The Awesome (10 page)

The side door was unlocked, as I’d left it earlier. I crept through the kitchen, navigating my way around the center island and table. All was still, the only sound my heart slamming in my ears. For all that Janice had her quirks, she was a creature of habit. She might be dancing in her underwear on the kitchen counter, but she did it every night at eleven sharp without fail. Her weird was on a wonderfully predictable time table. Something was definitely up. I had to figure out
what
.

I didn’t have to wait long. A loud, angry crash exploded from the living room followed by my mother’s shriek and a low groan. My sweaty fingers wrapped around the blades, holding onto them like they were the only reliable things in the universe. I pressed my back against the wall and signaled for Ian to do the same. As much as my gut told me to run into the living room like boobalicious Rambo, I’d been taught better. Patience, move slow, assess the situation—that’s how you beat monsters, with your head. They were stronger and faster. The only advantages humans could hope for were common sense, a good plan, and a little bit of luck.

Another thud, a squeal, and my mother let out a scream. I rounded the corner, crouched low, ready to spring. She gasped, and my hand searched for the light switch. Whoever was here had probably killed the electricity, but on the off chance they hadn’t, I wanted light. Vamps could see in the dark, like cats. I was familiar with my surroundings and could use that to my advantage, but it paled in comparison to preternatural night vision. I took a deep breath, my tongue slicking over my lips. I could do this if I stayed calm, if I maintained my composure. She taught me everything she knew, it was enough.

Go on three—the lights on three. Countdown.

Three.

Two.

One.

I snapped on the light.

Why did I snap on the light?

Mom was there all right, and she was on the floor, but she was not in the dire straits I’d envisioned. There was no pool of blood, or to-the-death struggle, and I didn’t catch a single glimpse of crossbows or guns. Oh no, my dearest mother was straddling some blond guy I’d never seen before, neither of them had on a stitch of clothing, and there were...

Bosoms. Everywhere.

“OH GOD, MOM!”

Awkward did not begin to cover this one.

“Maggie! Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit.”

“IAN STAY IN THE KITCHEN.”

“Ian? That’s your date, huh. HI IAN. I’m Maggie’s mom. Stay out there... where are your pants, Jeff? Damn it, damn it, damn it. I’m so, so sorry.”

I swung around and pressed my forehead to the wall, trying not to stare at the naked people entangled on the floor. Why did this happen? Why? I’d gone on one whole date in my life, and when I got back to my house, my mother was all pale wobbly bits on top of some dude I’d never seen before. Ian probably thought I was a moron to jump to murder before sex. He’d never talk to me again, and worse yet, he’d tell Julie and all his friends how stupid I was.

The desire to insert my head into the garbage disposal was overwhelming.

“Kill me now,” I groaned.

“I’m sticking in the kitchen ’til you tell me it’s fine,” Ian said, his voice lacking the mocking censure I expected and—in my mind—deserved.

“I’m so sorry,” I rasped. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It uhh. It happens.” There was a harsh bark of laughter before he added, “My parents exist to embarrass me, so I get it.”

“This happens? To everyone? Riiiiiight.”

“Well, maybe not everyone, but I mean... you know. It’s cool.”

I steeled myself and peeked over my shoulder to see if the living room was safe, or if rampant nudity ruled the day. Things were improving; my mother’s blond friend hopped around on one leg as he tucked himself back into his pants. Mom had found a long shirt and a pair of underwear, and her fingers combed through the sides of her hair to quell the insanity of ‘got screwed on the floor’ head.

“You’re home earlier than I figured,” she said when our eyes met.

“Noooo. Really?”

“Sarcasm’s not helping. At all.” She wriggled into her pants—which looked suspiciously like a pair of
my
pants—her ears the color of cherries. For once she had the grace to be embarrassed by something she’d done. Good. I wanted to rub as much salt into this wound as possible so she’d never forget the day I choked to death on mortification.

“Right. I’m out of line to want to die right now. Totally.” I slipped back into the kitchen and peered up at Ian, doing everything in my power not to shake, scream, or punch holes in the wall near his head. The latter might not convince him I was a well-adjusted young woman who could handle whatever freak-fest fate saw fit to lob my way which, you know, I was. Kinda. “If you wanna go, that’s cool.”

