room, hefting a white garment bag. “Hey!” she sing-songed, laying the bag on my bed and kissing my cheek.
“If that’s your bridesmaid’s dress and you’re here to kick my ass, I will remind you that I asked your aunt to leave off the butt bow this time. Consider it a gesture of goodwill.”
“No, believe it or not, I am not here to avenge myself for the radioactive yellow you picked out,” she taunted. “I am a good friend, you jackass. And I have two surprises for you tonight.”
“Isn’t that what Marley told Scrooge?”
“Jane,” she huffed. “And by the way, it was three ghosts. Yes, I have read that book, so suck it. The first surprise is this. I didn’t want to get your hopes up until it was finished.”
Jolene unzipped the garment bag and whipped it away. She was holding my wedding dress, re-formed. The beading, the color, and the shape of the dress were all the same.
“How?” I asked, hesitantly fingering the water-soft material as if it would evaporate into smoke.
She grinned impishly. “The women of the pack recreated it from a picture of the original dress. I had some shots on my phone from the bridal shop, and Aunt Vonnie still had your measurements from the bridesmaid dress fittings. It turns out my aunts can make clothes that are actually flattering.”
“But your aunts hate me.”
She cringed. “Well, you’re not their favorite person. But my mama doesn’t hate you. And she’s the alpha female, so she told them to pull their heads out of their tails and do something nice for a girl who’s been such a good friend to me.”
My eyes stung, and I felt my nose tingle, a sure sign that I was about to burst into tears. Instead, I threw my arms around her and tackled her into a hug. She lost her footing, and we landed on my bed, my dress fluttering safely to the side as I sobbed.
Andrea came wandering through the door and made an ugly snorting noise. “Please, for the love of God, don’t let Dick see you doing that. He already writes too many imaginary letters to Penthouse without the help of visual aids.”
I giggled, sniffing as I helped Jolene up. I held the hanger up for her inspection. “It’s my dress!”
“I know,” Andrea said, grinning. “I helped with some of the basting.”
“You knew?”
“We didn’t want to get your hopes up, just in case it didn’t come out.”
“Can I try it on now?”
“Actually, my mama’s going to do a fitting with you on Monday. In fact, Zeb is taking the dress to a safe, undisclosed location across town, so certain scissor-happy ghosts don’t get their bitchy mitts all over it.” Jolene yelled the last bit, just in case Grandma Ruthie was listening. “We’ve already called Iris to tell her to call off the dress search.”
“Does everyone know my wedding planner’s cell number?” I wondered.
“I think she sees you as a special case,” Jolene told me. “She needs all the help she can get.”
“What’s the second surprise?” I asked. “Did you get ‘N Sync back together so they could play the reception?”
“No, I think we can agree that it’s for the greater good that they stay separated,” Andrea retorted, patting my head. “The surprise is that we’re going out tonight. It’s your bachelorette party. We are going to distract you from the chaos of your everyday life by dragging you to several bars, getting you blind, stinking drunk, and making a public spectacle of you. There may also be an obscene lollipop bouquet involved.”
“You’re going to take me to the Meat Market, aren’t you?” I groaned, thinking of the only all-male, nearly nude revue in the tristate area, where we’d subjected Jolene to similar premarital humiliation. Once again, this confirmed my theory that bachelorette parties were less about celebrating the end of a girl’s single days and more about friends getting revenge for what the bride put them through during the planning process.
Jolene threw her head back and laughed. “And Jenny’s waitin’ downstairs. Surprise.”
I went to the mirror to give my hair a quick brush and slap on a little lip gloss. “Is my mama downstairs, too? Because that would really ramp up the yikes factor.”
Andrea shook her head. “No. I thought about it, but I’d like to be able to look your mama in the eye again.”
