by Ann Denton
My stomach drops. This is a bad idea. A terrible idea. I wait for Tabby to say so.
“I have a couple friends with single granddaughters…”
No. I get chills. Tabby’s response is all wrong. I start shaking my head. The absolute last thing I need, in the entire universe, is for them to interfere with my work life. With Flowers’ life. He knows they’re my friends. He’ll think I put them up to this. He’s already at threat-level red. I seriously think he might nuke me if they try this.
“No. Flowers doesn’t need a matchmaker.”
Sarah looks at me skeptically. “He’s dating someone?”
“Yes!” I grasp at her excuse desperately. “Totally dating someone.”
“Who?” Sarah folds her hands over her chest skeptically.
“I… um—he doesn’t talk about personal stuff at work!” There! That should work, right? Truth. He doesn’t share anything.
“Then how do you know?” Sarah asks.
“She’s lying,” Tabby sounds bored and dismissive as she turns to Sarah. “I think I know the perfect woman. She’s tall, but not too tall, and her grandma says she likes rock-climbing. Mountain-climbing. All that. Which is something an athletic man like him would like.”
“I’m not lying!” I screech, as my Broomer swoops down to hover near us.
“Lyon Fox?” The witch on the broom looks between the three of us.
“Yeah, just a sec.”
“You’re charged for wait time,” she says.
I ignore her. There are more pressing things right now. Things like preventing this disaster. I can practically see the excitement building between Sarah and Tabby as they face each other. This is a brand new, shiny project. They aren’t gonna let go easily. They want to play matchmaker? Fine. We just need them to direct their energy at someone other than my very angry boss.
“Look, you two should totally try the matchmaking thing,” I try a soothing tone. “You’d be great at it. But you should start a company. You should charge for it. Your services are worth something. You shouldn’t go wasting your talents for free on my boss.”
Tabby’s eyes widen behind her glasses. The magnification is so big that she looks like an owl. “Now, there’s an idea.”
Sarah taps a finger against her cherry red lips. “I like it. We could call it … Snow Blue … kinda like Snow White. Our slogan could be: Get your happily ever after here.”
“Blue Snow is alphabetical, and funny,” Tabby points out.
They turn toward one another, nit-picking and arguing over names.
I let out a deep breath. Thank goodness. Crisis averted.
I walk over to the witch and sling my leg onto the broom behind her. “Wendel’s please.”
We rise into the air and my thoughts turn toward Luke. But as we start to pick up speed, Tabby’s yell sounds in my ears.
“Don’t worry, Lyon! We’ll still fix up Flowers for free!”
FML.
I bemoan my life to Luke, and he listens patiently, watching, and smelling as I devour a giant, warm-from-the-oven brownie at Wendel’s.
“We’ll find a way to run interference with Tabby and Sarah,” he reassures me, rubbing my back. “They won’t get you fired. I promise.”
I sigh and lean into him, letting my food coma and his company bliss me out for a minute. Then I turn to him and ask, “How was your night?” We’ve seen each other pretty much every other night since we officially started dating.
He sighs and runs a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair. I love his hair. “Annoyed clients. Had a shipment run late. If they’d paid the extra for teleportation, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But they paid for standard shipping so—” Luke runs a caster business. Not a spell-caster business. Oh no, he builds custom wheels and ships them off to people.
“I’m sorry. People are dumb,” I hate dumb people. Especially those who can erase the dimples from Luke’s face. He should always be smiling. His smile is captivating.
“That they are,” he agrees.
“Anything else?”
“Had dinner with my mom last morning.”
“How’s she?”
He sighs again. “Had to hand down a position to a daughter after the mom passed away. So, she’s kinda down.”
“Wait, what? Here?” I didn’t hear about any deaths other than the case Seena and I had stumbled into—did someone else get killed?
“Overseas. Positions with my mother are … handed down through the generations.”
“Oh. Is that normal?” Luke’s mom, or sire as vamps call them, is none other than Cookie Gonzalez, notorious leader of the Crypts gang. Luke’s straight as an arrow. But his mom is not.
