Dead If I Do (16 page)

my mind. I had a half-formed plan, and it included William. “Will you take me dancing tonight?”

William looked over his shoulder, like he thought I must be talking to someone else. “Me?” He pointed to the center of his goofy reindeer sweater. “If your plan is to make Sebastian jealous, well, for one, I don’t think it will work, and second, if it did, I’m not sure I want to be around a vampire who’s feeling territorial, if you know what I mean.”

I laughed. “I want you to take me to that gay bar you and Jorge went to.”

“Going gay isn’t going to help matters either. You need to work things out with Sebastian.”

“I want to find Parrish.”

“Oh. Well. That sounds even more insane.”

Seventh Aspect: Sextile

KEY WORDS:
Natural Attunement, Openness

Doing anything with Parrish probably
was
a bad idea,
but I got it into my head that he was just the man I needed. Mátyás was convinced that Teréza would settle down with a vampire to help her adjust. Well, Sebastian wasn’t the only vampire in town. William and I spent the rest of the time taking care of the usual business. We sold an assortment of tarot, magic books, and incense. I watched for Sebastian throughout the day, but he must have been pretty mad, because he never reappeared. For my part, I found that when Sebastian wasn’t in my line of sight, I was much more ready to forgive him. He had a point, after all. How many times had he walked in and found Parrish and me in an awkward position? I’d always stayed faithful, but I’d certainly been tempted to kiss Parrish from time to time. It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand the appeal of an ex. Well, we’d have another chance to talk about it tonight, after I got Parrish in on my plan to take Teréza off Sebastian’s hands.

“You ready?” I asked William after we’d counted out the till and gotten the deposit ready for the bank.

“Sure,” William said. Then he looked down at his sweater, “But I might want to change.”

“I think you look super cute,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed a bit dubiously. “I might be impossible to resist.”

“The sweater totally screams take-me-home-and-cuddle-me,” I said. William blushed beet red, so I added, “I take it you’re not quite ready for that?”

“No. I think I should go for something more conservative. So I think I want to stop home. Should we swing by your place too?”

I looked at my own clothes. Winter was tough on my inner fashionista. I ’d gone for simple black for the ritual: a turtle-neck sweater and flare-bottom jeans. A heavy silver necklace of skulls and a pair of many-buckled high-heel boots were my only Goth accessories. Still, I thought, even though I hadn’t changed in a day, it was an elegant look, which would only be enhanced by my red and black flecked, ankle-length babushka coat. “I think I’m good. Besides, I’m not exactly looking to score,” I reminded him.

“Oh, like I am.”

After William showed me the sixth potential outfit, I
was beginning to wonder. “Are you sure you’re not hoping to pick someone up?” I teased him.

“I just want to look good.”

“William, you look good in jeans and a T-shirt.”

“Really?”

From the hopeful sound in William’s voice, I suddenly realized that I’d stumbled into one of those awkward moments where you want to tell your male friend how hot he is without giving him all the wrong signals. “Really,” I admitted. “If I wasn’t already engaged, I’d totally date you.”

“Don’t lie. I’m not your type,” he said, finally deciding on a white, button-down shirt.

“Hmm,” I muttered, because actually William was totally my type before I met Sebastian. In my younger days, I had an unfortunate tendency to bring home strays that needed a lot of direction and guidance. It was bad match, like the blind leading the blind. Parrish and Sebastian were the exceptions. Apparently, anytime I went for alpha men, I also went for the undead. Explain that one to me, Dr. Freud.

“Well, I think I’m ready,” William said.

“Great. Let’s go hit the gay bar.”

On the drive out to Club 5, I remembered to check my
cell phone messages. Turns out, there was a double booking at the reception hall. I’d have to share my wedding reception with a local high school marching band’s annual fund-raiser. Nifty. I guess our hex breaking spell really hadn’t worked so well after all.

