“Guess I am at that,” Alex replied. He had on a crisp black bowling shirt, dark blue jeans, and new snakeskin boots, topped by his ever-present cowboy hat. He sipped at his beer without bothering to pour it into the glass.
“That was an awfully nice thing you did.”
“What's that?”
“You know, for Josh.”
Alex shrugged. “Least I could do. He's a good kid.”
“It's a funny thing, though.” She leaned forward a little more, offering Alex a glimpse of cleavage.
He glanced down briefly, narrowed his eyes, and smiled while he took another sip of beer. “What's a funny thing?” he asked.
She stared him down and whispered, “I don't usually like to fuck nice guys.”
Alex leaned back in his chair. “Well, I ain't that awful nice. Sometimes I'm a right asshole.”
She ran the toe of her high heel up the inside of his leg. He choked on his beer and shot her a hungry look. “Oh, you just wait. You're gonna get what's comin' to you.”
“Hmm . . .” She smiled. “I'm sure. So hey, I'm glad you decided to hang around for a while. This has been fun. Just what I needed.”
“Right back at you, darlin'. Can't say I didn't need a vacation, my own self.” After a moment's silence, he said, “So, is this the part where you ask me to settle down and raise some kids?”
She laughed out loud. “Alex, you know me better than that. We both know the score. Sooner or later you're going to ride off into the sunset. That's your thing. And that's alright. I'm not the domestic type.”
“Guess that makes two—” Alex paused as someone appeared on the stage behind the bar.
A portly man wearing a dark suit stepped up to the microphone. A spotlight focused on him. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I'm very pleased to introduce to you a new talent. This is the first time you've heard of him, but I guarantee it won't be the last. The Torch Room at the Cazador Grand Casino is very pleased to introduce Josh Easton and the Broken Hearts!”
Josh stepped out onto the stage. His mop of black hair had been gelled and coiffed. He wore a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt, and blue jeans, cuffed, over black work boots. A cherry-red, Gibson hollow-body guitar was slung low over his shoulder by a slim, leather strap. He looked coolly out at the audience. The curtain rose, revealing a drummer and a bass player behind him.
Josh raised his hand and brought the pick down across the Gibson's six strings. The guitar growled, low and dirty and sweet. The crowd fell silent. Josh leaned in close to the microphone and said, “This one's for an old friend.”
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About the author
Matt Kincade, the son of a librarian, was often left to wander the fiction shelves for hours as a child, happily lost among the stacks, soaking up a love for words and the smell of books.
Since then he has been a pizza chef, a sandwich artist, a cash-register jockey, a night manager, a furniture assembler, and a creepy one-hour photo clerk, all while dreaming of being an author of sci-fi and supernatural fiction.
Matt lives in Northern California, where he enjoys the outdoors and gets out into the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains every chance he gets. When not writing or working at his slave job, Matt reads entirely too much, makes music, rides his bicycle, watches movies, and plays video games.
If Matt drank as much alcohol as he does coffee, his family and friends would have staged an intervention by now. Matt shares his apartment with a cat who grudgingly tolerates his existence. Check out his blog (Matt’s blog, not the cat’s) at www.mattkincade.com.
Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter (Book 2): Hell Night Page 28
