Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down (3 page)

“What can I get for you, Your Grace?” she asked, her gaze focused tightly on the bar, which she swabbed with a damp rag.  Her lips were pinched tightly together, red-gold curls bobbing as she scrubbed and scrubbed, as though the bar was made of cholera and only she stood between the world and the next great outbreak.

I didn’t think she’d ever called me by my title before, not once.  Had I done something to tick her off?  “Ah, would a zombie be too much trouble?”

She made a sound like a cross between a snort and a snarl.  “Wouldn’t be the first time you caused trouble.”

“
Shénme
?” I blinked.  What the heck was her problem?  “I’ll have a beer if it’s too much hassle.”

“No, it’s fine.”  She threw down her rag.  “I’ll get you whatever your heart desires.  That’s the way of it, ain’t it?”  Her cockney accent was sharper than usual, a sign of her temper. 

I stared back at her, too astonished by her attitude to ask what I’d done to earn it.  Before I could ask, Bishop hurried over with a sheepish cast to his face. 

“Listen, this might take longer than I thought.  Instead of dragging you all over town, would you mind waiting here with that drink while I go take care of something?”

Was I disappointed?  Sure.  It didn’t bode well for our relationship if he couldn’t go a single night without leaving work behind.  But I knew I’d be the same way if something important popped up.  Whatever it was, it was clearly significant, and I knew he wouldn’t be leaving my side unless he had no choice.  I tucked my disappointment aside, mustering a sympathetic smile. 

“Sure, I can do that.”

Bishop reached for my hand, giving it a brief squeeze.  “This isn’t how I imagined this night going.”

“It’s okay, we have all night.  Go take care of it and I’ll be here.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I know,” I smiled, squeezing his hand back.  “Be safe.”  I stole his line, leaning in to kiss his smooth cheek. 

“Unbe-fucking-lievable,” Laveda muttered under her breath from across the bar, but I picked it up as clear as day.

“Is there some kind of problem, Laveda?” I asked after Bishop had left and she came to deliver my drink.

“Course not, Your Grace,” she replied blandly.  “Wouldn’t anyone ever have a problem with you, would they?”

“Okay, seriously.  What’s got your knickers in a knot?” I demanded, keeping my voice low.  So far, nobody seemed to be following our conversation, and I preferred to keep it that way. 

“You’re going to stand there and pretend like you don’t know?” she gaped at me, and all I could do was shrug.  “You move on like Rob wasn’t nothing to you, showing up here, all tarted up with Bishop to rub his face in it, and I’m supposed to smile and kiss your arse like nothing’s wrong?”

I choked on my drink.  “Is Rob here?”  My head swiveled around, hoping to catch some sign of him, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight.  Had he slipped out when I showed up with Bishop? 

“No, why would he be when you broke his heart?” Laveda retorted, and my temper kicked in. 

“When
I
broke
his
heart?”  That wasn’t quite how I remembered it going down.  If Rob wasn’t even there, what was she getting all grumpycakes about?  What business of hers was any of it anyway?  “What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t have to.  I know him well enough to hear the spark gone out of his voice when last we spoke,” she admitted, lower lip thrust out pugnaciously.

“So how am I rubbing his face in anything if he’s not even here?”

“You don’t think he knows about this?  Word gets around in this community.  Everybody knows you and Bishop are in each other’s pockets again.”

“So what if we are?”  It wasn’t as if I’d jumped right from Rob’s bed to Bishop’s, and even if I had, Rob had been the one to do the leaving, not me.  “Not that it’s any business of yours, but I wanted to try and work things out, Rob’s the one who decided it was too hard, okay?  I’m sorry if you think I should be covered in ash and sack cloth, but I’m trying to move on with my life, and so is he.”

“A shade too quick if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn’t,” I snapped, trying hard to remember that she wasn’t trying to be a b.i.t.c.h., she was just upset that someone had hurt her cousin.  It bothered me too, but I’d been living with it for weeks, and I’d finally made peace with the idea that Rob and I weren’t meant to be together.  Why couldn’t she?  “Look, he’s fine with it, why can’t you be?”

“You think he’s fine?” Laveda snorted.  “He’s all in pieces.”

