I was considering downsizing to a smaller bag that left me no option for pack-rattery, when Tracey bounded to my cubicle and leaned against a wall. "You are not going to believe the weekend I had," she sighed.
I shoved my drawer closed and took in the elated expression on her face. The glow in her eyes and the softness of her smile meant only one thing-Tracey had found another love interest. Poor Hot Ben probably had zip of a chance after all. I played my suspicions off with cluelessness though.
"What happened?" I asked in my most interested voice, while I silently felt bad for her dumped beau.
She sighed and placed a hand on her heart. "Ben finally called me."
I blinked at that. He did?
"He did?" I immediately asked after the thought.
She bit her lip. "Yeah. He said he was miserable and missed me and wanted to come over." She sighed again and gazed at me dreamily. "He was so sweet, Em, and sounded so lost...I just couldn't say no."
I held back a smirk. Of course. He was the one in misery and she was simply doing him a favor by letting him near her. Couldn't be that she was missing him just as badly. Oh no. I wondered if Tracey would ever take a little closer look at her own feelings.
Before I could find an appropriate comment to her situation, she continued. "He came over and we talked and had dinner and..." Her eyes lost focus for a while, as she reminisced on the remainder of their evening. I was fairly certain it had involved a lot fewer clothes than the evening had started with. She came back to herself and her blue eyes locked onto mine; a serious glint was in them. "I never knew it could be like that with him. It was sort of...magical." She gave me a hopelessly goofy grin and I knew my poor, clueless-about-her-heart friend, had finally felt the first twinge of love for a boy. And it had only taken her twenty-six years and over twice that many boys to do it. Some people just fight against feeling content.
"I'm so happy for you, Trace. I think you two are really great together." I matched her lovesick look with one of my own. I was a girl hopelessly in love with a vampire after all. "Teren will be so happy to continue our double dates. He really likes Ben."
Tracey started nodding while I was still speaking. "Oh, I know. Ben likes him too. Although..."
A slight panic shot through me...had he noticed something? Tracey didn't seem to catch my look and she finished her thought, "Ben swears he saw his eyes glow once." Shaking her head, she started laughing. "Sometimes, that boy has the strangest imagination." She glanced at her boss's door and then started walking away, muttering something about glowing eyes and ridiculousness.
Right...imagination. Hmmm. I hoped Hot Ben's imagination never became a problem.
Ben subbed our kickboxing class that night and, since I hadn't actually seen him in a while, I took a moment to take in his features-black shorts, tight, black shirt that nicely emphasized his chest, bleach blond highlights in his light brown hair, and a chiseled face that was causing quite a stir with a couple of teenage girls in the corner of the room. He looked like same old Hot Ben, but was he different? Had he pieced together anything? It seemed impossible that he had; suspecting that someone you know is a vampire just doesn't happen in real life. I'd need to watch him extra close now, to be sure.
He got us sweating pretty good in our workout and my mind eventually stopped worrying about it. When class was over he came up to me and I tensed a little, wondering what I'd say if he asked me anything. I planned on laughing and giving him my best Are you mental? face, but when he came up to me, it was only to tell me that I did a good job in class and that he was looking forward to hanging out with Teren and me again. I smiled and relaxed. There was no way he suspected anything even remotely close to the truth about my boyfriend. And I liked Ben. He was good for Tracey. I smiled as I watched them leave the group fitness room hand in hand. They were warmly smiling at each other, even though they were both dripping with sweat.
I met Teren for dinner afterwards, and he was just as thrilled as me that we'd have dates with Tracey and Ben again. I smiled that my vampire liked my friends. Aside from me, he really didn't seem to hang out with anyone. Occasionally, he'd meet with a coworker for a beer. I'm assuming that was with Mike, since they were close enough for Mike to give him those amazing baseball seats. And occasionally, he'd be on the phone with other friends, talking about a sports game, fishing stories, or an article for work, but he never really went out regularly with other people. Just me.
It made me a little sad to think that because of his impending doom, he was purposely distancing himself from being close to another person. A really close friend would probably notice his changes afterwards. And the rest of his family did pretty much keep to themselves on their "little" ranch. I suppose it's easier to hide what you are if no one is looking too closely. That made me glad that Teren had me. He'd be so lonely during this scary time if he didn't. And finding a girlfriend after the change would have been a lot more difficult. Maybe. He was darn attractive after all.
Time sped up in the way that time can when you're happy and content. Teren and I continued our baby making efforts with a near zealotry. Halina was right, we were running out of time. We met with my family and talked over the myriad events that happened to a person over the course of seven days, the things that we could mention at least. My neck wounds had faded away by the time we got together, but I didn't speak of them to my family. Not even to Ashley. That might have stretched even her tolerance level. We went to work every day, we took his pup for long walks at the park, and Teren often made me dinner, usually enjoying his chicken-draining more than the actual meal.
