Vampires and Vixens (Psy-Vamp) (9 page)

Nathaniel seemed uncomfortable. He
cleared his throat. “Was there something you wanted to ask me?”

Her mother looked from one to the other,
and then worked to recover her composure. After a few deep breaths her fake
smile was back in place. “Please tell your aunt that I send my regards. I hope
to see her at the next ladies charity auction.”

Hannah snorted, and then covered her
mouth.

“When I speak to her, I’ll pass along
the message,” Nathaniel said, still sounding a little annoyed. “My aunt Phoebe
prefers to avoid such events.”

Her mother stood there, looking somewhat
lost. Hannah felt no pity, felt no guilt, felt no desire to have her stay. What
Hannah felt was nothing. That complete apathy is what made her sad. How could
she feel nothing when she looked at her own mother?

Finally, her mother looked down and
coughed. “Well, I should join my friend. I will call you next week, Hannah
darling.” With that she left.

“Your mother seems . . .”
Nathaniel paused to find the words.

“Like a bitch,” Hannah suggested.

Nathaniel blinked several times, and
finally spoke. “I was hoping to find a more diplomatic way of putting it. She
would probably get along very well with my aunt Phoebe.”

“Can we leave?” Hannah asked. She
suddenly wanted nothing more than to get as far away from her mother as
possible. She took her napkin off of her lap and set it on the table.

“What about our food?”

“Let’s go!” Hannah stood up and headed
for the door.

“Hannah!” he called after her.

She stopped just outside of the
restaurant, turned to him and smiled triumphantly. “I can’t believe I stood up
to my mother.” She was bubbling with excitement. It made her feel daring. She
grabbed the collar of Nathaniel’s shirt and pulled him toward her.

“Hannah.” Her name was barely a whisper
as his lips brushed against hers.

Her tongue slid playfully across his
lower lips, and Hannah suddenly found herself pressed against his hard body.
She pulled back playfully and smiled up at him. It was then that she noticed
her mother standing beside them, looking mortified.

“Obviously, you have learned nothing
about behaving like a lady.” Her voice was harsh, and judgmental. “I thought
that I had taught you better than this.”

“Better than what, Mother?” Hannah
scoffed as she rubbed Nathaniel’s chest. “I don’t recall you ever teaching me
how to seduce a man.”

Her mother gasped. “I came out here to
forgive you for your behavior, and I find you acting like a common tramp. Was
it Lydia who taught you the etiquette of a street whore?” The fact that her
voice held no emotion made the words sound even more offensive.

Nathaniel started to pull away from
Hannah, and she knew he was going to jump in to defend her, so she put her hand
over his mouth.

“I’m so sorry that I’ve disappointed
you,” she said dryly.

“You know what they say, Hannah. ‘Why
buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ This young man is not going to
marry you if you’re already having relations with him.”

Hannah said only one word, “Moo,” and
then she walked away, more free than she had ever been.

Nathaniel caught her arm. “Give me just
a moment to settle our bill.”

Hannah nodded. “I’ll wait for you out
here.”

Nathaniel walked back into the
restaurant, and caught Hannah’s mother as she made her way back to her table. “I’d
like to have a word with you.”

She smiled. “Of course. I’m so very
sorry about that unpleasantness outside.”

He took her hand in his and leaned
forward. Her eyes glazed over slightly.

“You will call Hannah tomorrow to
apologize. You feel terrible for the way you acted.”

She looked confused, but she responded.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I will call her tomorrow to apologize.”

“
That
was the most bizarre conversation I have ever had with my mother,” Hannah said
as she set her phone on the coffee table.

Lydia looked up from the romance novel
she was reading and raised an eyebrow. It was an annoying habit she had
developed recently. It wasn’t as annoying as her new habit of disconnecting
from the world, but both were getting old fast. “Can you name a single
conversation with your mother that wasn’t strange?”

“This one was the strangest. Maybe she’s
having a nervous breakdown. Those are fashionable right now, aren’t they?”
Hannah was only half-joking about this. Her mother did love to follow
along with the latest trends in mental illness. The most amusing of these
trends was the bulimia. Her mother had actually required therapy twice a week,
because she had gone into a deep depression when she had been unable to make
herself vomit.

