Gabriel chuckled and poured Zeb another glass of wine.

“So, Gabriel, Jane says you saved her life with this whole vampire thing,” Zeb said. “I appreciate that. She’s been my best friend since we were kids, and I’m glad she didn’t die in a deer-hunting mishap. For me to win the pool, her death had to involve a tragic waterskiing accident.”

“Touching, Zeb,” I muttered.

“But Jane also said you played shake-the-Etch-a-Sketch with my memory. I would prefer you not do that again. Even if you think I can’t handle some part of your world, let me decide whether I want to remember it or not.”

“Same goes,” Jolene said, raising her hand, her voice muffled by a rib. “Hey, Jane, Zeb told me about the telemarketin’

thing.”

I tamped down the urge to be annoyed with Zeb for sharing my humiliation with his girlfriend. Of course, he told Jolene about my disastrous one-night stand with phone sales. I needed to accept that my life was now their “And how was your day?” fodder.

“Don’t feel bad,” Jolene told me. “My uncle Lonnie gave me a job in his bait shop one summer, and I let a whole cooler’s worth of crickets loose. One of the customers started screamin’ that it was a biblical plague and started havin’ chest pains. We had to call nine-one-one. For the rest of the summer, all my cousins called me Cricket, and Uncle Lonnie sent me to work at the sandwich shop. It was a much better fit for me. That’s all you have to do, Jane, just find your fit.”

“Or I can follow your lead and unleash a plague of locusts like this town has never seen,” I said, rubbing my chin with an evil-genius glare.

Jolene snorted, clapping her hand over her mouth to keep from spewing potato salad over my coffee table. “No more jokes while I’m chewin’!”

The good news was that Jolene and Zeb really seemed to like spending time with me and Gabriel. The bad news is that meant they stayed, and stayed, and stayed…and stayed. Gabriel and I were cuddled under a throw at one corner of the couch, barely able to cover that we were desperately trying to touch each other without being noticed. We watched the rest of Dracula, moved on to From Dusk till Dawn, and resorted to Fright Night before Gabriel finally gave up and decided to take his leave for the evening. I walked him out as Jolene popped her fourth bag of Super Butter Lovers’ Popcorn in my microwave.

“I think they’ve moved in with you and just haven’t told you,” Gabriel whispered as I closed the door behind us. He clutched my face in his hands and seized my mouth in a fierce kiss. “What are they trying to do to us?”

“I don’t know!” I giggled as Gabriel pulled me with him on his trek to the car. “Zeb is usually much better at taking hints, but I think he’s doing some sort of weird brotherly protection thing. It’s either very sweet or just this side of cruel and unusual.”

“Did I just pass some sort of test?” he asked. “The test to determine whether your friends think I’m good enough for you?”

“Test.” I sputtered, giving a raspberried laugh. “That’s just crazy talk. There was no —yes. Yes, you did. I wasn’t intentionally testing you, but you did beautifully. Jolene was eating out of the palm of your suave and charming hand. Zeb obviously both fears and admires you. But you did turn his best friend into a vampire. He still rants about a guy who borrowed my iPod after a second date and didn’t return it. It could take some time for him to adjust to us double-dating.”

“I like Zeb,” Gabriel said. “He’s odd.”

“That he is.”

“He suits you. And he loves you, that much is obvious. You’re very lucky to have such a friend.”

“That’s very progressive of you. Some guys are uncomfortable with the whole male-best-friend thing.”

“Well, if I thought he had romantic designs on you, I would have to make him forget he ’d ever met you and give him a sudden urge to relocate to Guadalajara,” he said solemnly.

“Aww, that’s so sweet.” I chuckled, kissing him. “You know, this counts as our third date since you made your ‘I’ll know when you’re ready for sex’ declaration. In human terms, that’s very significant.”

“Third date?”

“Yeah, there was an actual meal served while we were at Cracker Barrel, so I’m counting it. And the smoke-filled porch coziness and then tonight. In human dating terms, that’s three, which is like a sexual green light. So, next time, yes?”

“If the universe was fair, we would have finished what we started on the couch,” he agreed. “Next time.”

I gave him one more smacking kiss before he started his car. “And if Zeb shows up, he’s bound for Guadalajara.”

“Agreed.”

15

When you encounter unpleasantness from the human population, try to keep in mind that you will be able to dance on their graves long after they’re dead. It’s a cheering thought.