Part of me twisted inside to hear that, but I knew I didn’t have the means to make it better for him.  “There’s nothing I can do about that.  It’s not up to me to decide if Rob needs fixing, and it’s not up to you either.  And we both know he’s not the type to want my help anyway.”  He’d more than proven that in the past. 

“But the two of you was so good together,” Laveda sniffed, eyes turning watery, and I resisted the urge to pull her into a hug.

“Yes, sometimes we were.  But a lot of the time we weren’t, on an epic scale.  And it wasn’t all my fault or his, and some of it was nothing more than a ridiculously messed up set of circumstances we got stuck with.  But it’s over, Laveda.  We both have to look to the future, and that’s what I’m doing with Bishop, hoping to find the same thing everybody wants.  Love.  I’m not going to apologize for that.”

“I still think you had it with Rob.”

“I did, but it wasn’t enough.  If that means we can’t be friends anymore, then I’ll understand.  But I’d hate to lose you too.”

Quick as anything, Laveda came out from behind the bar.  I tensed at first, not sure if she’d be coming with claws extended, but she clung to me like a spider monkey in a fierce hug.  “I hate to hear him so forlorn is all,” she sniffed.  “Like he’s lost and he don’t know which way is up no more.”

“I know,” I whispered into her hair, holding to her warmth and that alluring scent that reminded me so much of Rob when he’d been alive.  “It’ll suck for a while, and then eventually, he’ll forget all about me.”  I pulled back to give her a hopeful smile.  “Maybe even meet someone new.”

Something flashed across her face, so quickly I almost missed it.  Shouldn’t that be what she wanted?  For him to meet someone new and be happy?  I didn’t have a chance to ask, as Leander and his brother Jarrod appeared by my side, inviting me to join them at their table.  Part of me wanted to stick around and talk to Laveda to make sure there wasn’t something else wrong there, but she’d already gone back behind the bar again, tending to her other customers. 

I let myself be led to their table, chatting about the upcoming New Year’s Eve party I was hosting.  There was a general air of excitement about it, since every vampire in town was invited, not just the council and high muckety mucks of society, and I was running out of time to find a place to host it.  So far every place Maggie had shown me was either not big enough, or already booked, and I refused to use my compulsion to steal someone else’s spot. 

I didn’t even notice how much time had passed until Bishop came hurrying in, and I politely excused myself from the owners’ table.  Bishop looked harried, his tie askew, and when I got close enough, I could tell there was a droplet of blood on his sleeve.  A regular person might not have noticed it at all on the dark suit, but a vampire could smell it out right away.  I was almost sure it wasn’t his, but I had to ask, “Are you alright?”

“It’s nothing,” he replied, brushing off my concern to steer me to the door. “We’d better get going.”  He was right, he’d been gone for almost an hour, and the San Francisco traffic wasn’t being too cooperative as he fought to get us there. 

My phone buzzed again while we were sitting in traffic, and I decided it couldn’t hurt to check it one last time.  Sure enough, it was Carter again, sending a series of question marks since I hadn’t responded to his previous text of,
Do you have any extra gauze or bandaging in your bathroom? 

I didn’t make any comment, Bishop looked stressed enough as it was.  Instead I sent back,
You’d better only be asking because you’re bleeding out of one of the major orifices of your body.  Anything else can wait until I get home
. 

As we sat pinned down at a red light, still at least twenty minutes away from the theater, Bishop’s hands slammed against the steering wheel.  “Damn it.  We’re going to miss the first act.”

“That’s okay,” I assured him.  “I’m sure we’ll see plenty of the show.”

Only we couldn’t, because the outer doors were locked by the time we arrived.  “That’s okay,” I repeated, when he looked like he was one step away from forcing the doors open.

“No, but this isn’t...”  He laced his hands behind his head and paced in front of the big double doors, the frustration coming off of him in waves. 

“Bishop?  Relax,” I soothed, catching hold of his arm.  “We can always go another night.  Did you have anything planned for after the opera?”

“Yeah, but...”

“But what?”

His head craned up to look at the cloud cover with a dubious eye.  “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea any more.”

“What is it?”

“I thought maybe we could go for a drive down the coast and take a walk on the beach or something,” he shrugged, nudging the edge of the steps with the toe of his shoe. 

“That sounds nice.  Why don’t we?”

