Vamps: Human and Paranormal (49 page)

Bess had vacated my apartment in search of non-Chinese/non-Italian food -- I wasn’t in the mood for a culinary stroll down memory lane.  I’d left a message on Dean’s voice mail saying Bess and I were having a “Girl’s night in ... to celebrate” and that I’d see him tomorrow.  But in truth we weren’t celebrating.  My best friend was going to spend the night to console me, and to help me make a freaking choice -- and then to console me after I made my choice.  And while she was procuring the food of heart break bingeing, she was also getting ingredients for cocksucker milk shakes.

I had a feeling that it would be hard to just call off tomorrow, and I had no idea what I’d do if I decided to actually go in.

As I exited my bathroom there was knocking at my front door. 

“I could’ve sworn I handed you the keys!”  I called out as I padded in a towel to let Bess in.

It wasn’t Bess.  Gus stood there in the hall, the look on his face making me gulp.  He was pissed. Usually he was an irritable pain in the ass, and lately he’d softened toward me, even smiled regularly and was as of this week openly hitting on me -- but right then, staring down at me, he was just plain pissed.

“What are you doing here?”  I grasped the towel about me tighter, pulling down at the bottom to make sure everything was covered.  But Gus didn’t give my scantily clad body a second look.  He shook his head and walked past me into my apartment. 

“Sure,”  I said.  “Just come on in, don’t mind that I’m naked.”

He turned and looked at me, his face changing for a split second to a lustful ogle -- which I immediately wished I hadn‘t brought his attention to--but then reverted right back to him being pissed.

“You’re not naked.”  He moved to my refrigerator and rummaged around until he found a cold beer, twisted the cap then guzzled about half of it.  “At least not yet.”

“That’s great, Gus.  Even when you’re mad at me you can still hit on me.  Couple that with being pushy and just helping yourself to my beer, and you’re a real prince!”

His gaze leveled off to plain hatred, his jaw clenched, and eyes slits.  “And what you did this afternoon, with that dork of a doctor, that makes you a paragon of fucking virtue?”

I’d never heard his curse.  Actually the only person in my life that cursed on a regular basis was Bess.  And after all these years I’d come to accept it as just part of the way she expressed herself.  But coming from Gus’ lips it kind of scared me, made him more of a stranger to me.

“All I did was accept a marriage proposal.  What business is it of yours?”  Again I wasn’t about to let him know how right he’d been, that I didn’t feel love for Dean, and that I knew deep down that I’d never marry him.  All I wanted right now was to get that holier-than-thou glower off his face--and if I could get him to leave before my mostly naked flesh ignited, that would be a definite plus.

“A proposal from that dweeb of a kid?”

“Dweeb?  Did you really just say dweeb?”

“He’s not a man yet...how can he--”

“Oh he’s a man, alright!”  I cut across him, the heat that was threatening to ignite my flesh now shot from my lips in anger.  “A real man wouldn’t be going after another man’s ... another man’s ...”

“Another man’s what?”  He walked slowly and deliberately toward me, his eyes never letting mine go.  “You can’t say that you’re his anything, because you’re not his in the first place.”

Okay, I wanted to punch Gus ... and I suddenly wanted his hands all over me...

Suddenly there was another knock on the door.  I slipped away from Gus and headed gratefully to the door.  With Bess here Gus would leave.  Bess would see to it.

But it wasn’t Bess standing at me door, it was Dean.

Shit!

He let out a long low breath as he took in the sight of me.  “Now that’s what I call a greeting.”

I felt like crying.  Suddenly Dean’s gaze moved further into the apartment and his head cocked.  “Mr. Miller...what are you doing here?”  He looked down to me as he said “here.”

“Just needed to see Lucy.  We’ve got some --”

“He just wanted to congratulate us.”  I cut in.

“Really?”  Dean smiled awkwardly and looked up from me to Gus again.

“No, just the opposite,”  Dean said and I felt my stomach flip over.  “I was just trying to talk her out of it.”

