MaryJanice Davidson: Dead Over Heels

“Dude! It’s our honeymoon, all right? If that thing beeps in your pants one more time, I’m going to eat it, understand? Now shut the fucking phone, toss the fucking paper, and bask in our mutual love and joy, dammit!”

“I’m not sure bask is the verb I’d choose,” he replied, but at least he put the phone away.

“Nice of Jess to arrange a limo,” I commented, relieved to finally get a fraction of his attention. We’d been married for three whole days and I still couldn’t believe it had really happened. Of course, according to my bridegroom, we’d been married since the first time we’d had sex. Don’t even get me started. “It’s not like her to throw her money around. And the plane! You believe she let us have her plane?”

“Point.” Sinclair frowned. With his dark good looks, dark suit, broad shoulders, and strong jaw, he looked formidable anyway; when he wasn’t smiling it was almost frightening. “She’s the least pretentious billionaire I’ve ever known.”

“Well, it’s her dad’s money.”

He gave me a long look and I nearly drowned in those dark dark eyes. “Correction. He’s dead. It’s her money.”

“Hwhuh?”

“It’s. Her. Money,” he repeated, well used to me being a little slow to pick up on current events.

I licked my lips. Jessica’s dad was a touchy subject. Fucking incestuous greedy arrogant asshole; if he was alive, I’d kill him. Seriously. And I am not a girl who kills lightly, as anyone who knows me will totally understand.

“I mean, she doesn’t consider it hers. It’s not like she earned it. Hey, I’m not putting her down, but that’s the way it is: she didn’t earn any of it. That’s why she doesn’t throw it around, and that’s why she has a day job.”

Sinclair just looked at me. He knew me well enough to know when I wasn’t coughing up the whole story. But in this case, it was just a theory. And the theory was, because Jessica had so recently (like, last week) recovered from terminal cancer, she was giddily celebrating life. (In all modesty, I must say that I cured her cancer. Yep. It’s true. But that’s a whole other story. Yay, me!)

“Including throwing planes and limos our way,” I continued. “God knows what is going on in the mansion back home in St. Paul while we’re away.”

Never mind. I didn’t want to know. I’d landed Sinclair—officially landed him, with paperwork and everything—and that was that. It was all I’d ever wanted, once I got over hating him and decided he was the vampire for me.

Sinclair, bless his cold, dead heart, tossed the newspaper on the floor and moved over until he was sitting beside me. He gave me a long, sweet kiss and cuddled me into his side. “Now, Mrs. Sinclair—”

“I told you, I didn’t take your name!”

“—what would you like to do first?”

“I want to check into the hotel and have nasty kinky sex. Oh, and then go see a Broadway show.”

“Odd,” my husband commented. “I’ve never been alternately intrigued and terrified at the same time.”

“Shut up. There’s lots of good ones.”

We discussed the pros and cons of live theater all the way to the hotel. I’d only seen high school stuff, and the plays at Chanhassen. And although those were pretty good, ergo Broadway would kick ass.

Sinclair, who had seen theater all over the world, begged to differ. And he did. Repeatedly. We had plenty of time, too, because even though it was full dark, traffic was horrendous.

And the noise . It sounded just as busy at ten o’clock at night as it would have during rush hour. And everything was open! Restaurants, convenience stores, shoe stores. It was unbelievable. New York City: the perfect tourist trap for vampires.

The limo driver pulled us right up to the front of the hotel, a forbidding stone building that looked like a transplanted castle. Sinclair helped me out (not that I needed it) while the driver shoved our luggage onto three bellboys.

Hand in hand, we swept into the lobby, me trying not to stare like I had cow shit on my heels, Sinclair looking perfectly at ease. He even yawned and, as we’d snacked on each other during the flight, didn’t have to worry about showing fangs.

Finally , I thought, tightening my grip on his hand, a squeeze that would have broken the metacarpals of most people, I get him to myself, and the Big Apple belongs to us. Oh, thank you, thank you Jesus.

The month leading up to the wedding had been a frightening, lonely time for me and I was very glad to be reunited with my husband. Shit, I was glad he’d made the wedding at all. And now we were here, and I was going to make the most of it. Bet your ass.

Sinclair slammed to a stop so suddenly, and so gracelessly, that I plowed right into his back. “What’s wrong?” I said into the cloth of his suit.

He muttered something, and I peeked around him.

Lounging across from the registration desk, taking up a small table in the bar area, was my best friend Jessica, and her boyfriend, Minneapolis Detective Nick Berry. They were both grinning at us with great big toothy smiles, at least one of which was fake.

“’Bout time you got here,” Jessica said, and raised her Cosmo to me in a toast.

“Oh, fuck me,” I groaned, surprised—but not in a good way.

“I don’t see how we can fit that into the schedule now,” my husband replied, looking as distressed as I’ve ever seen him.

Wow, great. This is great. Seriously. So great to see you. And what a great surprise ! Now get out. Seriously.”

“Awww, you know I’m your hero.”

Sinclair was overseeing our luggage (as an alternative to strangling Jessica), Detective Nick was still in the lobby, and Jessica and I were arguing in the hallway outside our hotel room. It was a nice hallway . . . crimson carpet, gold wallpaper, gorgeous wall fixtures, dim lighting. Too bad I was so pissed it was totally wasted on me.

“You’re not a tiny bit glad to see me?” Jessica was continuing.

I snapped my attention away from the wall fixtures. “Irrelevant! Now will you get lost already?”

“Don’t you want to go shopping at Macy’s with me?” Jessica had the nerve to sound wounded.

“We have one in the Mall of America,” I said coldly. Also a Bloomingdale’s and an Orange Julius. “And we’ve been a thousand times.”

“Listen, Betsy . . .” Jessica was trying to look earnest, but as usual, her black hair was skinned back so tightly her eyebrows couldn’t move. She could barely blink. Even in the low hallway lighting, her ebony skin shone, but not in a run-for-the-blotting-papers way. She was, as usual, ridiculously beautiful, although still far too thin from the cancer. “I had to come.”

“You had to crash my honeymoon?”

“You make it sound so mean.”

I put my hands behind my back, because they wanted to fly up and fasten around my best friend’s throat. “It is mean, you nimrod! I finally haul Sinclair’s protesting ass to the altar—after rescuing him from certain death, and attending a double funeral, and taking on responsibility for BabyJon, and curing your cancer—and now here I am in New York City for the first time ever, ready to enjoy my honeymoon and you two idiots show up! No offense.”

“Listen . . .” Wary of superior vampire hearing, Jessica tugged me by the elbow about ten feet further down the hallway. I didn’t bother telling her Sinclair could still hear her from inside the room if he put his mind to it. Ears. Whatever. “I know it seems like a rotten trick—”

“‘Oh, sure, Betsy, you guys can borrow my plane, but not until tomorrow . . .’ Giving you plenty of time to beat us here.” Now my hands wanted to fly into my hair and yank, hard. “And dumbass that I am, I actually left our contact information with you.”