“Nervous breakdowns never really go out
of style. They’re kind of like addictions to pain meds. Hey, maybe your mom is
addicted to pain meds again. I remember the last time she was addicted to them,
she called me to ask what I wanted for my birthday.”

“That was kind of nice,” Hannah said.

Lydia snorted. “I was eighteen and she
thought I was turning seven, which made it more bat shit crazy than nice.”

“Well, I know it’s not pain meds since
she hasn’t had an injury to justify them recently. I would have heard about
that.”

“True,” Lydia agreed. “We all would have
heard about her being hospitalized for her hangnail, or whatever it was this
time. So what was so strange about the phone call?”

“She called me to apologize.”

Lydia actually gasped. “Apologize for
what? Wait, this wasn’t one of those backhanded apologies that she loves to
give where she’s actually blaming you for something, was it?”

Hannah shook her head. “I ran into her
when I was having dinner with Nathaniel last night.”

Lydia made an ugly face, and Hannah
wondered again why Lydia hated Nathaniel so much.

“Well, she was her usual pleasant self,”
Hannah said dryly. “She only came over because she recognized Nathaniel’s
relationship to a woman she wants to network with.”

“Naturally,” Lydia said.

“Well, to make a long story short, I
told her off, and then she caught me making out with Nathaniel in front of the
restaurant.”

Lydia’s eyes widened with interest. “Let
me guess, she gave you the speech about giving the milk away for free?”

Hannah nodded.

“How did Mr. Perfect react?”

“He looked like he wanted to say
something, but I stopped him. I just wanted to handle her on my own.”

“He does seem like the type that would
want to throw around threats,” Lydia grumbled. “So what did you do?”

Hannah was about to ask Lydia about her hostility
toward Nathaniel, but the doorbell distracted her.

“I mooed at her,” Hannah said as she
reached out to open the door.

Lydia laughed so hard that she nearly
fell off of the couch. It was amusing to hear Lydia laugh with her raspy voice,
and the occasional snort. Yes, her super cool cousin snorted when she laughed.

“Hey Noah!” Hannah greeted him with a
warm hug.

Noah hugged her back one armed. His
other arm was holding two pizza boxes. He looked down at the three cats trying
to come in the door with him. “Your cats?”

“No, they just like our porch.” Hannah
leaned down and spoke sternly. “You boys need to go home before you worry your
owners again.”

The cats meowed in protest but headed
down the stairs.

Noah shook his head and laughed. “I
don’t think they wanted to leave.” He held up the pizza boxes. “I figured we
could eat while I help you with your Statistics homework.” When he noticed
Lydia he added. “I’ve got more than enough pizza for three.”

Lydia shook her head. “I’m not really
hungry. I think I might just take a nap.”

Noah looked around the room. This was
his first time visiting Hannah at home. She usually came over to his place when
they studied. The condo was fairly large. The living room had two large picture
windows that let in a great deal of light, making it seem very open and airy.
The floors were a dark shade of hardwood. The room was overrun with plants.
They were literally everywhere. He could see through the door leading to the
balcony that it was also filled with plants. All of the furniture was in shades
of reddish brown, and they had more throw pillows in this one room than he had
in his entire house. In truth, he didn’t even own a throw pillow. There were
doors around the main room which Noah assumed led to the kitchen, bedrooms, and
bathroom.

“This is a nice place,” he commented. “It
looks like your plants could use some water.” It was true; they all looked a
little wilted.

“I watered them today,” Hannah said. “Lyd’s
been sick, and I don’t think they like having me take care of them.”

“It’s true,” Lydia said as she reached
out a hand to touch one of the plants. “My babies hate her.”

If Noah didn’t know better, he would
swear that the leaves on the plant actually moved toward Lydia’s hand.

“Most people get a dozen cats to keep
them company,” Hannah mused playfully. “Lydia got a rainforest.”

Lydia flipped her off as she shuffled
toward her bedroom.

