“Yeah?” She found she was holding a hand over her nose and mouth, and her eyes were watering. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I got a job . . . at the city dump. Raking garbage. Hey, did you know there are seagulls out there? Kind of far from the ocean. Anyway, they have showers in the locker room, so I took one before I left, but I forgot to bring a change of clothes.” He tied off the bag and pitched it into his closet. “Also, I’ve decided to look for a better job.”
“Good idea.” He looked so completely annoyed at the idea of another job search that Claire couldn’t stop the giggles that boiled up.
“You laughing at me?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
Shane lunged for her. She squealed and dodged, and made a mock swing at him with the bat. He caught it easily in one hand, and pressed her up against the wall.
Oh.
“How do I smell?” he asked her, very low in his throat. She felt her whole body tingle in response.
“Good.” That didn’t quite cover it. She took a deeper breath. “Great, actually.”
“Glad to hear it.” He brushed her lips with his, very lightly. “Let’s be sure. Take a nice, deep breath.”
She took one. “Maybe a little hint of old diapers.”
“Hey!”
She kissed him. He certainly didn’t taste like old diapers. He tasted like cinnamon and spices, and his lips were soft and hot under hers, and she forgot all about the bat in her hand until it hit the floor with a heavy thunk.
“You taste like tomato soup,” Shane murmured. “I came home to get lunch, you know.”
“Well, get your own.”
“Maybe later.”
Claire took in another deep breath—he really didn’t smell at all like old diapers—and pushed him back. She was nowhere near strong enough to do that, if he didn’t want to be pushed, but he obligingly stepped back. “Now,” she said. “And you’re doing your own laundry, stinky. Don’t even think about asking.”
“Would I do that?” He did the puppy-dog thing with his eyes.
He totally would.
And she knew, as they went downstairs, that she really didn’t mind that at all.
It must be love, she thought, and handed him a can of tomato soup.
ALL HALLOWS
What goes together better than Morganville and Halloween? Morganville, Halloween, Eve, Shane, a sinister stranger at a rave . . . This short story was originally printed in the Eternal Kiss anthology, edited by Trisha Telep, and I was delighted to write it. Michael’s a vampire, and Eve’s desperately in love and trying to make that Romeo-Juliet thing work.
Miranda delivers another of her eerie prophecies, which hasn’t quite come true . . . yet? But who knows? More Morganville stories yet to be told.
I always wanted to put the Glass House gang in full costume; we got to do a little with Feast of Fools, but I wanted to see what they’d wear if they picked the costumes themselves. Not sure it’s a total surprise, but it was a pleasure.
Dating the undead is a bad idea. Everybody in Morganville knows that—everybody breathing, that is.
Everybody but me, apparently. Eve Rosser, dater of the undead, dumb-ass breaker of rules. Yeah, I’m a rebel. But rebel or not, I froze, because that was what you did when a vampire looked at you with those scary red eyes, even if the vampire was your hunky best guy, Michael Glass.
None of them were fluffy bunnies at the best of times, but you really did not want to cross them when they were angry. It was like the Incredible Hulk, times infinity. And even though my sweet Michael had been a vampire for only a few months, that just made it worse; he hadn’t had time to get used to his impulses, and I wasn’t sure, right at this second, that he could control himself.
Controlling myself seemed like the least I could do.
“Hey,” I breathed, and slowly stepped back from him. I spread my hands out in obvious surrender. “Michael, stop.”
He closed those awful, scary eyes and went very, very still. Eyes closed, he looked much more like the Michael I’d grown up around— dreamy, with curling blond hair in a surfer’s careless mop around a face that made girls swoon, tall and not just when he was onstage playing guitar.
He still looked human. That made it worse, somehow.
I tried to decide whether I ought to totally back off or stand my ground. I stayed, mainly because, well, I’ve been in love with him since I was fourteen. Too late to run now, just because of a little thing like him being technically, you know, dead.
I wasn’t in any real danger, or at least, that was what I told myself. After all, I was standing in the warm, cozy living room of the Glass House, and my housemates were around, and Michael wasn’t a monster.
Technically, maybe yes, but actually, no.