by Tessa Bailey
“And?”
“And…I don’t know.” Heat stole up her neck. “I don’t want you to think I’m presuming anything.”
Jonas glanced over at Roksana. “What am I missing?”
“Don’t ask the slayer,” Elias drawled. “She doesn’t know how normal women think.”
“She’s worried you’ll think she’s a clinger.” Roksana flashed Elias her middle finger. “I usually worry more about the men I date getting clingy. So annoying when that happens.” With a sharp sound of irritation, Elias blurred from the kitchen so fast, it left a smug Roksana’s hair floating in the air. “Touchy touchy.”
“Why wouldn’t I want you to cling to me?” Jonas asked, ignoring the scene. “I expect you to cling, Ginny.”
“It’s just that we haven’t had a conversation about…logistics. When we’ll see each other and where. Are you just going to appear in my bedroom at nighttime? Am I still going to be blindfolded everywhere we go? Am I—”
“She’s feeling insecure, Jonas,” Tucker called. “Fix it.”
“Oh I will,” he said slowly, studying her with harder than usual intensity. “As soon as I figure out the most effective way. Although I’m not sure anything says ‘I’m committed’ more than making a woman one’s sustaining life force.”
“You’re thinking like a vampire,” Tucker said. “She’s a human. She needs human gestures.”
“Hey.” Ginny crossed her arms. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
Jonas’s lips tugged. “Sorry, love. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.” She set her voice to a whisper. “Are you?”
“Always,” he breathed, lids drooping. “I can wait, though.”
“Can you?”
“I’m going to exercise restraint from the beginning.” Jonas circled his thumb in the hollow of her throat. “I will not overwhelm you.”
He turned and zipped to the counter before she could reply, remaining poised with his fists on the counter a moment, before reaching for the carton of eggs on the counter. What would have been her reply? That, oddly, she liked how it felt when he took his fill? That it felt like relief and homecoming, all rolled into one? Did that make her shameful or weird?
Ginny shook herself. “Roksana, can I use your phone to call Larissa? I left my things at the bar.”
Roksana rolled her eyes over Jonas’s growl. “Sure thing, lady.”
She took the phone into the living room and sat down on the couch, keying in the number to the funeral home by memory. Ginny’s stepmother answered on the second ring. “P. Lynn Funeral Home.”
“Larissa. Hi, it’s Ginny.”
“Ginny. Where are you? I came down for a box of tissues because I still feel like shit and there were five messages from a man wanting to schedule his son’s services. I can’t meet with him. I’m like a zombie.”
She held on to her patience. “When does he want to meet?”
“Tonight. Six o’clock. I know your shift doesn’t start until later, but—”
“Oh, Larissa. I would do it, but my dress expo is tonight—”
“Your what?”
Ginny closed her eyes. “Nothing. I’ll just set up late. Can you confirm the appointment and let him know I’ll be there?”
“Yes. Fine.” She sounded like a deflating raft. “Ginny, we have to sell this place, even if we take a loss. This is like the Groundhog Day from hell. I’m not cut out for being surrounded by death and sad people. I swear I think it’s making me ill.”
“Okay, Larissa,” Ginny pushed through numb lips. “I’ll really sit down and consider it this week. I mean that. I don’t want you to be miserable.”
“Aren’t you miserable, too? Don’t you want to try something new? We could…I don’t know. We could try something new together, even? I’m not that bad, am I?” Her stepmother bit off a curse. “Listen to me rambling. I’m just stressed.”
“It’s fine.” Ginny pressed her lips together. “Bye, Larissa.”
The line was already dead.
Ginny let the phone drop to her lap, starting when she found Jonas standing at the end of the couch, watching her with concern.
“Did you hear all of that?” she asked.
Equations solving themselves behind his golden eyes. “Yes.”
She nodded, grateful when he didn’t press. “I have to go home.”
“I know.” It was clear he didn’t like it, too. “Tonight is important to you. Roksana will stay with you until I can…”
“Go outside?”
Jonas remained unmoving. But for the first time, the differences between them were a long-term problem. They weren’t just details that would no longer matter once her memory was erased. Jonas couldn’t go outside in the sunlight. They could never walk along the boardwalk together, or even lie in bed on a Sunday morning with light streaming in through the window.
When did she do those things anyway?
In a way, she already kept the hours of a vampire, sleeping through most of the day and working the night shift. Staying indoors during the day wouldn’t even be that big of an adjustment for her, but Jonas looked concerned nonetheless.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll miss you until tonight, but it’s okay.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Mercilessly.” The vein in his temple ticked as he held out a hand. “Come have breakfast.”
It was definitely a new experience, eating breakfast while sitting on Jonas’s lap, his thumb brushing back and forth against the small of her back. She was thankful Roksana had some of the eggs, too, so she didn’t have to be the only one eating. Once they were finished and they all pitched in cleaning the dishes, her stomach started to jangle with nerves. Because she was leaving Jonas?
That’s what it felt like. As if they were going to be on opposite sides of the country, instead of opposite ends of Coney Island.
“I can hear your pulse beating fast, love,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s going to be all right.”
