Hannah Jayne - Under Suspicion

And then there were hands on my shoulders. I sank back against a warm body and glanced up at Will, who slipped his arms around me—part Guardian, part friendly protection—and pulled me to the empty table that Alex and I had shared a day earlier. I sank down gratefully, using my fingertips to rub small circles on my temples until I could feel the tension loosen.

“I think I was about to have a panic attack,” I said.

“Should we get out of here?”

I shook my head. “I can’t leave without Nina. She could be in”—I paused—“love.”

Will looked alarmed, leaning into me. “Is he ... ?”

“A vampire?” I supplied. “No.”

“Is that allowed?”

I shrugged as Nina wound her way through the crowd to where Will and I were stationed. Harley was walking behind her, and both were beaming wild, maniacal, puppy love grins.

“Crap,” I muttered under my breath.

“Will, Sophie.” Nina tore her eyes away from Harley in a way that made it obvious that it pained her to do so. She looked at Will and me. “This is Harley. Harley, my best friend, Sophie, and her friend Will. Harley is a writer.”

“Like the Havenhurst bird?”

Harley raised a fawn-colored eyebrow. “Not exactly.”

“Harley writes nonfiction. He’s here on a publicity tour.”

Without missing a beat Harley presented me with a thick hardcover book, the title Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Things That Don’t Exist in bold red letters on the cover.

I stopped, grinned, and showed the book to Nina.

“Did you see this, Nees? It’s a book about legends.”

Usually the word “legend,” or the indication that Nina herself is nothing more than a figment of some Hollywood film crew’s imagination, made her bristle, made her tongue flick over one sharp fang as if to prove her “real-ness”—but apparently, her bubble of Harley love worked like a snuggly force field and she ignored me and the book.

I tried to hand it back to Harley with a “Wow, looks interesting,” but he held up a hand and, like a benevolent ruler, shook his head.

“You take that copy for yourself. My treat.”

I looked down at the book in my hand, the giant yellow ribbon marching across the bottom of the front cover boasting: FREE PROMOTIONAL COPY. DO NOT SELL.

“How nice of you. I’ll treasure it always.” Because it was right about the perfect thickness for spider and general bug smashing. “But we should really be heading out now.”

I reached out to grab Nina’s arm, but she held out her keys and dropped them in my hand. She linked arms with Harley and rubbed up against him.

“Would you mind taking the car home? Harley and I are going to have coffee. He is just so fascinating.”

I could have answered, or stripped off all my clothes and tap-danced naked to a “Yankee Doodle Dandy” medley. It didn’t matter. Will and I ceased to exist as Nina and Harley basked in the glow of adoration. And I’m pretty sure they were both adoring Harley.

“Harley, Harley, Harley! There you are!” A small, round, balding man was gruffly pushing people and making his way toward the café. When he saw us, he stopped, pulled out a yellowed handkerchief, and mopped his clammy brow with it. His eyes were slate gray and they were narrowed, laser sharp on Harley. As he rushed toward us, I noticed his gray suit had a weird, glossy sheen. Although perfectly tailored, it still hung oddly on the little man’s potato-like body.

“Roland,” Harley called out, his jovial voice cutting through the coffeehouse din. “Nina, everyone, this is my agent, Roland Townsend.”

“Charmed, charmed,” Roland said, without offering a hand or looking away from Harley. “I’ve been looking all over for you. The guys from Twentieth Century Fox want to have dinner with you.”

Harley looked from Roland to Nina and grinned easily. “That sounds great. Tell them we’ll do it tomorrow at Gary Danko. And add one.” Harley held up an index finger and bobbed Nina gently on the nose with it. I felt my afternoon cookie lodge somewhere in my throat; judging by the disgusted snarl on his face, I knew Will felt the same.

Roland watched the exchange and continued sweating like a sponge; our proximity made me feel sticky. The handkerchief came out again and made its rounds over his bald crown.

“Plus one?” he asked, with his bushy gray eyebrows raised. “Her?” He gestured toward Nina.

Harley cocked his head, his eyes studying Nina. “Her. That is, if she’d care to join me?”

This is the point in most male-female relationships where I melt into a bowl filled with jelly and pull out all the stops in my impressive vocabulary, using homemade words like “leh” and “wah.” But Nina handled everything like a pro. She cocked her head so that her hair fell over one shoulder, a few glossy strands seductively crossing her cleavage. She licked her top lip with the tip of her tongue in a way that suggested something sexily sinister and smiled coyly.

“Pick me up at seven.”

Will and I were waiting on the sidewalk outside the bookstore while Nina finished up her shopping/flirting/ judging of fashion-flawed writers.

“So,” Will said, his hands jammed into his pockets, “that Harley guy. He’s ... one of them?”

I frowned. “One of who?”

“You know,” he dropped his voice. “A demon or something.”

“I don’t think so. Why? Do you think so? Did you see his feet? I didn’t notice if he had hooves.”

Will blanched. “I’m not really into checking out a bloke’s feet. I just didn’t think that Nina could date someone who is ...”

“Breathing? Alive?”

“And full of blood.”

“You too?”

Will and I swung to face Nina, who was loaded down with books and steaming mad. The seduction in her eyes was gone; the sexy arch of her lip was turned into a ferocious snarl.

“Oh, here we go again,” I muttered.

“Every one of you damn breathers seems to think that just because we are sustained by human blood, we’re going to pounce on every person we see. Do you walk into a grocery store and tear into every box of Frosted Flakes you see? No. And neither do we. Now get in the car.”

“Did she just call us Frosted Flakes?” Will whispered.

“Just get in the car,” I said, knowing enough to avoid Nina’s wrath.

Vlad jogged up behind us, folding himself into the car, his VERM sign nearly beheading Will and staking me.

“Protest over already?”

Vlad just shrugged and fished his iPod from his jacket pocket.

Will slid in and Nina slammed the door behind him, marching to the driver’s side. “Nina seems really pissed. What was that all about?” Will asked.

Nina, my beautiful, fine-boned roommate and best friend, was tall and ballerina slim. Her normally dark hair and wide, coal black eyes, set in her flawless pale skin, gave her the look of an innocent nymph. She carried herself with an air of confidence and grace that was all at once comforting and unsettling. Though several centuries have passed, she still retained the fine manners and gentle demeanor of her French aristocratic upbringing.

When she was content, she was like Marie Antoinette with fangs.

When she was angry, entire armies died.

“Hold these.” Nina dumped a stack of books onto my lap as she snapped on her blinker and pulled the car into traffic.

“Vampire-Romance Novels for Dummies ? How to Write And Sell a Vampire Novel ? ” I read aloud. “What’s all this?”

Nina grinned, fangs pressed over her lower lip. “It’s brilliance is what it is. People are making millions on vampire stuff.”

“And apparently, this bloke is making millions off proving that vampires don’t exist,” Will said, shaking the tome.