Noah eyes narrowed as he watched Lydia
walk away. “You said she broke up with Dominic, right?”

“He broke up with her,” Hannah corrected
him. “Why are you asking?” Then a thought occurred to her. “Are you interested
in my cousin?” Hannah seemed delighted by the idea.

“Stop trying to set me up or I won’t
share this pizza with you.”

Hannah put a hand under her chin and
thought for a moment. “What’s on the pizza?”

“I got vegetarian for me and pepperoni
for you. Now tell me where I can set this.”

“Just set it on the coffee table and we
can eat in here. I wasn’t trying to fix you up with Lydia. I just wanted to
know why you were asking about Lydia and Dominic.” Okay, so maybe she was
trying to fix him up with Lydia just a little bit, but she wasn’t about to
admit that and miss out on the pizza.

He shrugged. “She just seems a little
off. I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“She’s been really depressed since they
broke up,” Hannah admitted. “She dropped her classes, and she doesn’t go out
much. When she does go out it’s alone. I also get the feeling that she’s mad at
me for something, but she won’t talk about it.”

Noah squeezed her hand. “I’m sure she’ll
bounce back soon.”

“It doesn’t help that she really hates
Nathaniel. She didn’t have anything against him until Dominic broke up with
her. Now she’s always making nasty comments about him. I hate to say it, but I
think she might be jealous that I’m with someone and she’s not. That just seems
so unlike her.”

“Eat!” Noah ordered and handed her a
plate with a slice of pizza.

“I’ll go grab us some drinks first,”
Hannah said as she walked into the kitchen. When she came out with two glasses
of iced tea, she found Lydia sitting on the overstuffed arm-chair eating
pizza. “I thought you weren’t hungry?”

“The pizza smelled good,” was Lydia’s
only explanation.

Hannah went to get another glass of tea
with a satisfied smile on her face.

Six hours later, Hannah’s statistics
book was still sitting in her room, and they were all seated around a card
table playing Monopoly.

Lydia smiled sweetly. “Oh dear, you
landed on Boardwalk. Now who owns that?” She looked around and then put her
hands over her mouth pretending to be surprised. “Oh, that’s right, I do! And
that red thing, is that a hotel? Oh my, this is going to hurt, Noah.”

Noah gave her a boyish grin. “Can’t we
work something out?”

“That won’t work with me, hand over the
money.”

It had been an hour since Lydia had
toppled Hannah’s little empire, so she was now an observer. “She has no mercy,
Noah.”

Lydia gave him an evil grin. “Are you
ready to admit defeat?”

He looked down at his money which
totaled twenty-six dollars, and his properties which were all mortgaged.
“Fine I admit defeat. You, Lydia Montgomery, are a heartless capitalist.”

“You’re just cranky because I made you
my bitch in this game,” Lydia said with a smile. Then she yawned. She’d barely
managed to keep her eyes open for the game. The fact that Lydia loved to win at
games was the only reason she had stayed up after finishing her pizza.

Hannah smiled at Noah. He’d been the one
to suggest the game after Lydia casually mentioned her love of board games.
He’d given Hannah the one thing she wanted most, time with her cousin.

“I’d better go and let you ladies get
some sleep,” Noah said as he started to put the contents of the game back in
the box.

Noah leaned down and kissed Lydia on the
top of her head on his way to the front door. “Hope you feel better soon, Lyd.”

Hannah walked him to the door. “Thanks
for coming over tonight, and for getting Lydia to do something other than
sleep.”

“Sorry that we didn’t get a chance to
work on your homework.”

Hannah turned to look at Lydia. “I’m
sure I can handle my homework alone. This was a much better idea.”

Noah leaned forward to kiss Hannah on
the cheek, but she turned back from watching Lydia and his mouth ended up on
hers. They both stared wide-eyed at each other for just a moment before
pulling back.

“Sorry,” he stammered nervously. “You
turned, and then I just . . . well you know.”

“Of course,” Hannah said quickly. She
could feel her cheeks getting hot. “It was just an accident.”

“Bye.” He waved at her behind his back
as he made a hasty exit.