He darted another look up at the sky, which was heavy with clouds, completely obscuring the moon and stars above.  “I’m thinking it looks like rain now.”

“A little drizzle never hurt anybody.”  Especially not vampires who didn’t get cold.  “How about we take that drive?”  I jerked my head toward the car lot, and his frustration fizzled away, replaced by a faint smile. 

“You’re a good sport, you know that?”

I linked my arm through his as we walked back to the car.  “I know.  Forced to take a romantic drive along the coast.  I’m really roughing it tonight, aren’t I?” I laughed.  “Come on, I bet it’ll clear up by the time we get to the beach.” 

After a while, I realized he was driving us to the same remote beach he’d brought me to when we’d been keeping our new relationship on the down low, back when Jakob was more of a shadowy threat.  And it definitely wasn’t drizzling any more, it was pouring rain as he pulled to the side of the road. 

“I can’t catch a break,” Bishop sighed, the back of his head hitting the headrest in defeat. 

I reached for his hand, pulling it from the steering wheel to cradle it in my lap.  “Hey, it’s alright.  It’s winter, it rains.  We can do this again some other time.”

His eyes were pained as he turned to look at me in the dimly lit car.  “I wanted to show you a good time tonight. I wanted it to be special.  This night was a disaster.”

“But it was a memorable first date,” I grinned, trying to lighten the mood, but he didn’t so much as crack a smile.  “Look, I think we were both trying too hard for perfection tonight, and that’s not realistic.”

“Yeah, but I’m zero for three.  I completely blew this entire night.” 

“It’s not all on you, we’re both nervous.  We need to chill out and try not to have such high expectations.”

His thumb stroked the back of my hand, his words growing softer.  “I can’t help it, I didn’t want to wreck anything between us.”

“Bishop, you’ll have to try a lot harder than this to wreck things.”

“If there’s a way to do it, I’ll find it, trust me,” he replied with a wry twist of the lips, and I smiled. 

“I know, I remember.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.” 

“I don’t know if I ever said that before,” he added, looking down at our joined hands.  “I know I said I was an idiot, and I shouldn’t have been so stubborn, but don’t think I said I was sorry for hurting you the way I did.”

“It doesn’t matter.”  I didn’t want to rehash the past, but it obviously still bugged him. 

“It does.  Everything matters,” he insisted, his eyes hooded in the faint light.  “That’s why I wanted so badly for things to go right tonight.  I really wanted this new start.”

“You’ve got it.  One night of missed opportunities isn’t going to change that,” I replied, licking my lips to come up with the right thing to say to put this behind us once and for all.  “Maybe we both needed to learn that tonight.  One night isn’t going to make us or break us.  Did you know I was just as nervous as you were?”

“I seriously doubt that,” he chuckled.

“No, I was.  I felt like I was going to pass out, I was so freaked out.”

“Why?  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Because I was scared to death of blowing this too.  I don’t have the best track record with relationships either, you know.”

“None of that is your fault.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Anja...”

“I have an idea how to fix this date,” I interrupted, shifting in my seat to face him squarely.

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

I arched a brow at him.  “Don’t you trust me?”

“With my life.”

“Then kiss me.”

It was his turn to raise a brow.  “Do you really think that’ll solve everything?”

“Just kiss me.”

“Okay, but are we judging the success of this entire date based on this one kiss now?”  His brow furrowed with worry, and I let out an exasperated sigh.

“Are you going to kiss me or not?”

“Yes, of course I am.  There’s just a lot riding on this,” he frowned, shifting in his seat, considering how best to manage it with the center console between us. 

“Jeez Louise, forget it!”  I threw open the door and barreled out into the downpour.  The rain actually felt kind of nice after sitting in the stuffy car, though it did make me rethink my position on growing out my bangs. 

“Anja!  What are you doing?” he called after me, jumping out and jogging around the front of the car until he reached my side, his shoulders hunched against the deluge.

“I’m showing you that it doesn’t matter.  A little rain doesn’t matter, the missed opera doesn’t matter, the snooty waiter doesn’t matter – not unless we let it.  All that matters is you and me.”  I looked up at him, not caring that the water spoiled my hair or make-up, or that the pretty red shoes he’d complimented me on were sinking into the mud.  “Do you want there to be a you and me?”