This was my own fault, really. I’d insisted on having the bachelorette party long before the wedding. Because I’d gone on girls’ nights with Jolene and Andrea before, and I didn’t want to start my married life feeling like something recently scraped off Lindsay Lohan’s shoe. Gabriel was not happy with the idea of us going out alone. In fact, he’d done his best to talk Andrea and Jolene out of any bachelorette shenanigans. But they’d convinced him that it was wrong to stop living our lives, just because some crazy redneck had turned my car into barbecue. They wanted to give me the full bridal experience, they said, which made me think that they were still holding grudges about their own bachelorette soirees. I have to learn to practice restraint when it comes to bachelorette accessories. Making Andrea wear the penis tiara all over town was probably going a bit too far, but she had made me tie perfectly square bows on more than fifty lawn chairs for her outdoor ceremony. It felt justified at the time.
I sighed and slipped on some black kitten heels. “Let my bachelorette quote-unquote fun begin.”
“Aren’t you going to change?” Andrea asked.
I looked down at the little black dress I was wearing. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Jane, you are not wearing that dress,” Andrea told me. “You do not make good decisions in that dress. Remember Jolene’s first girls’ night out after the babies? You tried to get a tattoo, but your skin kept healing up.”
“That tattoo would have been really cute,” I insisted.
“It was a full back piece composed of flaming skulls!” Andrea exclaimed.
“Which is why I don’t drink tequila anymore.”
Thank God she didn’t know that this dress was also a contributing factor in the engagement-party parking-lot incident.
“A little help here?” Andrea begged Jolene.
“Don’t look at me,” Jolene said. “I love that dress. Bad Decision Jane is a hoot.”
“You suck,” Andrea countered.
“Well, you’re the vampire, so that means you suck.”
“I’m leaving now,” I told them, grabbing my purse.
Andrea and Jolene bickered as we descended the stairs to find Zeb and Dick helping Jamie set up some sort of Call of Duty mega-tournament.
True to Jolene’s word, Jenny was waiting downstairs in the living room. She was wearing black skinny jeans and a slinky red beaded top, a far cry from her usual twin sets. As I rounded the corner into the living room, I could see her twisting her hands in her lap, a clear Jenny sign of discomfort. Jamie was on the end of the couch, fiddling with a controller and chugging a Faux Type O. Jenny was sitting as far away from him as possible, eyeing him warily. Gabriel was sitting close by, pretending to read the newspaper but keeping a close watch on our charge for signs of bloodlust.
“Ready to go, Jen?”
“Yep!” she cried, her voice cracking as she sprang to her feet and practically ran across the room. I rolled my eyes as she fluffed my hair. “You look nice. Doesn’t she look nice, Gabriel?” Jenny tittered in a high, panicked pitch.
Gabriel put his paper down. “Yes, I love that dress. I have very fond memories attached to that dress.”
Jolene whispered, “I told you so,” and realization dawned on Gabriel’s face.
“I don’t think I want you wearing that if I’m not going with you,” he said.
“It will be fine,” I told him.
“Do you need a cardigan?” he asked. “Those bars can get rather chilly. Maybe a parka or a snow suit?”
“Aw, come on, Gabe, she looks hot,” Jamie protested.
I crossed the room to kiss Gabriel. “Thank you, Jamie.”
“Pretty maids all in a row,” Dick said with a grin, giving us a wink. “Well, not quite maids—”
“Watch it,” we chorused.
“Zeb, don’t you think Jolene would be much more comfortable with an overcoat?” Gabriel asked, motioning to the blue-jeans miniskirt that exposed a good deal of Jolene’s leg.
Zeb shrugged. “What do I have to worry about? Wolves mate for life.”
Jenny’s eyebrows arched. “What does that mean?”
Whoops. This was the danger of mixing new, nonsupernaturals into the group. This was the first solo outing my sister had ever taken with me and my supernatural friends. I was interested to see how it would pan out. I don’t think Jenny was completely comfortable around Andrea yet. And since werewolves were still very much a secret from the human world, she had no idea what to think about Jolene, a gorgeous semi-feral-looking girl who’d just had twins, ate like a horse, and never gained weight.
“It’s just an expression,” I told her as Jolene nudged him in the ribs and informed him that mating for life only counted if the male wasn’t smothered in his sleep.
