The Vampire Next Door (7 page)

Reeve rubbed his temple with one hand, probably thinking,
This girl is nuts.
But all he said was, “Who’s Lori Grimes?”

I blinked, and realized that I was acting a little crazy. “Lori?” I repeated, more gently. “She’s a character from
The Walking Dead.
She was kind of a slut. She thought her husband was dead, even though he wasn’t, and she immediately started hooking up with his best friend. When her husband finally found her again, it was all kinds of awkward.”

“Oh.” The vampire nodded, and I could only imagine what was going through his head.

“I just think it’s so pathetic how all men ever want is sex,” I continued. “There are so many more important things in relationships. Eddie’s my friend, and I care about him. We went through a lot together. It pisses me off to think that all I was to him was a piece of ass.”

“He probably doesn’t think of you that way,” Reeve said. “Maybe he just cares about you more than you care about him. Or maybe…he cares about you differently.”

I scowled, partly because I knew he was right. It was true, Eddie and I had been friends, but he’d wanted more than that. I’d been the one to say no repeatedly. What had he expected, though? He’d known right from the start that I was married- regardless of how much of a jerk my husband had been before he’d left.

“You’re pretty insightful,” I told Reeve. “For a man, I mean.”

He cocked one eyebrow. “…Thanks?”

I smiled. It was almost surreal, sitting in my neighbors’ living room, having a conversation with a vampire like nothing at all was out of the ordinary. For a moment, the idea of going back to my house and living life the way I had for the last eight months didn’t sound all that appealing. I knew that it wouldn’t take long for loneliness to set in, now that Eddie was gone.

I leaned my head back against the couch pillow and stared at the ceiling, listening to Kellie’s wailing outside. It was fainter here, and not nearly as loud as it was from my basement, but I could still make out some of her words.

“You know what bothers me most about her being there all the time?” I murmured.

“The name-calling?” Reeve replied immediately.

“Nope.”

“The way her voice sounds like a rat being tortured with hot poker?”

I bit back a grin. “No.”

“The way she airs your dirty laundry to everyone on the block?”

“Okay, you suck at the guessing game. Cut it out. No, none of those things. I miss the stars. Other vampires pretty much leave me alone now. If it wasn’t for Kellie, I might actually go outside once in a while and look up at the stars. But she’s there almost every night.”

I paused, remembering how I’d taken the stars for granted before the pandemic. There had been so many occasions when I’d been driving home from a long day at work, and I’d hardly stopped to look up at the night sky. “Now I couldn’t go outside, even if I wanted to. I feel like I’ve been separated from an old friend.”

There was a brief silence before Reeve said, “I feel that way, too. About the sun.”

I glanced over at him, rolling my head to the side on the couch pillow so that I could see him. He had one hand folded across his midsection, with his opposite elbow propped on it, his thumb hooked underneath his chin and his fingers curled up against his mouth.

It was a pensive pose, and I wondered if he truly did understand how I felt. For all our differences, we might both be lost souls, each of us walking a beat out of step with a world that threatened to sweep us away in its relentless, pulsating rhythm.

CHAPTER 5

I woke up the next morning to the rumble of thunder and the sound of pouring rain outside, and my heart sank.

Then the back door opened, and I almost jumped off the couch in fear and surprise. Fortunately, it was only Reeve, and as he stepped inside, water pouring off him in rivulets, I saw that he was carrying my shopping tote- the one I’d filled up with candles and Chef Boyardee cans.

“One second,” he said when he saw that I was awake. He kicked off his muddy hiking boots, which were already untied, and padded to his bedroom in his socks.

My eyes stayed on the bag the entire time. Had I left my gun in there? The crossbow? I honestly couldn’t remember. What about my scooter? Was it still out in the rain?

When Reeve emerged from the bedroom again a few minutes later, he’d changed into a v-neck black tee shirt and jeans. His hair was still wet, tiny water droplets clinging to strands that fell in front of his eyes. He brushed them back with annoyance, and held up the tote. “Are you hungry?”

I nodded, and finally found my voice. “How long do you think it’s going to rain?”

“All day, probably. I can’t see where the clouds end.”

All day? I’d be stuck here all day?

“Is she still outside my house?” I asked hopefully. If Kellie was gone, I’d take my chances in the rain and hobble the two hundred feet back to my front door.

“She’s there,” Reeve said, to my disappointment. “She’s been yelling about money all morning. Apparently you owe her eight hundred dollars.”