“Alright.”

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s...”

“Don’t sweat it. Why don’t we do something Tuesday night? No game so I could come get you.”

I boggled at him, incredulous that after this latest fiasco he’d
still
want to see me. We’d had fun at dinner, but so much fun he could overlook cosmic-scale bizarre after seeing my mom naked? I didn’t know about that. He was a guy, not the patron saint of ‘putting up with Maggie’s bullshit.’

I grabbed his hand and led him back to the side porch. For some reason, I had to come clean about everything
right then and there
, to tell him the whole ugly truth about my intentions at the party. Maybe I wanted to push him away so I didn’t have to worry about saving face anymore. Maybe I believed he only talked to me because he felt guilty about nearly boffing me on our first meet-up. But I was as responsible if not more responsible than he was for what went down. He shouldn’t have to shoulder me out of some misguided good intentions.

“I need to tell you something before you... I dunno, keep being nice to me.”

“Okay?”

“I went to that party with the intent to hook up with someone. Not, like, date them, but hook up. I can’t... “ I twitched, eye contact so far beyond me it wasn’t funny. Instead I focused on the top button of his shirt. “I can’t hunt vampires unless I bust my cherry. They smell virgin blood and freak out. I figured I could get a quick lay. I didn’t plan on liking you. I do, though, so you deserve to know it wasn’t your fault what happened. You don’t have to keep asking me out.”

“Okay.”

And that was it. “Okay”. It was the “’Sup” of answers. I frowned, feeling like I’d barf my quesadillas all over him. I dared to glance up anyway, expecting him to be output off by what a skankbag I was, but he smiled. He brushed a finger down my cheek, which inexplicably made me want to cry. I concentrated on the dull throb along my shoulder blade to keep from falling apart.

“I ask you out ’cause you’re cool.”

“I’m not cool.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“You barely know me.”

He shrugged. “I know enough. And you told me the truth about the party instead which is nice. I’m sorry I didn’t... you know.”
Finish
hung between us for a moment. “If you wanna go out Tuesday, though, I’m game. I had fun tonight. Even with the weird ending.”

I nodded, not sure what else to say. My insecurity niggled at me, saying his motivation for sticking around had merely shifted from guilt to the declared promise of The Sex, but before I could entertain the worry overly long, Ian stooped to brush his lips against mine. It must have been like kissing a corpse—I was as responsive as a rock, and I’m pretty sure I forgot to breathe—but when my brain clicked on that he was being sweet, I was sweet back, putting my hand along the side of his neck and nudging his nose with mine. I hoped he didn’t mind the silver flashing near his face. I didn’t
actually
poke out his eye with a stabby. It only looked like I would.

“Six on Tuesday?” He asked, a breath away. I looked into his eyes, taking note of the flecks of gray in the blue irises before nodding and promptly bashing my forehead into his. Both of us winced, but then we smiled, and he reached into his pocket for his car keys.

“Never a dull moment, Mags, huh?”

I watched him leave, thinking I shouldn’t encourage him to call me Mags. It wasn’t the most flattering nickname, what with it sounding like bags, hags, and sags.

From him, I didn’t mind it.

“S
O,
M
AGGIE, THIS
is my friend Jeff. Jeff, my daughter Maggie.”

“Hi.”

Mentally, I added
nice to know your name now that I’ve seen your penis,
but I was pretty sure I should keep the color commentary to myself. I grabbed a pillow from the loveseat and hugged it to my chest, pretending it was someone’s head and I could squash it like a zit.

Jeff flashed me a smile, granting me an unadulterated view of his sharp, white teeth. I went too-still, like a deer sensing a predator. Jeff’s fangs weren’t spiky and wild like the vampire at Plasma, but they weren’t human either, more like perfectly interlocking shark teeth
. It couldn’t be
I told myself, only it was, and I leaned forward to get a good look, tempted to tear off the lampshade so I could better see the color of his skin.

My mother interrupted me before I got that far.

