Your Coffin or Mine? (6 page)

I smiled. “Perfect. I’m definitely up for a little trade.”

His head whipped around so fast that I felt certain he’d given himself whiplash. “Really?” His eyes bugged out and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Absolutely.” I smiled. “I’ll give you a free profile complete with two potential matches.”

The eyes retreated back into his head. “I’d rather have sex with you.”

“You and the rest of the heterosexual male population.” I leveled a stare at him. “You’re sweet, in a pierced, tattooed sort of way. And I’m sure you’re brilliant. But it’s not happening.” I smiled again. “Not with me, that is. But I’ll make sure your two matches are die-hard Die Slut fans.” He seemed to think. “I’ll even make it three matches if you’ll hook up a docking station for my iPod.” I
did
have an entire stack of cards from
Manhattan’s Most Wanted
(not that any of them had probably heard of Die Slut, but I would cross that bridge later). Since they were all women, I needed to find an equal number of men.

I eyed Word.

He wasn’t exactly my ideal in the testosterone department, but with a good shampoo and some acne cream, he just might do.

“
Three
real dates?”

I nodded.

“In the same year?”

“In the same month,” I told him. “
This
month.”

“You’re shittin’ me, right?”

“Not at all. I’m Manhattan’s latest and greatest when it comes to matchmakers. I’m also a personal hygiene consultant and part-time wardrobe specialist, both of which,” I quickly added, “come with the profile.”

He shook his head in amazement. “I haven’t had three dates in a single year, let alone the same month.”

Why didn’t this surprise me? I smiled. “Consider it done.” I reached into Evie’s top drawer and pulled out a new client packet. “Just fill out this questionnaire when you finish up and we’ll get started right away.”

He shoved his glasses back up on his nose and his gaze swiveled to the Krispy Kreme station set up a few feet away.

I’d started offering free doughnuts with every profile several months ago as a temporary promotion. I’d tried at least a dozen others since—breath mints, pens, mugs, condoms—but nothing had gone over quite as well. The doughnuts were now a permanent fixture, along with coffee, tea, and the occasional insulin injection.

“Can I have a doughnut, too?” Word asked.

“If you hook up the speakers that go with the docking station, you can have the entire box.” Do I know how to bargain or what?

I picked up Killer, left Word to his computer work, and walked into my office. I set the cat on the floor, opened the small latte I’d picked up, and gave it to the scrawny animal.

Killer sniffed the lukewarm liquid and wiggled his whiskers before dipping his black head. He started lapping up the goody.

A sliver of warmth went through me, followed by a grumble of hunger. I retrieved what looked like a wine bottle from my minifridge, settled at my desk, and popped the cork. The ripe scent spiraled through the air and slid into my nostrils and I closed my eyes. The aroma stirred my nerve endings and made my body tingle. I took a long drink, the cold liquid gliding down my throat. I don’t normally like my dinner cold (what vampire did?), but I was having trouble finding a microwave to go with my office decor.

Lame, huh? But it’s all I had at the moment and it was a thousand times better than the truth: that I was desperately hoping I would eventually get used to the cold stuff. Then maybe, just maybe I could forget the warm, sweet taste of Ty’s blood and stop craving it.

Stop craving
him.

Geez, I’d been doing just fine before I’d met the guy. I’d been the bottle queen. No playing
Name That Blood Type
as I passed cute guys on the street. I’d been happy. Or at least content. I’d had the utmost confidence that my own Count Right would come around someday.

But then Ty had walked into my life and now all I could think about was sinking my fangs into him again. And having sex with him. And sinking my fangs into him
while
I was having sex with him.

Not that I would. No. I was
so
over him.

Or I would be just as soon as I reassured myself that he was okay. I needed closure. Then I could totally and completely forget him. I could enjoy my dinner again, and my afterlife would be back to normal.

Hey, it could happen.

I turned my attention to my computer, opened my e-mail account, and stared at my overflowing in-box. I’d just clicked on my first message when the phone rang. My eyes snagged on the latest Victoria’s Secret offer—ten dollars off
and
free body butter—as I snatched up the phone.

“Thank you for calling Dead End Dating, where your perfect match is just a Visa, Mastercard, or Discover swipe away.” It wasn’t the greatest slogan, but my business was still fairly new and I was testing the waters.

“What about American Express?” A familiar female voice asked, and my heart jumped into my throat.

My gaze swiveled to the caller ID display. My mother’s phone number blazed back at me and dread rolled through me.

Uh-oh.

Seven

W
ay to go, Lil.

I gave myself a mental kick in the ass for not checking the caller ID
before
picking up the phone and then fought down a wave of guilt.

She
was
my mother. She hadn’t endured hours and hours of labor to bring me into this world so that I could avoid her—which I did whenever possible be cause she drove me nuts. The woman gave me an afterlife. The least—the very least—I could do was talk to her. Especially since I couldn’t exactly hang up without her knowing it and heaping more misery on me later.

I pasted on a smile (just in case Big Brother turned out to be Big Mama) and remembered my game plan for just this type of situation.
Single syllable answers. Do not engage.
She would get frustrated and hang up and I’d be home free.

“Um, hi, Mom.”

“So do you take American Express or not?”

“No.” Definitely one syllable. “Not yet.”

“Oh, well, it makes no never mind.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I just thought I would ask since your father prefers I use the American Express to avoid the monthly percentages of our other credit cards, but he’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Deal with what?” Wait. Did I just engage?

“I want to hire you, dear.”

I’d engaged, all right. What’s worse, I heard myself do it again. “You want to hire
me
?” I remembered the Moe’s uniform currently doing time in my hall closet—lime-green polo shirt, beige Dockers—and cringed.

