Undead and Unpopular (8 page)

"I had other plans for us tonight," Sinclair said, looking nudely aggrieved.

I had just plunked BabyJon into the port-a-crib in our room, none too happy about current events. I was trying not to drool at my fiancé, who was standing, hands on hips, beside our bed. His dark hair was mussed from where he'd pulled his undershirt over his head (vampires layered), which was the only indication that he was annoyed. With his broad shoulders, long muscled legs, and big, uh, nipples, he could have been a lumberjack slumming in the state capital. All he needed was the axe. And possibly the blue ox.

"This wasn't exactly how I pictured spending the evening, either."

"Must he sleep in here with us?" Sinclair continued.

"He's not exactly sleeping," I mumbled, as BabyJon cooed and chortled in the port-a-crib.

"Why not put him down in another room?"

"Why do that when I can put him down here?" I looked at the baby. "You're fat and you don't know how to use toilet paper."

"I am quite serious, Elizabeth. Put him down somewhere else."

"Eric! Be sensible. What if something happened to him? This is an eighty-room mansion. What if he chokes? I'd never forgive myself if I couldn't get to him in time because I couldn't remember what door I put him behind."

"You have super speed and super hearing." Eric sighed.

"It's just one night. We're supposed to be together for a thousand years, you can't ditch sex for one night?"

"It is the third night," he retorted, "this week. At this rate, in a thousand years we'll have missed sex one hundred fifty-six thousand—"

"Jeez, okay, I get your point, so what? I should put him on the doorstep from now on?"

"You could try telling your stepmother no."

"It all happened so fast," I said weakly. "And you want him to have to spend
more
time with his mother? Unfeeling bastard! Besides, the baby brings the family, uh, closer together."

"Which I would understand, if you had the slightest desire to be closer to Mrs. Taylor."

"It's one night," I said again. Okay, three—in addition to the surprise she'd dumped on me tonight, we'd actually planned for the baby to stay tomorrow night and Monday. I decided not to bring this up just now. "Come on, babe. He's the only little brother I've got. Maybe he's our heir!"

BabyJon farted.

"Our heir," Sinclair observed, "is a hairless, incontinent monkey. With frog legs."

"That's not true! He looks like a real baby now." About the incontinence, I couldn't argue. But BabyJon had plumped up beautifully, and wasn't so yellow and scrawny anymore. He had a mohawk of black hair and bright blue eyes. He didn't look like my dad or my stepmother. But who could tell with babies? They usually didn't look like anybody.

"You only like him because he prefers you to all others," Sinclair pointed out.

"Well, sure. Duh. Come on, it's a little flattering that I'm the only one he can stand. I mean, how often does a girl find someone like that?"

"
I
prefer you above all others."

I melted.
Goosh
, right into a little puddle on the carpet. At least, that's what it felt like. "Oh, Eric." I went to him and hugged him. He was stiff in my arms for a moment (not in a good way), then hugged me back.

"You have to admit," I said, nuzzling his chest with my nose, "it's brought us together."

"Us being you and Mrs. Taylor."

"Yeah. I mean, my whole life—since I was a kid—we've basically stayed out of each other's way, when we weren't torturing each other. Now we're almost…" I was stumped. "What's the word?"

"Civil."

"That's it."

He was stroking my back with his big hands and I leaned further into him. He dipped his head, kissed me, sucked my lip into his mouth, plunged his fingers into my hair, and I responded eagerly, hungrily, touching him wherever I could reach as we—

"Arrrrggggh," BabyJon said, and an unmistakable, mood-killing odor filled the air.

Sinclair pulled away. "Perhaps he should see a doctor. Certainly there must be specialists for this sort of thing."

"Eric, you're just not used to babies. Stinking up the room is what babies do. And changing them," I said, stepping toward the diaper bag, "is what I do, apparently."

"I'm going to take a shower," he sighed, and trudged into the bathroom.

"Thanks for nothing," I told my brother, who stuck his tongue out.

"Aw," Laura the Devil's Daughter was saying, chucking BabyJon under the chin. "Ooo's a wittle it-tie cutie-pie? Is it ooo? Is it?"