“You have your pepper spray?” Gabriel asked me. I nodded. “And your silver spray?”
Jamie scoffed. “I don’t get it. If you’re that worried about her, why not just give her a gun?”
Everyone in the room stopped and stared at Jamie in horror, even Jenny.
“Do you really think releasing an armed Jane into the public is a good idea?” Zeb asked.
Jamie frowned, mulling it over. “Good point.”
“And on that note, having had my own childe turn on me, we’re leaving,” I muttered.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Jamie called as we walked toward the front door. Over my shoulder, I heard him say, “Don’t worry, Gabe. My cousin Marnie had a great time at her bachelorette party, and she came home perfectly safe. Of course, she was pregnant by a stripper dude who called himself Marcus the Matador, but she was perfectly safe.”
“Jamie,” Gabriel groaned.
“The wedding was called off,” Jamie added.
Dick chided, “Not helping, Junior.”
We piled into Jolene’s SUV. Our gal werewolf was serving as the designated driver, since she was still nursing. I turned to Jenny, who was trying to swat several stuffed sheep into the twins’ car seats so she could buckle her seatbelt.
“You know you don’t really have to be nervous about Jamie, right? He’s never fed on a human. He’s been on bottled or donor blood since he was turned. He won’t hurt you … probably.”
“That’s not what I was nervous about,” Jenny insisted. “It’s just—I mean, have you seen him? I mean, he was cute when he was a kid, but now it’s just—I mean, it’s not fair! For him to have sexy vampire charm on top of being so good-looking … And now I feel like a sex offender for even saying that out loud.”
I patted her shoulder. “Oh, Jen, it’s not a big deal. I had those same thoughts after I turned him, and that doesn’t make me the biggest pervert in the world.”
She sighed. “Oh, thank you.”
“You’re the biggest pervert in the world, because you’re three years older than me, and that makes you just a tiny bit sicker than me,” I said, grinning evilly.
She groaned, covering her face with her palm. “Thank you, Jane.”
Jolene snickered as she turned her land yacht toward town. “Aw, hell, Jenny, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, those feelings of shame and guilt generally melt away after the second cocktail,” Andrea added. “Add to that, watching your sister carry this around all night, I predict you’ll be feeling just fine in about an hour.”
With a flourish, she whipped out a bouquet made of Tootsie Roll Pops with a long, obscenely pink ribbon stamped with “Last Chance for a Suck!” in bold black letters.
I shook my head. “I knew the penis tiara was going too far.”
She handed me the bouquet. “And I told you I’d get back at you.”
We argued about the various pranks and humiliations of our bachelorette parties and how they might influence the level of havoc played out that night. We argued and giggled and accused, while Jenny listened. And I felt a little bad that Jenny probably felt left out of the conversation.
“You know, I’m kinda glad this is the last weddin’ our group is going to have,” Jolene said. “I’m not sure if our friendships will survive too many more of these.”
“Aww, you’re having our last wedding, Jane!” Andrea exclaimed, her eyes welling up.
“If you start to cry, I will slap you,” I warned. “We will not make it through this thing if you cry when you’re sober.”
“Nobody likes a girl with streaks of blood down her face,” Jenny said, gently patting Andrea’s arm. “Think happy thoughts, like how much fun it will be making Jane stick singles down a couple of the dancers’ banana hammocks.”
“B-banana—Where did you even learn the expression ‘banana hammock’?” I demanded.
Jolene cackled as we pulled into the parking lot of the Meat Market. “Jane, I have a feeling you’re going to learn a whole lot about your sister once we get a couple of drinks into her.”
I groaned. “Jolene, we have got to get you out of the house more often. Ever since the twins were born and your life became sex-free, you’ve gotten all aggressive with your girls’ nights out.”
“Zeb and I have sex all the time,” she protested. “We had sex right before we left the house tonight.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “So, I have a teenager in my house, and I’m lucky to get a handshake. But you have infant twins, and your house is a den of desire?”