Luke nods. “Pretty standard in her line of work.” Thankfully, he changes the subject quickly, “She asked me about you.”
I tense. “Oh?”
Luke’s hand runs down my arm, soothing me. I love that he loves to touch me. This is only our fourth date as a couple, and every single time, he’s found an excuse to run his fingers through my hair or put his arm around my shoulders. He uses that touch now, interlacing our fingers as I watch. It used to make me nervous. But, now, it just makes me feel adored. “Hey, Mom just generally asked about you, it wasn’t anything bad. She seemed … excited. Maybe even overly excited, to be honest.”
“I just worry, you know, about the cop thing.”
Luke’s hand reaches my chin and he turns me to look at him. “Hey, don’t worry about that. If anyone needs to worry, it should be her.”
My eyes flicker between his, uncertain. “Things might get weird for you. At some point. That’s not a deal breaker?”
“Oh, we’re onto this discussion already? Deal breakers?” he raises his brows.
I swallow hard, my heart thumping. Shit. Why’d I say that? Damn. Now it’s awkward. I definitely do not want to discuss deal breakers right now. I have yet to share with Luke the tiny, insignificant fact that my blood could turn him human. I’m so not ready for that conversation. Luckily, biting is basically a declaration of love in the vamp community. So, I have time. So long as my stupid mouth doesn't shoot off and ruin things for me. “Sorry. Too deep, too early. I have a problem with doing that.” I lean back in the booth, trying to move away without being obvious.
Luke’s not having it. He grabs my legs and pulls them on top of his own, so that I’m sideways in the booth, knees draped over his thighs.
“Hey, I’m fine with any conversation you want to have,” he smiles. “I’m not scared.”
“Well, I am,” I grab my milk, eager to have something to do. I suck at the straw until it’s slurping drops out of the bottom of the cup.
Luke just watches, his lips pressed together in a patient smile. “Are you done?”
I nod.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, giving me a much-needed excuse to look away from his enchanting blue eyes. “Sorry.” I pull it out. It’s another text from that annoying doctor at the hospital. “Ugh. I hate doctors.”
“Doctors? Are you okay? Do you need to text back?” he touches my arm, concerned.
“Nah,” I wave it off. “It’s just some test they want me to retake. They made a mistake and think I’m part demon. Ha! How dumb is that? How about we pretend I didn’t make things awkward and just snuggle?” I lean on him. His pecs are amazing. And the cologne he’s wearing is a perfect winter sky and pine mixture.
“Do you maybe want to snuggle … at my place?” he asks.
I sit up straight. We haven’t done that yet. We haven’t done ‘it’ yet. We’ve known each other awhile but have only technically gone on a couple dates. My mouth dries out.
“We don’t have to—” Luke says.
“Hell yes,” I breathe. And then I kiss him, hard.
His eyes are burning when I let him go. “Well, then, you might need to get your legs off me, so I can get out of this booth.”
“This is a test,” I arch a brow at him. “A test of your strength and flexibility. I need to k
now what I’m working with.”
He tries so hard not to let the laughs take over his chest as he plays along, scooping me further into his lap. “I’m gonna ace this test.”
“I dunno,” I trail my arms over his ripped biceps. “I grade hard.”
He slides us around out of the booth and then hitches my legs around his waist so I’m in front of him. “Well, I work hard.”
I lean forward and whisper in his ear. “Good. One rule: no biting.”
He groans but nods.
He holds onto me with one hand and pulls something out of his pocket with the other. We’re out the door and—blink—we’re at Luke’s place in half a second. I’m still in his arms.
“Whoa, teleportation. Pulling out the big guns.” He’s not a wizard. That spell must have cost him a pretty penny. I raise my eyebrows. “I’m impressed, Mr. Hawkins.”
He winks as he grabs his key. “Only the best for my girl.”
Is it weird that my knees turn to jelly at that? Hearing him call me his girl?