“Oh, good grief, are you serious? I don’t owe her a dime. I don’t know where she gets these…” I trailed off. “Sorry. She just gets under my skin sometimes. Where…um…” I stopped and took a breath, trying to collect my thoughts. “Would you mind if I used your restroom?”

Reeve set the tote on the floor and walked over to me, holding out a hand as he approached. “Down the hallway. How’s your knee?”

I winced as I tried to straighten out my left leg. “It hurts.  A lot.” I stared at his outstretched hand, chewing nervously on my lower lip. I didn’t really want to touch him again, but I knew there was no way I could walk to the bathroom on my own. Reluctantly, I put my hand in his.

If Reeve was aware of my discomfort, he didn’t show it. He hooked my arm around his neck and stood, lifting me into a standing position alongside him. I put my other hand on his chest to steady myself, and barely managed to keep from shivering when my fingers skimmed bare skin above the v-neck of his shirt.

“You’re still kind of damp from the rain yesterday,” he said to me as we started the slow trek towards the bathroom. “If you want, I can wash your clothes for you, and give you something else to wear in the meantime.”

“No offense, Reeve, but your clothes would swallow me up,” I said. I was standing on the tiptoes of my right foot, and my arm was still uncomfortably high where it was curled across his muscular neck. He had to have been well over six feet tall- probably six-three or six-four. I felt like a child standing next to him.

“There are some clothes in the master bedroom,” he said, unexpectedly. “Women’s clothes.”

“My neighbor’s clothes? She dressed like an old lady,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “But I guess that would work.” I stumbled, and winced as the movement jarred my injured leg.

Reeve sighed heavily, and in one motion, leaned down and picked me up again. One arm slid behind my back, supporting my torso, and the other one was against the backs of my legs, just above my knees. His fingers gripped my right leg, providing just enough resistance to keep my injured left leg from getting squashed against his body.

I yelped in surprise and grabbed at his chest again- terrible habit, I know- before glaring at him. “Hello? Warning, please. I’m not just some rag doll you can toss around like a…a…”

“A rag doll?” His dark eyes were mischievous.

I looked away, feeling self-conscious. He looked and smelled like heaven, but I’d just woken up, my clothes were rumpled, and I was pretty sure I had crusties in the corners of my eyes. Not to mention, Reeve was still a vampire. Sadly, that had not changed overnight, so the fact that I still found him attractive was annoying me.

He carried me down to the end of the hallway and used one foot to push open a door. He turned sideways so that he could fit me through the doorway without banging my legs, and I looked around curiously at the master bedroom.

Same as the living room, all family photos were gone, but in this room, the frames were stacked on top of the dresser. I felt a slight pang of guilt. I hadn’t known my neighbors very well, and I hadn’t reached out to them when the pandemic had started. Before now, I’d had no idea if they’d been eaten, turned into vampires, or if they’d left town like most other people. With the absence of photographs, it looked like they’d left town.

Reeve set me gently on the bed, and I eased my leg up onto the comforter, grimacing.

“It’s awfully nice of you to lug me around the house,” I said to him as he started opening dresser drawers. “Your mom taught you wonderful manners.”

He didn’t respond at first, but then he turned around, and he was holding a folded article of clothing in a hideous shade of pink. As he shook it out, I realized it was a pair of sweatpants.

“Oh, wow. No,” I said. “There is no way I’m wearing those. They’ll make my ass look like Pink Lake.”

“Pink Lake?” he repeated, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes, Pink Lake. It’s a lake in Australia, and it’s exactly the same color as those sweats. I will not wear those. I’d rather go naked.”

To his credit, Reeve did not make a lewd reply, even though I’d stupidly set myself up for it. He refolded the sweats and put them back in the drawer. “What about these?” he asked, and held up a pair of jean shorts with an elastic waistband.

“Those will work,” I said. They were old lady shorts, but anything was better than pink sweats.

Reeve carried me back down the hallway after I picked out a thin gray tee shirt from another drawer. I was relieved when he left me alone in the bathroom. It was going to be tough to clean up on my own, but I definitely didn’t want his help.

I started by hopping on one leg to the door and turning the lock. Although the flimsy particle wood wouldn’t hold back a hungry vampire if Reeve suddenly did an about-face, I figured it was better than nothing.

I had to do some creative maneuvering to take my sweats off without bending my leg. My ugly knee, swollen, scraped, and considerably more bruised than it had been yesterday, was a sobering sight. I desperately hoped that nothing was broken, and I felt silly for being so reckless. Other than a mild cold in December, I’d been pretty healthy since the pandemic started. I felt like an idiot for sullying my stellar record this late in the game.

