I stared. “It’s nothing like—yeah, sure, it’s a little like that.” Because that was easier than trying to explain. “If you’re really curious you could tune into the show sometime.”
“Oh, of course, I’ll be sure to do that!”
She was never going to listen to my show.
Back at our table, Ben offered me a fresh glass of wine and I gratefully drank it down.
“What’d you get, what’d you get?” Ben asked.
“Food.”
“Hm, the night almost pays for itself.” He cheered my wine with his glass of water.
With the speeches over, the dancing began. The DJ started the first set with Smash Mouth’s “All Star.” So, it was going to be like that, was it?
“So,” Ben asked. “Why’d you break up with this Jesse guy?”
I narrowed my gaze. “Is this going to be a problem, you being jealous of a guy I dated ten years ago?”
“Just curious.”
“He was going away to Boston for college. He made noises about trying to stay together, but . . . it was just noise. We’d have been setting ourselves up to fail.”
“It might have worked out.”
“And if it had, we wouldn’t be here,” I said.
If Jesse and I had managed to stick together and make it work . . . my life would be so completely different I had trouble fathoming it. For one thing, I wouldn’t be a werewolf. Which sounded good until I also realized it meant I wouldn’t have my radio show, and I wouldn’t have Ben.
I tried to avoid regretting pretty much anything. Regret had no boundaries once it started.
Trevor was standing a little apart from the table, watching the crowd, noting every face, turning to the doorways every time someone entered or left.
“You look like a hunter on the prowl,” I said.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose you’d know all about that.”
“What’s your story? You joined the army, and then . . .”
He shrugged. “Here and there, this and that. It’s not that interesting.”
“Not like me,” I said, waving the envelope I’d won for having the most interesting job. Trevor laughed.
Next up on the set list: “Tubthumping.” That got a couple of people out on the dance floor for some half-hearted bouncing.
Ben said preemptively, “I’m not dancing, that’s my line in the sand.”
“I will not ask you to dance, I promise,” I said.
Suddenly, his chin tipped up, his nose flaring. His brow furrowed, and a tension tightened his shoulders. An intrusive smell caught his attention. I took a breath to find the scent he’d spotted. A body moving into the ballroom. Chilled, corpse-like but not rotting, cold with death but still alive. A vampire.
We both turned to the man who had just entered the ballroom. Svelte, wearing a dark shirt and gray slacks, casual and stylish, his hair slicked back. Everyone was eyeing him. He looked good. Of course he did, it was how vampires attracted prey. I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth, astonished, because it finally clicked and I recognized him.
Jesse Kramer, my high-school sweetheart, broke-up-at-prom-drama ex-boyfriend, was a vampire.
Across the room, he met my gaze. And I let him, and I think Sarah McLachlan came up on the set list right that moment. For just a moment, he looked into my eyes with his vampiric, mesmerizing stare, and I was frozen—
“Oh my God, he’s actually here,” Sadie exclaimed.