Ginny fanned her face. “Why do I feel like this?”
“I hate letting you go, too, but I don’t know if our reasons match.” He tucked her head beneath his chin. “Maybe you’re worried the pain will come back if you leave me. It won’t. Not before I see you again.”
“I’d be more worried about the pain coming back for you…but I don’t think that’s it.” She tried to find a way to put her anxiety into words. “Everything feels so fragile. Like this…us…could get taken away any minute.”
He kissed her forehead hard. “We’re the opposite of fragile, you and me.”
Still walking on pins and needles, Ginny nodded. Pull it together. They couldn’t be together twenty-four hours a day. They both had responsibilities. They were independent people. She had to work the funeral home and maintain her interests. He had the newbies to train. If she fell victim now to the impulse to never leave Jonas’s side, she’d never overcome it in the future.
“Why are you worried about letting me leave?”
“While we are not fragile, love…you are. You couldn’t withstand an accident or a long fall or—” He broke off with a rough exhale. “Roksana, please.”
“I’ll guard her with my life,” the slayer said where she waited at the door. “To the best of my ability. You know I will.”
“I know we have to worry about the High Order finding out about us now, but Seymour is gone. You took care of the immediate threat last night,” Ginny reminded him, pushing off his lap to her feet. “I’ll see you when the sun goes down.”
“I’ll be watching the clock,” he murmured, catching her hand and dusting his lips across her knuckles. “Bye, Ginny.” She was almost to the door when Jonas appeared between her and the door with a determined set to his jaw. “Will my mate not kiss me goodbye?”
Flowers bloomed in the soil of her nerve endings, sprouting like spring daisies. “Are you sure that’s a good—”
Jonas mouth was already on hers, depleting her lungs of breath. He took it into hi
mself and gave it back to her in a greedy exchange. The fingers of his right hand molded to the back of her neck, sliding up into her hair and fisting it, his tongue traveling into her mouth to touch their tongues together. Just a hint. And another. Such gentle friction compared to his hold which might as well have been made of steel bars. Ginny’s thighs itched to perch on his hips, but he made her too dizzy to follow through, once again pulling the air from her body and breathing it into her once again.
“I carry you in my veins, you carry me in your lungs.”
Dazed, she nodded.
With a satisfied smirk, he turned her to face the door where Roksana was still waiting with her eyes averted. “Tonight, Ginny.”
She left in such a daze, she didn’t realize until they were standing outside on the sidewalk that Jonas didn’t blindfold her. Turning to face the building, she realized she’d been sleeping in the basement of the abandoned Shore Theater all along. The men’s apartment was a series of dressing rooms, wasn’t it? That’s where those big-bulbed frames came from.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she murmured, staring up at the boarded up arches and vintage stonework.
“No?” Roksana said, tossing her a wink. “In this world, when things stop surprising you, wait five minutes.”
In that moment, Ginny didn’t know enough to acknowledge the truth of her friend’s words. She would soon enough.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ginny stepped aside to avoid being run over by Larissa and her suitcase.
“What do you mean you’re outta here?”
“I’ll explain it one more time,” her stepmother called over her shoulder. “An investor called and asked if the business was for sale. I told him, yes, of course. That he should get in touch with you to make an offer. But he was only interested in my share.”
Larissa ran back up the stairs, emerging a moment later with another suitcase, this one bursting at the seams with undergarments.
“I don’t know why I never thought of that angle before, but your father’s will states that the company would be split fifty-fifty in the event of his demise. There’s no language precluding me from transferring my portion to someone else. And it’s done.” She held up her arms in a touchdown signal. “Hallelujah. I’m out.”
“But…” Ginny pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead. “You just sold half of the business without speaking to me?”
“I spoke to my lawyer.”
Ginny sat down on the stairs out of necessity. Her legs would no longer support her. “But I don’t even know this person.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but that’s no longer my problem.” Larissa slowed on her third trip up the stairs, sighing as she passed Ginny. “Look, you’re a good girl. Kind of weird, but nobody’s perfect. I gave it the old college try, honey.” She lifted a hand and let it drop. “This place just gives me the fucking creeps.”
“Did you really love my father?” Ginny blurted the question, unaware that it had been sitting on her tongue for years without being voiced. More than that, it had been eating at her, wondering if this woman who’d soaked up so much of Peter Lynn’s legacy had ever known how quietly extraordinary a human being he was. “Did you, Larissa? Because this place you detest so much…is him. It’s so him.”
“Yes,” her stepmother whispered shakily, her eyes turning to two perfect pools of glass. “I did love him. Why do you think I’ve stayed this long? Why do you think I’ve been trying so hard to—” She cut herself off with a headshake. “Yes, I loved Peter Lynn, right down to his uneven beard and mismatched socks.”
Ginny closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
Genuine grief flashed in her stepmother’s eyes. “One last chance to come with me.” Larissa playfully punched Ginny in the shoulder. “Make a clean start somewhere.”
“I have to stay.”
Larissa nodded. “That’s that, then, I guess.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but she hopped to her feet once more, as if the poignant moment never happened. “The investor offered me double my asking price for fifty percent of P. Lynn. The only condition was I get out today.”
