“Really? I had no idea.”
Shane actually liked being around Eve, mostly, although she could get on his nerves; tonight, when he was anxious and trying not to show it, or think about it, she was perfect company. Her way-too-much-caffeine-powered chatter kept him concentrating just to keep up with her. He made the spaghetti sauce, which mostly involved opening a jar and dumping in more garlic, because it bugged the hell out of Michael, and the time seemed to go incredibly fast.
Michael arrived before the sauce was boiling. “Hey,” he said, around kissing Eve’s upturned lips. That took a while, and Shane grunted back a greeting that somehow managed to convey both I’m at the point of gagging and Welcome home. “Shane, the garlic thing? Getting old, man.”
“I like garlic,” Shane said. “Blame Eve—she told me to make the sauce.”
Michael just shrugged. Eve went to the fridge and got out an opaque sports bottle, which she held up. “I already ate,” Michael said. Which meant that he’d stopped by the blood bank, which was why his skin was flushed almost to a healthy normal color. The hungrier he got, the paler he got. When you could mistake him for a marble statue, it was time to run for the stakes. “I can’t stay,” he continued. “I promised I’d do a late lesson thing.”
Michael earned his living at the music store—mainly because he refused, so far, to live the way the rest of the vamps did: by taking on a human, or preferably humans, to Protect. What a joke. The only Protecting the vamps did was protecting their own interests. The humans had a choice—pay twenty percent of their earnings into the vampire’s account, or make regular donations at the blood bank. Most people chose blood, weirdly enough. Money was tougher to come by in Morganville.
Technically, Shane supposed that his Protector—and Claire’s, and Eve’s—was the Founder. So far, Amelie hadn’t asked him or Eve for anything—no money, no blood, no nothing. Maybe Claire’s hard work at the lab for Crazy Mad Bloodsucking Scientist Dude was paying all their bills. That did not make Shane feel more manly.
“Who are you teaching?” Shane asked, trying to make it sound offhand and casual. From the glance Michael shot him, he wasn’t sure he’d gotten it right.
“Raoul Garza,” Michael said. “Why?”
“Just curious. Seems like you’ve got a lot of late-night clients. You starting up some kind of undead band or something?” Not that it was a bad idea, now that Shane said it. “You got a bass player, drums, that kind of thing?”
“Not yet. I’m not sure there’s a lot of interest in that among the vamps.”
“Doesn’t have to be all vamps, though. I’m just sayin’.”
This was almost a normal conversation, Shane thought. Michael didn’t seem paranoid about it, which was good. “Yeah, that’s true,” Michael said. “I’ll think about it. Might be fun.”
“Just make sure I get my fifteen percent. It’s fifteen for agents, right?”
“Bite me.”
“Think you’ve got that backwards, man.”
Michael hugged Eve from behind as she stirred the spaghetti, and kissed the side of her neck. He might have lingered there just a little too long for Shane’s comfort, but so far, there weren’t any scars on Eve’s throat. So far. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Michael said. “You guys have fun.”
And just like that, he was gone. Eve looked after him for a few seconds with a sad expression, then turned the heat off under the pasta and started hunting around for the strainer. She didn’t talk about Michael’s absence after that, just focused on the food.
Shane was hungry, and he wolfed down a bowl, barely stopping to provide mmm-hmm commentary to Eve’s monologue, which was like a bright, manic soundtrack he barely understood. He was thinking about Michael. About what he’d promised to do. Five minutes after sitting down, he was rinsing out his bowl at the sink.
“Hey,” Eve called from the other room. “I know it was good and all, but what’s the rush?”
“Got someplace to be,” he called back, feeling a stab of guilt at her silence after that pronouncement. “Sorry.” That sounded lame.
“I needed some me time, anyway,” Eve said. “Where are you going?”
“I’m dating a supermodel on the side.”
“Ha-ha, very funny. Is that what you want me to tell Claire?”
Shane stuck his head back into the living room area, where Eve still sat at the dining table in the corner, poking morosely at her half-full bowl. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “But it’s important, okay?”