“What? “  Dean shook his head in disbelief.

“Sorry doc, you’re just not the right man for her.  She knows it, she’s just either too chicken shit to admit it, or she’s in denial.”

“I ... am ... not ... in ... denial!”  I turned and screamed at Gus.  “Why does everyone think I’m in goddamn denial?”

When I turned back to Dean he looked monumentally confused.  “Who else thinks that?”

“Nobody.”  I snapped.

He shook his head at me and looked back to Gus, who was now only a few feet behind me.  “And why do you think I’m not the right man for her?  Who, in your opinion, is?”

Oh god, please make Gus stop.  Maybe an anvil could fall through the roof from the apartment above?  Maybe lightning could strike?  Or maybe he could just keep his fool mouth shut!

“Because she belongs with me.” 

Okay, he said it.  Now could god at least make the floor beneath my feet turn to quicksand and swallow me whole before I had to look into Dean’s eyes again?

While I was staring at the floor, wishing desperately for the quicksand, my apartment got really quiet.

“Get the fuck out of here!”  Dean roared. 

My head snapped upright in shock and I saw the fires of hatred burning in Dean’s eyes.  Every nuance of his face had changed in the blink of an eye.  His forehead had furrowed down to a scowl, his mouth was set, lips drawn back, exposing his teeth in a snarl.  Even his usually beautiful complexion seemed to have lost its luster, his flesh now a sinister gray.

“I didn’t hear Lucy say that, buddy.”  Gus said.

“I want you to leave, Gus.”   I said, not taking my eyes from Dean’s face.

“But...If you think--”

“Now, Gus...”  my voice sounded so small to me.

Gus took a hard, deep breath and let it out in an irritated sigh.  Dean watched as Gus walked to the door, and Gus kept his eyes on me.  But I looked at neither of them, only finally looking back to Dean when the door shut behind Gus.

His eyes met mine and the anger in them seemed to quell.  “You can’t treat him anymore.  He’s obviously deranged.”

“Dean ...”

“I mean it.  To just come to your apartment and say that crazy shit!  He needs professional help.”

“Dean, we need to talk.”

His eyes locked on mine and his head cocked to the side, scrutinizing me with a feral glare.  I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe, like my lunch -- if I had eaten any -- was going to hurl out my mouth, my heart probably coming up with it.

“Talk to me about what?”  His voice was tinged with anger.

I forced myself to take a deep breath, looking down at Dean’s heaving chest.  Focus, I kept telling myself.  Just tell him what you’re feeling.

Yeah, just tell him you’re not in love with him, that you’re infatuated with a man you hardly know, and that you agreed to his marriage proposal just to piss said man off.  Yeah, that’ll go over great.

When I looked back up into Dean’s face I couldn’t seem to focus, he seemed fuzzy, like in a dream, and as a dark curtain slowly closed over me, my body suddenly felt cold and still.

*****

When I opened my eyes next I was lying on the couch, Dean kneeling next to me with a stethoscope pressed against my chest, his hand gently holding onto my shoulder. A paramedic was pricking my finger -- witch didn’t seem to hurt -- and started to take my blood sugar level.

“What’s going on?”  I felt like I was talking from the bottom of a well.

“You passed out on me, babe,”  Dean said slinging the stethoscope around his neck.  “You’ve been out for about five minutes.”

“Oh,”  I hadn’t caught up yet.

“I didn’t hear anything wrong with your heart, but we’ll do tests when we get you to the hospital.”

“Hospital?”  I gasped.  “I’m fine.  I don’t need --”

“I’m the doctor, so don’t argue.”

“Her sugar’s only fifty nine,”  The paramedic said.

“Have you eaten today?”  Dean said.

“Not that I remember...I think Bess--”

“What about me?”  Bess said as she came through the door of my apartment, weighed down with three bags from China Moon and another brown bag from the liquor store a block down.  Her face fell as she took in the sight of me lying on the couch, Dean looking all doctor-y by my side, and the paramedics getting the gurney ready to transport me.  “Boy, you guys really know how to play doctor.”