"Stop that," Sinclair ordered from his breakfast nook bar stool, "or I will kill you right now."

Laura ignored him. "It is ooo! So key-yute!" She shifted him to her left hip and looked at me. "I ran into Mrs. Taylor on the way in. She invited me to a fund-raiser she's chairing."

"She did?" She didn't invite
me
. Not that I would have gone. But still. She wasn't dumping BabyJon on Laura every two days, but who got the invite? Hmmm? That's right, the devil's daughter. "I don't know why she even bothered to stop by. I mean, she had him at her house for, what? Six hours?"

"And now," Tina said, "he's baaaaaack." She snickered at Sinclair, who ignored her.

"Laura, it is quite remarkable." It was the next evening, and he was paging through the
Wall Street Journal
. "You appear to have the capacity to melt the iciest, most unfeeling exteriors."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself," I teased.

"I was referring to Mrs. Taylor."

"Did you work things out with Sophie?" Laura hastily interjected. She slung BabyJon over a shoulder and patted him. The smell of burped-up baby formula mingled with the aroma of fresh-squeezed orange juice—Laura's favorite drink.

"Uh, no. No word from Sophie."

"I'm sure it's just a matter of time," she said unhelpfully.

"Right. Actually, it's super tricky because the guy she's so pissed at, he's a big European mucky-muck and super-charming, too. I mean, he's sorry. He says he'll apologize. What am I supposed to be, be all
off with his head
!"

"Technically, you're allowed," Tina pointed out.

"Well, the new boss is
not
the same as the old boss. Which is my whole new, you know. What's the word?"

"Platform," Sinclair said.

"Right. Sympathetic understanding, in. Beheadings, out."

"I'm glad it's your problem and not mine," my sister said cheerfully, because she'd taken Unhelpful Pills this week.

"Actually, Laura, I am glad you stopped by," Sinclair said, glancing at his watch. "We need to have an important, private meeting among the household. I was hoping you could take the infant for an hour or so."

"His name's BabyJon," I said, "not 'the infant.' And what are you talking about? What meeting?"

I heard a car door slam outside and, annoyingly, Tina and Sinclair looked completely unsurprised.

"Of course," Laura was saying. Anybody else so unceremoniously getting the boot would be a little offended, but you had to do a lot worse than that to Laura to irk her. "Glad to help out." She scooped up the diaper bag and left with BabyJon, just as Jessica walked into the kitchen, still in her coat and rubber boots.

"Good evening," Sinclair said.

"Hey," I said, as Jessica dropped her purse on the table and went immediately to the teakettle on the stove.

"Hey," she replied.

"Jessica, we're glad you're here." Tina glanced at me, then continued. "We've been wanting to talk to you. For some time."

We had? Right. We had
. I'd been meaning to get her alone and ask why she'd been so bitchy lately. Looked like Tina and Sinclair had noticed, too.

"Super," she replied with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

"Dear, is there anything you want to tell us?" Sinclair asked, folding his paper and then folding his hands in front of him.

"Your rent's due?" she suggested, adding a hefty dollop of cream to her tea.

"The check is on your desk. Something else."

"What is this," she joked, "an intervention?"

I didn't know
what
it was. But I could see the white Walgreens prescription bag peeking out of her purse. All of a sudden, I didn't want to be in this meeting.

"In a manner of speaking," Sinclair replied, "yes."

"Jess, you've been a little, uh, touchy lately." I coughed. "Is anything up?"

"No."

"Perhaps," Sinclair said gently, "we can tell you."

She sat. Shrugged out of her coat. Looked at him. For the first time, I noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping well.

What else hadn't I noticed?

"Why don't you?" she replied. "Tell me, I mean."

"As you wish. At first, the change in your scent appeared to be the product of stress. But after consulting with each other, Tina and I quickly recalled the last time we sensed this—condition—in a living human."

"You quickly recalled?" Jessica teased, except she didn't sound much like she was teasing. "Or did you slowly recall?"