He invites me in (vampire habit) and when he switches on the lights, my jaw drops in shock.
“Marry me.” The words are out of my mouth before the thought has even fully formed in my brain.
Luke laughs and comes up behind me. His arms encircle my waist. “You like?”
I nod, open-mouthed. Luke’s front room is big. It’s full of shelves, floor to ceiling. And every single shelf is filled with books.
Cremate me now. Because I’ve died and gone to book-lover’s heaven.
I slide out of his hands, walk over to the nearest shelf, and run my fingers down the spine of a leather-bound book.
Luke comes up behind me and presses against my back. His arms wrap around me. “I wanna know you … in the bibliophile way. Spread those pages for me, baby.”
I laugh so hard I snort. “That’s so corny, hot, and ridiculous in the same moment.”
He spins me around and shrugs before draping his hands over my shoulders. “I know. I thought it was the perfect pickup line for you.”
I smile and my heart goes mushy. “It totally was.”
He winks and whispers, “Read my lips.” Then he mouths, “Bedroom.”
I slink out from under his arms and say, “Just so you know … I only read books with ‘happy endings.’” I use air quotes.
Luke grins. “Oh, I’ll give you a happy ending.”
Then he sweeps me off my feet and carries me away.
Damn. This guy might not be just a happy ending. A scary little voice in my head whispers he might be my happily ever after.
Chapter 7
I wake up at Luke’s in midafternoon. He’s still out cold (yeah, I’m punny). But I am riding high from—you know. I can’t fall back asleep and staring at hotness incarnate is only entertaining for about thirty minutes or so.
After I’ve memorized every one of Luke’s freckles, I roll out of bed and get dressed. I search my phone for dry cleaners. As much as I wish I could buy some over-the-counter spell to get out the baby puke, I’d taken a look in Seena’s bag before I’d met Luke. And the puke was glowing yellow. So, whatever had spit on me wasn’t pure human. There’s no telling what is in that puke and no way I’m hand washing that uniform and letting it touch my skin.
I find an all-day cleaner’s close to my place.
I write Luke a note detailing every naughty thing I’ll do to him later and walk back to my apartment. It’s a long walk, but I’m pepped up and full of energy. I text JR even though I know she’s asleep.
I slept over! Call me so we can grab drinks and I can gush.
I smile at a couple elves who are packing up their cleaning equipment outside an office building.
When I turn onto my street, all is quiet. Part of me wonders if Sarah Snow noticed that I didn’t come home after my date. I dread and am excited to talk to her about it at the same time.
Inside my apartment, I get dressed for our evening workout, pack my clothes for the office portion of the night, then another set of junk clothes—because I’m pretty certain Flowers was serious about having me bleach the police van—and finally, I grab the duffel. Arms stuffed, I make my way down the street to Sue’s Cleaners, a shop that has the classy slogan: We Like It Dirty. (I literally picked them for this slogan, because who could resist that?)
I thought I’d be the only person there, because really, who’s out at 4:00 p.m.? But, nope. Wrong-o.
Two people stand in line in front of me. A wizard with a very sad droopy little hat taps his foot to a song in his head and whistles while he waits in line. In front of him, a frantic brownie with fourteen different vamp cloaks is arguing with the navy-haired girl behind the counter.
“I have a coupon for each one of these,” the brownie squeaks. She looks like a miniature human, skinny with curly hair, properly proportioned—she just happens to be three feet tall instead of five.
The attendant, whose name tag reads Marian, sighs and rubs her nose ring as she says, “Look at the sign. One coupon per customer.” She points a tattooed hand at prominent sign on the wall.
“These are all for different vamps,” the brownie argues. “They’re each a customer.”
Marian’s eyes roll toward the ceiling. “You’re literally going to make me ring up each one separately?”
“Yes. I have to provide them each with a receipt.”
“You do realize that I’m likely to pee on every one of these capes once you leave, right?”
The brownie’s jaw drops.