I closed the cell with a snap. I was a little disappointed that Sebastian hadn’t called, so I dialed the number for home. When he answered, I almost hung up, having psyched myself only so far as an answering machine message. “Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t entirely over the kiss, but I was getting closer to being ready to hear him out. Besides, I was going to take care of the problem.

“Me too,” he said. “Do you want me to come get you? We could have a late dinner. I’ll make your favorite: pancakes.”

My stomach growled at the offer. “Ooooh, that sounds great, but I was calling to let you know I’m going to be out late. Don’t wait up for me.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “You’re going out? Don’t you think we have some things we should talk about?”

I didn’t want to start another fight. “We do. But I have a solution to the Teréza problem.”

William took his eyes off the road to give me a surprised look.

“You do?” Sebastian didn’t sound convinced.

“You gave me the idea, actually. Parrish. I think Parrish should be Teréza’s vampire mentor.”

There was a pause. Then, “Are you insane?”

“No, listen, it’s perfect,” I said. “Think about it, Sebastian. I mean, I know they got off on a rocky start, what with the whole burning hand thing, but what if they hit it off? They could be a cute couple.”

William almost swerved the car into a ditch.

There were strangled noises coming from the other end of the phone. I could make out the occasional “But . . . I never . . . You. . . .”

“Unless you don’t like the idea of Teréza with someone else,” I said casually. The choking sound stopped abruptly. A few seconds of stony silence passed until Sebastian said, “I still think you’re insane. I’ll leave the light on for you.”

His response was cold comfort, but at this point I’d take what I could get. Maybe he’d warm to the idea if it became a reality.

“Thanks, honey,” I said. “I love you.”

“It’s never going to work, you know,” he said, “But I love you too.”

“It’s
why
you love me,” I reminded him.

“True.”

With that we said our good-byes and hung up. William was still sneaking astonished looks at me. “Did I hear you right? Your plan is to play matchmaker with Teréza and Parrish?”

“Well,” I said, admitting that it did sound pretty crazy out loud, “if it doesn’t work, it’s not like we’re out anything.”

William considered that with a nod. “Yeah, there’s no cover. Plus the music is great.”

I’d never been to a gay bar. I wasn’t sure what I was
expecting: maybe strobe lights, mostly naked men in cages gyrating suggestively to a heavy beat, and lots of fashionable people kissing each other on a polished wood floor. The building we pulled up to didn’t look particularly impressive.

In fact, it looked a bit like one of those big box stores: flat, windowless, and unremarkable. There was a large parking lot around the whole place, and a few cars were in sight. William pulled in to a spot close to the front door. The outside didn’t look particularly edgy or cool. I had hopes for the inside. After all, Parrish hung out here. Inside, there were polished wood floors, but the people dancing were wearing cowboy hats and two-stepping. Sugarland’s “Dear Mom and Dad”

twanged through the place. As I shrugged out of my coat, I leaned in to William and said, “It’s a country bar?”

“Oh, yeah, on Fridays. Thursday is karaoke.”

“And you ran into Parrish here on karaoke night?”

“He’s a good singer,” William said, finding us a table along the wall.

I folded my coat over the chair. “I need a drink,” I said.

I made my way to the bar. A cute, beefy man with dark curly hair and a Celtic knot tattoo on his bicep took my order. I leaned against the bar, took in the very average-looking crowd, and sighed. No hotties in cages. Bummer. In fact, it kind of made me wonder if we’d see Parrish here at all tonight.

With a wink, the bartender handed me our drinks: a hard lemonade for me and a Coke for William. I smiled back, a bit confused, and asked, “Aren’t you barking up the wrong tree?”

“I’m bi.” He grinned mischievously.

And somehow he could tell I was straight. I probably had it tattooed in invisible ink on my forehead. I laughed. “Sorry,” I said.

“I have a fiancé.”

The bartender shrugged. “Lucky guy.”

When I got back to the table, William was giving me a funny look. “Tony tried it on with you, didn’t he?”