She nodded. “The women in my, um, family tend to bounce back into our sex lives pretty quickly. Hell, four weeks after the twins were born, Zeb was cuddling me and kissing my neck and telling me how proud he was of me and how I was handling the kids. And next thing you know …”
Jenny made the “bow-chicka-wow-wow” music.
Jolene chuckled. “I’ve never been inhibited or anything, but once Zeb saw me give birth and lived through it, there wasn’t much about my body that could gross him out. I didn’t worry so much and just enjoyed myself. Basically, the twins were the start of our own sexual revolution.”
“That really doesn’t help me, because I’m never … ever giving birth. But Gabriel has seen my body do other weird stuff. Third-degree burns. Gunshot wounds. That sort of thing.”
“It’s comparable,” Jolene promised me.
“Ugh, this would be so reassuring if I wasn’t thinking about you having sex with my best friend right now.”
Oh, the butt-cheek bacchanalia of the Meat Market. How I had missed it. Jenny watched bug-eyed as three men in strangely ill-fitting sailor uniforms shook it to “In the Navy.” Andrea had a roll of singles the size of a softball and kept waving them around so the dancers would constantly circle our table. Jolene, having suffered through her own phallic-themed bachelorette saga, was kind enough not to make the whole night about humiliating me. She limited herself to exclusively ordering me drinks with extremely sexual names. I don’t even want to know what goes into a “Screaming Sex with a Bartender.” I just know said bartender was really happy to even hear her say the words aloud.
And then I realized that I had had sex with the other bartender on duty. I’d dated Joe Tilden in that regrettable summer after my sophomore year of college when I discovered low self-esteem and tequila. Joe had gotten my hair caught in his watchband mid-thrust and mistook my yowls for cries of pleasure and continued toward an unremarkable end. Of my handful of partners, he was memorable but not for a good reason. I turned on my heel, directing my body entirely away from the bar, and prayed that the strobe lights had damaged Joe’s eyesight over the years.
“Oh, my gosh, is that Joe Tilden?” Jenny whispered, her face flushed and red. I prepared an elaborate justification for her staying in her seat and not embarrassing me in the interests of sisterly love and devotion. But Jenny ducked behind my chair and hid her face in my shoulder.
“You OK, Jen?”
“Don’t let him see me!” she whimpered. “Oh, my gosh, I’m so embarrassed!”
“Jennifer, what is going on?” I demanded.
Jenny’s blush stained her cheeks even brighter. She relaxed as Joe turned his back and began working the opposite side of the room. “Well, you remember before Kent and I got engaged, he went on a spring-break trip with a few of his friends from chiropractic school, and I got upset? We had that huge argument about his goals and where I fit in on his five-year plan?”
I nodded. “It was the only time Mama ever came to me because she was concerned about where your life was going.”
“Well, we took a little break to see where our relationship was going. And I may have gone on a one-woman tear through most of the bars in the Hollow,” Jenny said, covering her face with her hands. “Joe and I went back to his apartment after last call. I didn’t even enjoy myself because I kept getting my hair caught in his stupid—”
“Watchband!” I gasped.
Jenny’s eyes went wide. “You, too?”
I clapped my hands over my mouth as a hysterical cackle burst from my throat. Jenny paled and looked vaguely ill.
“I told you that you’d find out all kinds of new stuff about your sister!” Jolene crowed. I scowled at her.
“Oh, this is just wrong,” Jenny moaned.
“I wonder if he went after cousin Junie as some sort of family hat trick?” I said.
Andrea smirked at me. “You know, they say that you have sex with every person your partner has had sex with. So …”
“Andrea, I appreciate your burgeoning puckish sense of humor, but this is just like that time you wanted to wear the ‘Team Jacob: Because Vampires Shouldn’t Sparkle’ T-shirt at the shop,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s funny but not the time or place.”
“Jolene, since you seem to be one of the few people here Joe Tilden hasn’t slept with, could you go to the bar, please?” Jenny pleaded. “We’re going to need drinks, lots of them.”