After stripping out of my shirt and bra, I managed to perch myself on the edge of the bathtub so that I could run the water and rinse off the worst of the grime. The shower head was detachable, so I was able to wash my face and hair using a bar of soap. I peeled back the bandages from my road rash and inspected my arms. They were skinned all the way from the heel of my hand to my elbow, and they hurt like hell. I’d never had road rash before, but I remembered that when Cole had gotten into his motorcycle accident, he’d suffered some road rash on his back where his jacket had ridden up. The nasty scrapes had taken a long time to heal, and they’d left behind ugly scars.

I hoped my arms weren’t permanently scarred because of this.

I smoothed the bandages back into place, figuring that they probably didn’t need to be changed yet.

I dried off with the towel that Reeve had given me and struggled into the new clothes. They were baggy, but not nearly as huge as Reeve’s clothing would have been, so I wasn’t going to complain. The shorts ended right at my knee and rasped against my raw skin. I rolled up the hem a few inches, thinking that it was a good thing I wasn’t trying to impress Reeve. Granny clothes and a busted knee did nothing for my self-confidence.

There was toothpaste, but no toothbrush. Did Reeve not use a toothbrush, or did he just use a different bathroom? He had to use a different bathroom. I saw no trace of cologne in this bathroom, but I knew that he wore it, which meant that he probably kept all his stuff in the other bathroom.

After some deliberation, I squeezed toothpaste onto my finger and did the best I could with that. In these close quarters, Reeve would probably appreciate it if I wasn’t sporting morning breath all day.

I hooked my vest over one shoulder. Bunching the rest of my clothes up in one hand, I hopped back to the door and unlocked it. I pulled it open, and in a flash, Reeve was standing there.

Had he been waiting for me to finish the whole time?

“Don’t carry me,” I protested, holding up one hand to stop him when he reached for me. “Honestly, I feel bad enough imposing on you like this. I don’t want you to throw out your back or something, hauling me around.”

He looked down at my bare feet, one planted firmly on the floor, the other hovering beside it, but didn’t argue. “I’ll wash those,” he said, taking my dirty clothes from me. “Let me know if you need any help.”

I was taken aback. I’d fully expected him to disagree with me- if not about my insistence at walking myself, then at least at the comment that he might throw out his back. But he hadn’t said a thing to contradict me.

This vampire was just full of surprises.

I hopped back to the couch and lowered myself onto it, stacking my trusty pillow under my knee to keep it elevated. With most of the dirt from my accident washed away, and wearing clean clothes, I felt a lot more optimistic. Reeve hadn’t busted down the bathroom door while I was bathing, either. The odds of him letting me walk- or hobble- out of this house alive were looking better by the moment.

Reeve came from the kitchen and knelt down to look inside my shopping bag. “What do you want to eat?” he asked.

If my gun was still in the bag, he either didn’t notice or didn’t mention it. “Anything is fine,” I said.

He pulled out a can of spaghetti. “Do you want me to warm it up?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you serious? I feel like I’m staying at a five-star hotel. No, I usually eat it cold. But a fork would be nice, if you have one.”

When he came back, he was carrying a fork and had already removed the lid from the spaghetti. “Thanks,” I said, accepting it from him.

I started eating, and he resumed his watch from the loveseat across the room. The silence that followed felt awkward.

“What do you usually do on rainy days?” I asked.

“It hasn’t rained since I’ve been here,” he replied. “What do you usually do on rainy days?”

“Um…I read…and do crossword puzzles.” I wished I had my crossword puzzle book with me right then. It would have been nice to have something more substantial than Chef Boyardee spaghetti to distract myself with.

“What do you like to read?”

“Romance novels, mostly. Have you heard of Barbara Cartland? Of course you haven’t,” I said when he shook his head. “She’s a romance author- or she was. She wrote something like seven hundred books before she died. I have over two hundred of them, and I’ve read every single one at least twice.”

“Romance novels,” he muttered, and there was a note of amusement in his voice.

“Hey, don’t judge,” I said defensively. “Those books are all the romance I have in my life right now. I don’t want my poor heart to shrivel up and die from lack of use.”

“No judgment,” Reeve said, holding up his hands. “At least you have something to do on rainy days.”

The movement caused his biceps to flex against the thin fabric of his tee shirt, and I looked away. Even without my crossword puzzle book, I could probably distract myself with conversation. I chewed determinedly on my cold spaghetti, trying to think of something to talk about.