“What? Are they planning on moving in here?”
Roksana cleared her throat loudly from her hiding spot in Ginny’s room.
Larissa whirled around. “Did you hear that?”
“No.” Larissa started to creep along the landing in the direction of the noise—and Ginny panicked. “You know how sometimes dead bodies expel air. That must have been it.”
“There are no bodies to speak of.”
“Oh I didn’t mention,” Ginny said, scratching her eyebrow. “A new guest arrived just as I did. Had the whole thing arranged. Didn’t I tell you?”
“No…” Larissa paused. “Oh, who gives a shit anymore? I’m done. Let the dead bodies do as they will.”
Ginny waited until Larissa had disappeared back into her room before speed walking to her own bedroom and closing the door. “What was that?”
Roksana rolled out from beneath the bed. “Ask for the name of the investor.”
With that, she trundled back out of view.
A very unladylike curse hovered on Ginny’s lips as she stomped back out into the hallway, calling, “Larissa. What did you say this person’s name was?”
“Oh, um…what was it…” She poked her head through the doorframe. “J. Cantrell. Sounded kind of cute, too. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
Ginny’s jaw hung in the vicinity of her knees. From underneath her bed, she could hear Roksana snickering. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or livid.
Livid. Definitely livid.
This was the second time in twenty-four hours Jonas had made a huge decision without even dropping her an email. And that was on the heels of a series of decisions he’d made on her behalf since day one. Oh, she’d walked into this relationship with eyes wide open. Less than a day later, however, she was already questioning her sanity.
“How could he do something like that without even asking?” Ginny breathed, walking back to her bedroom in a stupor. “I never would have agreed to let him bail me out. I was figuring out what to do on my own.”
“You asked for human gestures.”
“No, I didn’t. You and Tucker decided I needed human gestures.”
“Are you really so upset about this?” Roksana asked, still under the bed for some reason. “Jonas is loaded. He won’t even feel it and now we don’t have to conk old Larissa on the noggin every time we come over. It’s good for everyone.”
“He can’t make decisions this big when they affect us both. How would you feel if Elias—”
“No no no.” Roksana’s wagging index finger emerged first, followed by the rest of her. “Don’t bring him up and kill my chipper mood.”
“What happened between you two?” Ginny asked, being more abrasive than usual because this crazy huge thing just happened and Roksana was acting quite cavalier. They’d see how cavalier she’d be when someone prodded her sore spot. “He’s the reason you can’t slaughter them, isn’t he?”
Roksana smacked the floor. “I’m doing it tomorrow!”
Ginny snorted.
Larissa appeared in the doorway, staring at Roksana and her leather bustier like they were a personal offense. “Who are you?”
“Death. Here to collect,” Roksana said, unsheathing a knife from inside her boot. “Go now and I might let you live.”
Larissa ran screaming down the stairs as though wild boars were snapping at her heels.
“Well that was unnecessary.”
Roksana flipped her knife end over end and caught it. “She had it coming.”
A laugh tickled the inside of Ginny’s throat, so she smacked a hand over her lips to trap it. Was this going to be her life now? Swinging between the disturbing to the shocking to the absurd with every tick of the clock?
“Clock,” she breathed. “What time is it? I have to finish my dresses before tonight and there’s the meeting with that man about his son…
”
“I’ll just be under here,” Roksana intoned, vanishing once more beneath Ginny’s queen-sized bed. “Wake me up if they bring the snack cart around.”
Shaking her head, Ginny got down to business. She wheeled the squeaky garment rack over to her sitting area and fired up her sewing machine. Thankfully there weren’t too many things left undone. She polished the hem on her green, wool A-line, for which a Christmas tree had been the inspiration, then sewed on the red holly embellishment over the chest pocket.
The formal, white silk gown required steam cleaning, along with the faux fur being affixed to the collar. And maybe she needed a trail of rhinestones traveling down between the breasts and spreading along the hips?
With a needle and thread permanently stuck between her lips, she’d never worked faster in her life and by the time late afternoon rolled around, she had a full, finished collection, against all odds.
Ginny eyed her napping couch longingly, but there was no time to rest. She sped through a shower, blow drying her hair and applying lip gloss, mascara and some blush. When her usual go-to for anything fancy—that wasn’t a funeral—would have been bright and pattered, she found herself reaching for the red, lightweight chiffon number in the back of her closet. A black belt cinched the floaty material in the waist, layers of ruby red cascading to mid-thigh.
And for once, when putting on a dress, she felt exactly like herself. Not Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall or even Grace Kelly.
Just Ginny.
“I believe they call this a glow up,” Roksana murmured, coming up beside her. “Are we over our tiff?”
“It wasn’t really a tiff,” Ginny sighed.
“Ahhh. You are saving your wrath for Jonas.”
Ginny squared her shoulders. “Like I said, he can’t make big decisions that affect us both without some kind of communication. It’s not fair.” She shook her head. “My heart already trusts him, but my mind is another story. I need both on board. Both are important to me.”
“He’s used to being the prince. He makes a decree, others obey.”
