I turned my gaze down to my menu and tried to decide between something moderately healthy, and something that I actually was hungry for.
I glanced back up when I sensed eyes on me.
Ben Rossi and Jame Wolfe had just come in. Jame waved a couple fingers and tipped his head in question.
They wanted to sit with me.
I realized that actually, I’d like some company.
I nodded, but they were already walking my way, either because Jame could tell I was going to say yes because I was giving off body language a werewolf could recognize, or because his boyfriend, Ben was reading my mind.
Wait. I was pretty sure Rossi had told me vampires couldn’t really do that.
No...he’d just said they couldn’t all read each other’s minds.
“Hey-a Chief,” Ben said with a smile that looked a little tight. “Mind?” He waved at the table.
“Have a seat. You off shift?”
Jame Wolfe and Ben Rossi were one of those couples who were testing the tensile strength of love. For one thing, they weren’t even the same kind of creature, Jame being a werewolf, and Ben being a vampire. For another, their two families did not get along.
Add to that the fact they were gay in a small town, and worked together in the fire department. Any one of those would be the coup de grace to a relationship, but they were making it work.
“Yep. Next two days off. Thought we’d catch a meal,” Ben said.
I raised one eyebrow. Vampires could eat. Not much, and in my experience, they tended to pick a few favorite foods and nibble. Vampires could also drink, which seemed a little easier on them than solid food. Blood was needed to refresh and restore their strength, and most of the vamps got their supply through some Red Cross back channels, or held a blood drive here in Ordinary to sample the local flavors.
It was a nice way for the town to unknowingly support their neighbors, knowingly feel like they’d done a good deed to save lives—and they had: undead lives—and it allowed the no-non-consensual-biting rule to remain in place.
Still, I didn’t think Ben was hankering for diner food.
Jame, on the other hand, might be on for a full meal deal. Werewolves were carnivores with high metabolisms. According to some recent horrified gossip in the Wolfe camp, one of the younger girls had gone vegan. It was almost enough of a shock to take the Wolfe family attention off of Jame and Ben’s illicit relationship.
“Eat here often?” I asked.
“Now and again,” Jame said in his low, soft voice. Everything about him seemed thick and solid: shoulders, chest, arms, fingers. Even his dark hair and closely trimmed, slightly reddish beard were thick.
Ben, who was half Jame’s body mass was just as strong as his partner, if not stronger. Vampires tended to be slender, but that did not make them weak.
“Why are you here tonight, Chief?” Ben asked with a knowing look.
Piper appeared at that moment, and handed Ben and Jame menus. As she reached, I noted she had written #5 T-sour on her pad.
“Hey there, gentlemen. Can I get you tomato juice? Lemonade?”
“Tomato juice,” Ben said.
“Lemonade,” Jame said.
That wasn’t odd, right? Out of all the drink items on the menu she had chosen the two they wanted. Or had they just agreed to her suggestions because it was easy? Maybe she’d served them before and remembered what they liked to drink.
“Have you decided on dinner yet?” she asked me.
“I’ll have the soup and half a turkey on sourdough,” I said. “And keep the coffee coming.”
“You know I will.” She moved her pen like she was writing on the pad only it didn’t look like the pen pressed to the paper.
She walked off to refill a coffee cup a few tables down.
“Can I see your menu?” I asked.
Ben handed me his. “I already know what I’m getting.”
Jame laughed once, a sort of low chuffing sound. “They make better fries at Jump Off Jack.”
“Please,” Ben scoffed. “Any fry in a storm.”
Jame was studying the menu, his eyes bright with laughter, but also very focused. I wasn’t surprised to see him staring at the steak section like maybe he was going to order one of everything.
“I didn’t like the ribs, right?”
“Too much sauce,” Ben affirmed. “Do the porter steak. Extra pepper, extra rare.”
It was cute how they’d been a couple long enough to know each other’s preferences. It made something in the center of my chest sort of ache. I’d never really had someone in my life who knew me well enough to order off the menu for me.
Well, except my sisters.
But the connection between these two men wasn’t at all on the same level as a sibling tie. They were part of each other’s lives because they chose to be.
Despite all the outside pressure that seemed more than willing to keep them apart.
I scanned the menu. #5 was the soup and sandwich. Piper had already written that down on the pad before I ordered. The T-sour, I assumed was the turkey on sourdough bread that went with my soup.
So Piper definitely had an ability she wasn’t talking about. I’d have to find a way to bring it up to her. Let her know she was safe here. Let her know she wasn’t the only person who had some kind of skill, power, magic.
Ben pushed the condiment carrier against the wall, and leaned back, one arm draped behind Jame, hand dropping to his boyfriend’s back pocket. “Have you made any progress on the case?”
“Which one?” I put the menu down and Jame set his on top of mine, lining up the corners.
“The murder.”
I inhaled, nodded as I released the air slowly through my nose. “We still don’t have the murderer pinned down, but we’re getting closer. Do you know anything about his death?”
Ben narrowed his eyes as if fighting off a flash of a headache. “Sven was...private.”
Jame chuffed again and Ben grimaced. “Even more private than most of us Rossis. But he was the newest here in town. And I think...I think he came here to get away from something.”
“And you think that something was what caught up to him?”
He frowned and dragged his fingertip in looping circles on the Linoleum table top. “He had scars. I saw him without his shirt once.”
Jame raised an eyebrow, his nostrils going wide. Ben immediately responded to that slight shift in his partner’s body language. “Please. He was so not my type. It was at the bar where he worked. Someone barfed nachos with extra cheese all over him while he was trying to get them into a cab. It was dark, but he took off his shirt to change into a clean one he had in the trunk of his car.”
“What kind of scars? Where were they?”
“Across his back, shoulder-to-shoulder. It was writing. Carved into his flesh, and whip marks all the way down to his belt line.”
I didn’t know if vampires could heal scars they received before they were turned. “Were they uh...recent?”
“We don’t scar,” he said, answering my unasked question.
“So before he was turned. Okay. Do you know what the writing said?”
“It was a little hard to see, and I’m rusty on my Latin...but yeah. I’m pretty sure it said: Divide and Rule.”