—From The Guide for the Newly Undead

As I headed toward my three-month undead anniversary, I got twitchy. Not “espresso marathon” twitchy but certainly not the sort of person you’d want to get stuck in an elevator with. My nerves were crawling under my skin. I couldn ’t sit still. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to drink, but I still drank every drop of fake blood in the house —which I was sure would go straight to my thighs.

It took two episodes of an Intervention marathon for me to realize I was going through book withdrawal. I hadn ’t purchased a new one in more than a month. And I hadn ’t checked anything out of the library since the morning before I was fired…which also meant I had four books that were long overdue.

I had late fines.

I had never had late fines in my entire life.

I had to go to the library, right? It was closing in an hour, and there couldn ’t be that many people there this late on a weeknight. Plus, I needed more information about wolves’ mating habits and the probability of accidental friend mauling. I’d done some research online, but I didn’t know how reliable it was. According to WerewolvesDebunked.com, werewolves manage to pass as human but they are far more in touch with their natural instincts than most humanoid creatures. It can mean a certain earthy, rugged appeal for the werewolf males who manage to hold on to all their teeth. But it also means they’re impulsive, temperamental, fiercely territorial, and not a whole lot of fun one week a month. They had my sympathy on that count.

Werewolf metabolism is so high that they have to scarf down calories all day just to sleep all night, like a mini -hibernation.

Thanksgiving in a werewolf clan is like a full -on farm-animal massacre. Multiple turkeys, hams, chickens, sides of beef, legs of venison, and then they fight over the bones in the weirdest touch-football game ever. But constantly thinking and talking about food is what makes werewolves some of the best chefs in the world.

Think about it. Have you ever seen Emeril Lagasse during a full moon?

Contrary to popular myth, werewolves are born, not made. No matter how many times they bite someone, that person will not turn, though they will probably bleed profusely and will definitely be annoyed. Also, were-creatures can change day or night, no matter what phase of the moon. But their change is less controlled, more complete, during the full moon.

Personally, I thought they used it as an excuse. “Oh, I can’t remember eating your chickens and peeing on your couch. I was wolfed out last night.”

Werewolves are pack animals, led by a patriarchal alpha male. A pack generally lives in close quarters, filling an apartment complex, a subdivision, or a gated community in more affluent clans. In Southern packs, it usually means parking a number of trailers and houses on a farm. This fits nicely into the redneck stereotype of big, dysfunctional, overly close families.

After the chaos of the Coming Out, werewolves were sure that vampires had doomed themselves to extinction. Since many werewolves consider vampires to be stuck-up, pretentious snobs, they didn’t consider it a great loss. Most were-creatures watched with interest as vampires integrated into human society, but few were ready to come out into the open. Werewolves share their secrets with few select, trusted humans. Those who betray werewolf clans …well, I don’t know what happens to them, because they’re never heard from again.

While this information was a good start, it didn’t do much to convince me of Zeb’s safety.

On top of my research problems, I needed Mrs. Stubblefield’s signature to file for undead unemployment benefits, a service for new vampires. The 2000 Census showed that 29 percent of newly turned vampires lost their jobs during the unexplained three-day absence while they waited to rise. New vampires who lost their jobs could file for Council-funded benefits for up to six months.

Fortunately, you didn’t have to prove that losing your job was a result of being turned. And since people expected me actually to pay for my synthetic blood, I was going to need all the help I could get.

Besides, I had to face the library sometime, right?

Well, I couldn’t. I got as far as the book drop in the parking lot and had a crisis of spine. I pictured having to make eye contact with my former coworkers, checking books out from the public side of the desk, looking Mrs. Stubblefield in the eye, and watching Posey incorrectly shelve books. I just couldn’t do it.

So I shoved the books into the drop and ran away like a girl. It took me a few blocks before I realized I’d forgotten my car, which was becoming a bit of a habit. I slowed on a seedier section of Main Street, with its big decaying brick structures from the town’s boom days. My parents never ventured through this part of town when I was growing up, and my mother offered dire warnings of what might happen if I did. And now that I was walking down the dark, weed -choked street, I could see why. I passed several pawn shops, liquor stores, a shop with cardboard sign over the windows that simply said “Videos.” And on the corner, I noticed a little blue sign that read “Specialty Books,” in peeling gold paint.