It was a few weeks after our wonderful weekend at his parents' ranch that Teren and I went on our first double date with Tracey and Hot Ben, since their reconnection. I suggested we go to a nice restaurant that Teren and I had gone to before, down by the wharf. Tracey thought that was a great idea and set it up with Ben. I chose going out to eat, because it was the one activity that we'd no longer be able to do as a group in a few months. Teren's birthday was in November...we were already in the first half of September. His days of being able to digest were quickly dwindling. I tried not to think about what else was dwindling. Despite our best efforts, as of last week, in the most obvious way my body could tell me, I still wasn't pregnant.
We all sat at a white, linen-covered table with a spectacular view of the bay, sipping our wines-two reds, two whites. Ben held Tracey's hand and eventually leaned over to give her a soft kiss. She stroked his hand with her thumb and leaned her head on his shoulder. It made me smile that they'd finally crossed over to the next level of intimacy.
I grabbed my own man's hand while we chatted about things to go do together: a movie Tracey wanted to go see, a baseball game Ben wanted Teren to get tickets to, a new dance club that was opening up in a couple weeks-standard dating stuff. Then Ben threw out an idea that filled my belly with apprehension.
He causally tossed it out there as the waiter was walking away with our food orders: Lobster Thermidor for Trace, Salmon and King Crab Roulade for Ben, Duck a l'Orange for me, and for Teren...the bloodiest prime rib they could legally serve him, of course.
"So, you guys want to go camping this weekend?"
I sputtered on my wine and couldn't answer. While I recovered, Teren chipperly said, "Sure. I love camping. Where do you want to go?"
I turned my head to discreetly stare at Teren. He'd said once that he liked camping, but, he'd also mentioned that it was hard to disguise his eyes and Ben had already thought he'd seen them once...
"I reserved a spot at Yosemite months ago, and Trace and I are going. There's some really great country over there, once you get away from the city."
I cringed at Ben's words, but Teren seemed perfectly relaxed. "Sounds great. I love Yosemite Valley. We could hike up to the Falls." Then Teren seemed to remember that I existed. He turned his head to me and twisted his lips in question. "Is that okay with you? Do you want to go?"
That took me back. Was he going to go whether I did or not? Maybe I was wrong about his tendency to only hang out with me. Maybe he just hadn't found the right "bromance." I forced my features to maturity. "Of course I'll come too. That sounds...interesting." I raised my eyebrow on the end of that and Teren grinned before returning to his wine.
Tracey perked up from beside Ben. "Oh good. Someone to do girlie things with me while the boys fish."
I smiled at her and tried to picture the upcoming weekend. I just couldn't quite get there though. My vampire and I were going camping. My glowing-eyed vampire was going to be one with nature, with his possibly suspecting guy friend and a woman who would scream so loud if she ever found out what he really was, that she'd alert everyone as far south as San Diego to the situation. Interesting indeed.
I couldn't dwell any longer on it, or secretly whisper to Teren that he was nuts and he shouldn't agree to go, because our appetizers arrived. Oyster shooters. I gave Teren a secretive smile as I took one. Like we needed an aphrodisiac. Like there was any chance he wasn't going to get lucky tonight. Teren noticed my private smile and gave me one right back; he knew full well where our night was headed.
Not too long after our appetizer arrived, our main courses were brought out. Everyone's meal was topnotch, but I did notice Teren's lack of enthusiasm over his food. The last time we'd come here, he'd devoured his meal, but tonight, he was kind of picking at it. I squeezed his knee under the table in encouragement and he looked over at me with a tiny, unsatisfied smile.
That was when he started staring.
It started with just a simple glance at my neck while he lazily ate his prime rib. Then he looked back for a few seconds longer while he took another bite. About two thirds through his meat, he openly stared at the arch of my neck while he chewed. With three or four bites left on his plate, he gave up the pretense of eating and his eyes bored holes into the vein of my neck. If he were Spike, and I was a bacon-flavored rawhide bone, there would have been drool from Teren's mouth to the floor.
Tracey and Hot Ben were too busy feeding each other from their respective meals to notice Teren's absolute interest in my body. I smacked his thigh, but he wouldn't stop staring. Knowing that he should be able to hear me, I whispered at him to stop it. He was either too preoccupied to listen, or he didn't care. His mouth dropped open and his eyes ran up and down the length of skin from my ear to my shoulder. I suddenly remembered his fangs dropping down at just seeing the carafe at his parents' place, and I got really scared that Teren was going to lose himself to this craving, and expose himself to my easily freak-outable friend.
I wanted to snap my fingers in front of his face, but that felt too obvious of a maneuver with Tracey and Ben sitting so close. They were still engaged in complimenting each other's meal choices, but really, if one turned our way and saw the look on Teren's face, a look that clearly was saying to me God, I want that so bad, they'd be pretty weirded out.
I grabbed Teren's hand and gave him a rough yank. That didn't work like I'd planned. He opened his mouth wider and hissed under his breath, bringing his head closer to me. We had already been sitting near each other, both on the same side of the table, chairs touching, but now he was leaning into my shoulder, staring down at my neck...and he was starting to breathe heavier.