“Maggie, look. Jeff’s last name is... “

“Sampson,” Jeff said, offering me a hand. “Jeffrey Sampson.” I stared at the outstretched fingers like he offered me pestilence. Jeffrey Sampson was the one star vampire job always on the Monster Finder list. Mom told me tagging jobs paid low and weren’t worth the risk, that’s why she left him alone. Now I couldn’t be sure if that was true or if she didn’t want to tell me she humped rotters.

He realized I wouldn’t shake after a moment, and his hand vanished. “I came because your mother said you two crossed an elder’s first born last night.”

“By ‘came,’ do you mean...”

“Margaret.”

Mom stalked towards the kitchen to grab a beer. She handed it to Jeff, he popped the top off, she took a long haul. There was a familiarity to the interaction that lent me pause; by all appearances, they were more than comfortable with one another, so they’d been playing hide the pickle for a while. Since I never went anywhere because I had, like, no friends, I had to assume they did their sweaty monkey business at his place, when she was off doing jobs. Handjobs and blowjobs were part of the repertoire now, too, apparently.

“Let’s get this out of the way.” Mom slid in beside Jeff, and he rubbed her leg from knee to thigh and back again. “I know what you must be thinking.” Considering I contemplated ways to murder my mother’s sex buddy with the weapons attached to my arms, she took my thought process well. “We’re friends, we’ve been friends for a while. Jeff helps me with cases sometimes, points me in the right direction. Over time we...”

“Your mother’s an amazing person,” Jeff interjected. “I’ve never met anyone like her.”

I stared at him, my cheek ticking. On one hand, I could appreciate that he regaled me with Janice’s good qualities. On the other, the fact that it came from the
walking dead
who’d
porked her
... it didn’t do a lot to improve the mood.

“I’m glad I met her,” he added as an afterthought. “She’s good for me.”

“Really glad, by all appearances. Super glad. Like, erection glad,” I said.

“Stop it,” Mom warned.

“No! You stop it!” I threw the pillow at her face. She batted it aside before it struck her nose. “You’re the one who told me they’re untrustworthy monsters. God, Mom, when I walked in here, he probably smelled that I was a virgin and had to do a gut-check on whether or not he’d eat me.”

“You overcome that after the first fifty years or so,” Jeff said, trying for helpful but only succeeding in making me want to stake him through the face. Or the crotch. At least if I went for the junk he couldn’t stick it in my mom anymore.

I ignored the comment, too busy being pissed to pay him much mind. “What am I supposed to think? ‘Head down, stay alert, listen more than talk.’ Those are things
you taught me
about dealing with vampires. ‘They’re hunting you as much as you’re hunting them.’ Does that one ring a bell?”

She guzzled the rest of her beer. “There are exceptions to every rule. Jeff’s an exception.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s earned my trust. He helps me, I help him, both of us live longer for it. But more than that? Because I say so.”

“What a load of crap.”

“Goddamn it, Margaret. This is my house, and last I checked I’m the one who gets to make decisions about what’s okay and what’s not.” She leaned forward, her hands braced on her knees. “I’m sorry you brought your date home to that. It’s embarrassing for everyone, and I’ll apologize to his face the next time I see him.”

“‘If’ you see him, you mean. With my luck he’ll bail on me.”

“If he does that over seeing a pair of tits you’re better off without him.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and slumped back into the couch, the cushions WHOOSHING beneath her weight. “I’m sorry. I’m angry and... Jeff and I got talking about the Plasma thing, things happened, it was a bad call. Not what we did, but the timing of it.”

“Oh, so boinking a dead guy’s cool, just not when someone will find out about it?”

Her eyes jerked up to meet mine. “Not when
you’ll
find out about it. I knew you’d react like this, and frankly, I didn’t want to deal with it. You’re a pain in the ass sometimes.”

My jaw set as I looked over at the lamp. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing, for once. Shut up and say nothing.”

“I can’t do that.”

Mom sighed. From the corner of my eye, I saw her take Jeff’s hand, her calloused, scarred-up fingers intertwining with his too-pale ones. “I know you can’t, and I’m not going to lie. It sucks.”