About five cocktails in, I realized I’d forgotten the girls’ bridesmaids’ gifts out in the SUV. I was giving them little clutch bags and shoes to match their dresses, which was actually a gag gift. Their real gifts were framed photos of the three of us on the porch swing at River Oaks. My sister was getting a picture of the two of us in matching Easter dresses when we were three and seven. She loved that sort of thing.
I know I yelled my car-seeking plan loudly enough for the girls to hear me, but they were distracted by Marcus the Matador taking his whirl on the stage. I teetered out to the car, wishing I could trade my ice-pick heels for a pair of bunny slippers and pondering why I’d thought that alcohol and stilettos would be a good mix.
I was a few steps away from my car when I heard the gravel crunch behind me. I sniffed and picked up the scent of motor oil and tobacco. I turned and saw a dark figure outlined against the lights of the bar. He was wearing overalls and a ski mask, which was unusual for June. And in general, people in ski masks are up to no good.
“Oh, did you pick the wrong girl to mug,” I said, rolling my eyes. “OK, Skippy, we could do this the easy way, you going home with both testicles intact. Or there’s the other way. I sort of gave away the ending there.”
He whipped a canister out of his pocket, and I could see that it was silver spray. And that’s when it was confirmed that I was dealing with Ray McElray. How many muggers carried vampire self-defense spray around just in case they mugged the undead? Having been sprayed directly in the face by the stuff last year, I knew I didn’t want it anywhere near me. I caught his hand and wrenched it back.
I felt my fangs extend, and I was this close to snapping them right into his jugular. I shoved him away.
“Listen to me, asshole. I’ve never killed a human before. I’ve never even bitten a human in anger. And you’re not going to screw up my record.” I grunted, shoving him against the truck in the next space.
He howled as the bone stretched toward snapping. With his other hand, he punched my cheekbone over and over until I released his wrist.
Ow.
I shook off the pain radiating through the entire left side of my head. Unfortunately, I shook a little too emphatically and ended up head-butting him … which just hurt worse. The pain gave me a sort of mental distance from the fight. I reached out to his brain, and the first layer of emotion was surprise. He didn’t expect this kind of fight from me. He felt foolish for thinking that I would be docile. Female predators were always the ones you had to watch. His brain was a tangled red mess of rage … and reluctance? He wasn’t angry with me. He was just using me for something. Message. That was the word he kept thinking. Message. I was his message. Hurting the vampire wasn’t enough anymore. Gabriel Nightengale had to be taught a lesson.
I saw two little boys, running in a field. I saw dog tags. I saw a house, a burned-out shell overgrown with weeds and long abandoned. I saw a tree, splintered and fallen. I saw a trailer parked in the middle of the woods. In the distance, I could see the Half-Moon Hollow water tower silhouetted against the full moon.
He shoved me back, slamming my head against Jolene’s SUV so hard it shattered the side window. Just as my knees hit the ground, the headlights of all of the cars in the next row popped on, illuminating my masked friend, who I had to assume was Ray McElray. Two vampires in black SWAT uniforms hopped out of the vehicles as if their polyester pants were on fire. Gabriel and Dick came running around the end of the row, sprinting toward me.
Ray shoved his hands into his pockets and pulled out what looked like two air horns. He held them out and pressed down on the triggers, releasing a curtain of silvery spray. Jamie and the uniformed vampires fell back, instinctually shying away from the noxious liquid. Gabriel and Dick ducked through it, their skin sizzling and smoking. I looked up to see Ray sliding behind the wheel of the truck I’d shoved him into. He’d fired up the engine and started pulling forward before Dick managed to throw himself onto the hood.
“Dick!” I shouted as Ray’s truck screamed out of the parking lot. The vampire SWAT guys jumped into their SUV and followed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Gabriel looked torn between following them and helping me. Finally, he and Jamie pulled me to my feet. “What are you doing here?” I asked as Gabriel swept me into a bone-crushing hug.