“The bartender?”

William nodded, reaching for his Coke. “He’s an animal.”

I snorted a laugh. I was just about to take a swig from my drink when my cell beeped. It was Sebastian’s ring tone, so I picked it up.

“It’s your mother,” said the voice on the other end. It was a good thing I hadn’t taken a drink yet, because I would have spat it out. “I’m at the house, and Sebastian tells me you’re out. It’s not your bachelorette party yet, is it?”

It took me a minute to regain my breath. “Mom?”

William’s eyebrows raised over the can.

“Yes, dear. I came over to talk to you about how things are going with the wedding planning, and Sebastian tells me you ’ve decided to go out.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“You had a fight. Don’t you think you’re being a bit childish? Your wedding is in less than two weeks.”

I sputtered. “A fight? Did he tell you I caught him kissing another woman?”

William put down his Coke to stare expectantly. On the dance floor, the two -steppers kicked up their heels to “Suds in the Bucket” by Sara Evans.

For a moment, I thought my mother might have hung up. Then, she said, “Relationships are about compromise. You should be here working things out.”

“I’ll be home later tonight,” I said, and I hung up.

William’s hand went to his mouth. “You just hung up on your mom.”

I stared at the phone, the audacity of what I’d just done slowly sinking in. “I just hung up on my mom.”

“Oh, man,” William said with a shake of his head.

I dropped the phone onto the plastic tabletop. “This always happens,” I said. “I don’t know what it is about my mother, but I always have these great aspirations to, you know, be adult, and I just end up acting like I’m seventeen.”

“What did she say?”

I rolled my eyes, though I wasn’t sure William could see my expression in the dim light of the bar. “She gave me the whole

‘relationships take work’ speech.”

William gave a little laugh. “Yeah, although with you guys, it’s sort of ‘relationships take zombies’ . . . and voodoo queens, and Vatican assassins, and dead ex-wives, and . . .”

I took a long pull on the bottle in my hand. William had a strange but interesting point. Sebastian and I were always rushing from some supernatural crisis to another. We hardly had time to really have a normal relationship. “It’s no surprise I don’t know that much about him,” I murmured out loud. “When do we have time to really talk?”

“What?” William shouted, as Garth Brooks sang about his “Friends in Low Places.” “Did you just say you don’t know Sebastian?”

“Parrish said something the other day, and it’s kind of been haunting me,” I admitted. My finger traced the label on my drink. “I guess Sebastian fought on the wrong side in World War Two.”

“He was in Mussolini’s army?”

“No, Hitler’s.” Although, again, William managed to make an unintentional point: there were more than two sides in that war. William’s brow crinkled. “What are you saying exactly? Sebastian was a Nazi?”

“He says he wasn’t, and I believe him.”

William looked at his Coke like he was beginning to think someone had spiked it. “So, what’s the problem, exactly?”

“It made me realize how little I really know about Sebastian. Like, who he is—what’s important to him.”

“What?” William put his hand to his ear. We weren’t sitting terribly far apart, but the music was loud enough that it was difficult to talk. I was beginning to wonder why we were here. I didn’t really see country western night as Parrish’s scene, anyway. I stood up. “I should go home.”

“You’re feeling the mom pressure?”

“Kind of,” I said. “Plus I don’t think Parrish is going to show.”

“Are you kidding?” William asked. “He came in about the time you went for drinks.”

“What?!”

William pointed to the dance floor. “He’s right there.”

I strained to see where William indicated. It took me a while to realize that the guy with the ponytail and black Stetson hat dancing with a tall, mustached guy in a white cowboy hat and vest was, in fact, Daniel Parrish. Before I even realized it, I was asking to cut in. White Hat looked at me like I had to be kidding. Parrish gave him an apologetic smile and whispered something in White Hat’s ear that made him blush and step aside with a go-ahead gesture.

“Do I even want to know what you said to that man?”