“She fainted.”  Dean said.

That sounded even worse than passing out.  Fainting is what starlets do on the silver screen in comedies and romantic melodramas.  “My sugar was low.”

There was a silence in the air that was thick enough to choke on.  I suddenly remembered what Dean and I were doing right before the big black out.

“Damn,” Bess exclaimed.  “And I have all this food ... just a little too late.”

“We’re taking her to the hospital first.”  Dean said as he squirted a small tube of orange flavored glucose into my mouth.  “That will bring up your sugar to normal.  But I still want some tests ran on you.”

“She fainted,”  Bess said, butting him out of her way.  She gave me a hard look.  “And besides looking wet she looks fine.”

“Bess, I’m a doctor --”

“Yeah, but you’re not her doctor.  Doctor Olivia is her GP, and I’ll take her there first thing in the morning.  I swear.”  And she made the Boy Scout hand signal.

“No, she was out for almost five minutes.”

Bess patted Dean’s handsome face.  “And I have a degree in nursing.  I’ll stay and keep an eye on her, you know, I’ll do the whole “observation thing.”

Dean looked stunned.  “You’re a nurse?”  He looked to me after Bess nodded, and I nodded in turn.

“That’s where Lucy and I met, NYU.  We were both in the same classes for the first year or two.  She became a Physical therapist, and I went into nursing.”

“But you’re a real estate agent?”

“Yeah ... funny thing, I graduated, worked my ass off at the first hospital that took me, and two weeks later sat dumbstruck by the sight of my puny pay check.  It’s not like nurses get paid near what they’re worth.  So the next week I signed up for a real estate class, and two months later I was a retired RN.”

Dean just shook his head.

“Believe me,”  Bess chortled,  “Someday doctors won’t be making squat either.  You’ll be giving me a call then.”  And she winked.

“I-I don’t --”

“Just let me take care of this.”  She pulled an afghan off the back of my couch and spread it out over me.  I was still just wearing a towel.

“Thanks.”  I clutched it over my almost exposed breasts.

Bess looked down at Dean with a deliberately cold stare.  “So let’s move, gentlemen.”

The paramedics were looking to Dean until Bess turned her icy gaze on them.  They just threw their bags on top of the gurney and headed for the door.  Dean stood slowly and then bent over me, his face lined with concern as he kissed me.  There wasn’t a sign of the anger he’d had earlier.

“I’ll come with you to the doctor’s office tomorrow.”

“Nonsense,”  Bess said, shooing him toward the door.  “Two grown women can make it a doctor’s office across town all by themselves.”  A couple beats later Bess had Dean out the door and the door dead bolted shut.   “ I thought they’d never leave.”

Her eye brows knitted with concern.  “You sure you’re okay?  I can take you to the ER without all the hoopla.  I used to fuck the charge nurse down at Sacred Heart.”

I had to smile.  Bess could make anything into a joke.  “Really, I’m fine.”  I looked over to the bags of food.  “But I am starving!”

“Well, thank god your best friend brought all this food.”  She picked up the bag with the ice cream and alcohol.  “I guess we should skip the booze.  Want some chocolate milkshakes instead?”

“That should get my sugar up again.”

I got up, teetering on my feet for a beat, then got my legs back under me.  Padding into the bedroom I thought of how messed up things had gotten.  It was crazy.  One day everything’s fine, the next you’re engaged, torn about which guy you really should be with, and then you pass out right before all hell breaks loose ... which guarantees that that hell is waiting on you just around the bend, ready to explode.

I pulled on some panties and a baggy old t-shirt that came down to just above my knees.  When I came back out to the living room Bess already had a pitcher of chocolate shakes on the coffee table, plates and silverware, and the boxes of Chinese food open.  She even had my favorite Julia Roberts’ flick on:  “My Best Friend’s Wedding” the little bride’s maids and the faux bride were singing the song about wishing and hoping and praying...

“Don’t you wish your problems were so simple?”  She said with an arched eye brow.