“If you make me run all those transactions, I will make sure those capes smell in a way that no one can get out.” The irises in Marian’s eyes turn yellow and her pupils narrow and elongate. She’s some kind of shifter. And clearly pissed.
Personally, I think she’s overreacting about the separate transaction thing. But I don’t have a job that makes me work at 4:00 p.m. with coupon-obsessed brownies. I might be a little crazy, too, if that was the case.
Once the brownie gets over her shock, she’s completely unintimidated by Marian’s attitude. She drops the capes dramatically to the floor and raises her brow, staring straight at Marian. Then the brownie hops straight up in the air like some TV ninja, lands on the counter, and grabs Marian by the collar.
She shoves her face into the twenty-something girl’s face and growls, “If you dare do anything to my clients’ capes other than clean them, I will clean you up. I will erase every damn tattoo you’ve paid for, slowly and painfully. I will close up every hole you’ve put in your skin. And I will make sure your hair can never hold another dye again. You’ll be mouse-brown forever!”
Marian’s eyes widen. She jerks her head back, clutching protectively at her blue hair. “Fine.”
The brownie hops back down and scoops up the cloaks and the coupons. She dumps them all onto the counter. “I’ve put names in all the pockets along with a list of stains that need to be removed. Take extra care with the ectoplasm stains on the one cloak. The ghost slime was pretty thick. I’ll be back to pick them up in three hours.” I watch as the badass, middle-aged, mom-looking brownie walks past me toward the door.
“There’s an extra charge for ghost ectoplasm,” Marian calls out.
“There’s a coupon in the pile for that!” the brownie yanks open the door, making the bell on top of it tinkle, before she stalks out.
I bite my lip and make eye contact with the wizard. We both widen our eyes at one another, silently saying, “Well that was dramatic.”
Marian rolls her eyes, gathers up all the cloaks and pushes them to the side of the counter. She leans forward on an elbow and says, “Next.”
The wizard steps up and places his drooping hat carefully on the counter. “I need a stiffening spell, please.”
Marian’s expression is deadpan. “Of course, you do.”
“I’d like to wait for it,” the wizard says softly.
“Of course, you would,” Marian stares at the wizard long enough for a blush to creep up his cheeks.
It takes me a minute, because, hey it’s early, but then I finally realize what’s going on. She has to use a stiffie potion for the hat. Stiffie solutions make hats hard and upright. They’re illegal to use on people because they cause all kinds of weird complications. But if I had to guess, Mr. Wizard is going to stuff that hat onto something other than his head and hope the spell remnants affect it. Double gross.
I clear my throat. I decide to help the poor girl out. Clearly, this job sucks a big one. (Not the wizard’s big one because … he obviously lacks in that department.) “You need that hat for an official meeting or something? Because otherwise, sir, I’d suggest you wait the designated time. As a member of Tres Lunas Police Department, we’ve been advised to tell citizens about the safety hazards of such spells. The stiffie solution is known to cause a lot of tissue damage when handled improperly. A man died just last week from complications after abusing it.” (True story. Flowers made me read it. I don’t mention the guy was rubbing raw undiluted powder on himself for two years … because, hey, making a point here.)
The wizard’s eyes widen as he glances back at me. “Oh. Oh, I hadn’t realized.”
“Yeah, sure you hadn’t,” Marian rolls her eyes.
The wizard hurries out of the store, calling, “I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
Marian just shoves the hat to the side with the capes and gestures for me to come forward.
“Hope that keeps him out of your hair,” I say as I set my duffel on the counter.
Marian shakes her head. “He’ll just wait around the corner until you leave and then come back in here. He’s a reg. But thanks for trying. Whatcha’ got?”
“Some kind of weird baby puke. Not sure what species.” I unzip the bag and show her my uniform.
Her eyes widen as she eyes my uniform. “You’re really a cop?”
I shrug. “In training. Actually, right now, our jobs aren’t that different. I just clean up crime scenes instead of capes.”