Moe’s is the family business. We’re talking copy machines. We’re talking printing services. We’re talking major yuck.

“I already told you, I’m not working for Dad. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I have bigger aspirations than replacing the toner in a copy machine or collating some guy’s thesis paper.”

“While I can’t imagine a more successful enterprise than Moe’s—your brothers are all managers and they adore it—that’s not what I’m calling about.”

Phew, that was close.

“I need a matchmaker.”

What?

My heart gave a panicked
ka-thumpety-thump.
“But you already have Dad.” I opened my mouth and the words poured out, tumbling over each other as anxiety washed over me. “You’ve been committed for five hundred and twenty-two years. I’m sure that whatever he did, you can work it out. You can’t just throw away half a millennium because he squeezes the toothpaste from the middle or pops open a beer can with his fangs. It’s the quirky things that make him special—”

“Lilliana,” my mother tried to cut in, but I was already on a roll, freaked with the possibility that my mother might actually be leaving my father. Breaking things off. Moving in with
me.

“You can’t,” I blurted. “I know Dad can be a pain, but he doesn’t mean to be. He’s just eccentric. And pompous. And maybe a little snotty. But he can’t help it on account of how he was raised and—”

“Lilliana Arabella Guinevere du Marchette,” she snapped and just like that I morphed from a fantabulous, well-dressed businesswoman into a fantabulous, well-dressed five-year-old.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’m not leaving your father, though I can’t say I haven’t thought about it. Since Viola stole his chain-saw—the one he usually uses to cut down the azalea bushes—he’s been a man possessed. He’s hired a former Navy SEAL for a search and rescue. They’re meeting out in the pool house as we speak.”

“They’re going to break into Viola’s house?”

“The SEAL, not your father. At least, I think he’s a SEAL. Maybe your father said veal, and I just misheard him.”

“Why would Dad hire a small calf to go up against a werewolf?”

“Who knows? I told you. He’s possessed. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“Why doesn’t he just buy another chainsaw?” A majorly stupid question to which I already knew the answer. My dad was a born vampire and Viola wasn’t. The reputation of the entire race—as fearless, superior, condescending bloodsuckers—depended on his recovery of that one power tool.

“It isn’t the chainsaw. It’s the principle of the thing.” What’d I tell ya? “She waltzed right in and took it out from under him. Speaking of which, he’s checked every entrance, every security camera, and he still can’t figure out how she got into the garage.”

“She
is
a werewolf.”

“That means she’s hairy, not invisible. Your father has spent hours staring at the video surveillance and there’s nothing. Just the normal comings and goings of you and your brothers. Our friends.”

I.e., bats. In particular, a pink one.

Guilt rifled through me.

See, Viola didn’t actually
steal
my father’s chain-saw.

I might have let her borrow it a few months back when I was finding mates for her and twenty-seven other female werewolves. They’d needed alpha males in time for the lunar eclipse and a major mating fest, and I’d needed the hefty check Viola had doled out. I’d handed over the chainsaw as a bonus when one of the alpha males hadn’t met the exact criteria. Viola had welcomed a negotiating tool to get my father to stop cutting down her hedges.

Or his.

No one really knew which side of the property line the azalea bushes actually fell on, which was why my father and Viola had been going at it in court as well as at home. One judge had sided with my father, while another had ruled in Viola’s favor. The battle was still on, and I’d obviously managed to land myself right in the middle.

“So your relationship with Dad is all good?”

“Of course.”

Phew.

Now that I’d gotten over my initial fears, something wonderful occurred to me. My mother actually wanted to
hire
me. Translation: She had finally realized that I wasn’t wasting my life doing something frivolous. She’d recognized my talent and she was now taking me seriously. A lump jumped in my throat and I barely managed to croak, “So, um, what can I do for you?”

“You can find an appropriate match for your brother.”

“No problem. I’ve got just the vampire for Max—”

“Not Max, dear.” Max was my oldest brother. He was hot and hunky and single, and totally full of himself.

“Isn’t Rob already living with someone?” Rob was next in line to Max, also hot and hunky and single, and equally full of himself.

“It’s not Rob. I want you to find someone for Jack.” Jack was the third brother, ditto on the hot and hunky and full of himself, but he wasn’t single. Not for long, anyhow.

“Isn’t Jack marrying Mandy?”

“Of course not. Vampires don’t get married. They commit. And only to other born vampires. He’s just infatuated right now. Once he sees that she is far from an appropriate match, he’ll forget all about Mindy and this marriage nonsense.”

“Her name is Mandy and they’ve already booked the hotel.” Jack had been, by far, the worst of all my brothers when it came to being an egotistical, self-centered, do-me-and-get-lost player. Until he’d met Mandy. Now he actually passed for decent, and I didn’t have to kick his ass every time he opened his mouth.

“I think three matches will be sufficient,” my mother went on as if I hadn’t said a word. “I want the crème of the crop. Nothing less than a double-digit Orgasm Quotient.”

Quick FYI: The current OQ record sat at sixteen (an impressive baker’s dozen for yours truly), while the average lingered somewhere around seven or eight. Why the big deal? Each time a BV female orgasmed, she released an egg. No orgasm meant no egg, which meant no flitter-flutter of little bat wings.

What’d I tell ya? It’s all about sex.

“And I need them in two weeks,” my mother added. “Your father and I are having a dinner party—just family and a few close friends—and we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show them off to Jack.”

Just say no.

But if I did, she would undoubtedly think it was because I couldn’t produce and I’d be back to wasting my life on something frivolous.