Jamie patted my shoulder awkwardly. He backed away and went to stand next to Ophelia, who was wearing another church-picnic outfit—a white and yellow sundress that tied with a big pretty bow on the back of her neck.
Ophelia said, “We thought Mr. McElray might be watching the house. He’d see if you left without any of the men. He would see you as being vulnerable and might follow. We wanted to see how far he would take the ‘stop hiding behind her’ sentiment.”
“And the two-man SWAT team?” I asked, feeling rather dizzy now that the head wound was catching up to me.
Ophelia’s nasty smile was a slash of white against the obscene red of the neon lights. “I thought it might be a good opportunity to meet with Mr. McElray and inform him of the proper etiquette of dealing with our undead citizens. I didn’t expect him to be quite so well prepared.”
“So you turned my bachelorette party into a sting operation?”
Ophelia shrugged. “It was either that or the wedding ceremony. I thought you would appreciate preemptive action.”
“I am sorry, Jane. This is not an effort to leave you out or keep you in the dark,” Gabriel said, glaring at Ophelia. “Had Ophelia not pulled rank and threatened me with certain anatomically specific punishments should I tell you about her plan, I never would have allowed it.”
“Well, that explains why you didn’t try to veto the party. How did Ophelia even know about it?” I asked.
Ophelia smiled. “Jolene invited me.”
I groaned. “I have got to talk to that girl about boundaries.”
The SWAT vampires came back empty-handed but for a scraped-up, sullen Dick. Ray McElray knew the roads of the Hollow better than they’d anticipated, they explained, and after throwing Dick off of his hood in a driving maneuver that would have made Dick’s beloved Dukes of Hazzard proud, he’d turned off his lights, sped through the treeline, and taken some winding, barely graveled path through the woods off County Line Road.
“What is going on with your super troopers?” I demanded. “How can one half-crazy human elude you for so long? What happened to ‘vampires are expert trackers’? Can’t you just get a scent on him and follow his trail?”
“Jane, I understand that you’re upset, but you need to adjust your tone before my patience wears thin,” Ophelia said, her own tone cold. “We don’t know how Mr. McElray was able to stay off of our radar for so long. My only guess is that he knows the backwoods of this area much better than we ever could, and it is giving him a distinct advantage.”
Ophelia yelled at the SWAT guys in several languages, and they slunk into the bar to scrape my drunken bridesmaids off the floor and hustle them outside. Andrea was confused by Dick’s appearance in the parking lot but was in no state to ask too many questions. Jenny was singing an eardrum-altering version of “Hot Stuff” at the top of her lungs. And Jolene was confused about why Ophelia had arrived so late to the party.
My wedding party, ladies and gentlemen.
The SWAT guys escorted us home and were instructed to keep watch over the house until dawn. Zeb had apparently lost the Wii tournament and therefore had to clean up the mess from the party while the others went on their strip-bar stakeout. He was more than happy to take his tired, sober wife home, while Dick had to carry tipsy but cheerful Andrea to their car. Jenny passed out on the couch, and we didn’t have the heart to do anything but put a wastebasket and some Advil near her head.
“I gotta say, as far as bachelorette parties go, the arrival of SWAT personnel was still more fun than Jenny’s party,” I murmured as Gabriel walked me up the stairs. Jamie was on our heels, recapping all of his favorite parts of the evening. Most of them involved me getting my ass handed to me by a masked redneck.
“Well, did you live the last moments of your single life to the fullest?” Gabriel asked, grinning wryly at me as Jamie split off to his room. “Is your last wild oat sown?”
“Hey, don’t get all superior with me. I happen to know for a fact that Dick plans to kidnap you into some poker night gone wrong this weekend. You’re the one who hasn’t bid good-bye to singleness.”
“Darling, I bid good-bye to singleness the moment I met you,” he said, before kissing me hungrily.
“Oh, if there wasn’t a mini-vamp with superhearing sleeping thirty feet away, that line would get you lucky,” I said, shaking my head in mock sadness.
“Thank you!” Jamie called. “And don’t call me a ‘mini-vamp’!”