Immortal Beloved: Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-one
While Henry had been hoping for a leisurely evening in bed upon waking, Vicki had other ideas. Didn’t she always? And wasn’t this the second time that she’d foiled his plans to lounge in bed and just make love until sun up?
“I want to check out the windows and see about contacting some of these people that have called,” she told him as she scurried about getting dressed. She was a woman on a mission and it wasn’t a mission Henry was exactly thrilled with.
If the windows were now installed, did that mean she’d be leaving him to move back to her apartment?
“I know what you’re thinking,” she huffed, raking a brush through her hair. “I can practically hear your thoughts over here.”
“And what am I thinking?” he asked petulantly.
“You’re wondering if this means I’m leaving here.”
“Does it?”
“Henry, you knew it was coming,” she said exasperatedly. “Did you think if we had sex enough you could just turn my brain to mush and convince me to stay here?”
He made a face and turned his head away from her. “You don’t have to make it sound like that…”
“Like what?”
“Sex…just calling it sex,” he said, turning back to her. “It’s not just sex, Vicki.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. You’re not going to start waxing poetic on me are you? You’re not going to call it making love are you?”
That angered him. “And what would be so wrong in calling it that? In case you’ve forgotten I am in lo--”
“Yes, I know,” she said abruptly, cutting him off at the pass. Typical Vicki. She didn’t want to hear it because it might make her uncomfortable to actually hear the words, so she stopped him. It was all right for her to know it, just not all right for her to have to hear it. Hearing it made it all the more real. “Look, despite what’s going on here--”
“And what is going on here, Vicki?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest. “Enlighten me.”
“Henry, I’m not in the mood right now for a discussion on our relationship.”
“Are you ever in the mood?” he muttered.
“I just want to go to my place and check things out. See Coreen and maybe attempt to at least do something in the way of working again. I thought you understood that this is important to me. You know I don’t like to rely on others and I feel as though I’ve been mooching off you for the last few days--”
“How? It’s not like you’ve been eating me out of house and home considering neither of us eat food.”
“Rent?”
“I’m independently wealthy, Vicki, you know this.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do, I am not however. I need money to pay for things.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, like…going to a movie now and then. My car for another. And before you even say it, no, I am not letting you pay for those things for me. I’m a big girl now. A big girl that has a lot of time ahead of her and I’m not going to be some kind of lazy vampire that sits around sipping blood and catching up on her soaps.”
“You don’t watch soaps,” Henry reminded her, grinning.
“Yet another reason to get back to work. Henry, it’s not that I don’t appreciate how you’ve tried to help me, but eventually I have to stand on my own two feet, right?”
“Yes,” he mumbled. Looking up at her, he met her eyes. “I just like you having you here.” He gestured toward his bed. “That’s a lot of bed for just one vampire.”
Vicki laughed on her way out of the bedroom. “Yeah, but I know you’ve shared that bed now and again,” she called over her shoulder.
“While that is true,” he told her as he followed her to the door, “I have never shared my bed all day with another.”
Vicki shrugged and headed out, Henry following behind. “It’s not like much happens. We just sleep.”
“But I get to fall asleep with you beside me and wake up with you beside me.”
Grinning and stopping before the elevator, she patted the side of his face as though he was a little boy. “That’s why God invented sleepovers. Hey, just out of curiosity - what’s my relationship with him like now? It was shaky at best before, but now…?”
Sighing, Henry leaned over and pressed the button for the elevator. “Oh, Vicki…”
*********
Coreen greeted them as soon as they walked through the door. “Let me look at you,” she said to Vicki and held up her hands on either side of her to study her closer. “You look good. Do you feel good?”
Vicki rolled her eyes. “I feel…fine.”
“Just fine? You don’t feel stronger, healthier, better?” Coreen pressed.
“Can you feel healthier when you are in fact dead?” Vicki mused and sauntered off to her bedroom.
“You should feel stronger!” Coreen called out to her and then focused her attention on Henry. “How is she?”
“I can still hear you!” Vicki called out and Coreen rolled her eyes.
“She’s fine,” Henry whispered.
“You would think whispering would help, but you would be wrong,” Vicki said, coming back into the room. “See? He said it too; I’m fine.”
“What’s hunting like? Do you love it?” Coreen asked excitedly.
Vicki grimaced. “No, I don’t like it at all.”
Coreen visibly deflated. “Why not?”
“I’m not all that good at it,” Vicki muttered, flipping open the notebook on her desk and sitting down. “These are all the messages I’ve had?”
“Yep,” Coreen said quickly. “You’re not good at hunting? I thought it was sort of part of the package?”
Henry smirked, staring hard at Vicki. “I don’t know, I think she’s pretty good at it. I know I enjoyed being her prey.”
Vicki’s head shot up at that and she gave him a look before going back to her book of messages. “Some of these actually sound pretty straight-forward. How is that possible? I had case after case that was supernatural and now that I’m part of the supernatural, they’ve all decided to stop?”
“Well,” Henry drawled, sitting down in one of her rickety chairs before her. “Maybe they were just waiting for you to join the ranks.”
“Ha ha,” she muttered.
“Can you tell me anything exciting?” Coreen asked, sitting down next to Henry. “Anything at all? Come on; give this poor wannabe something to hold onto.”
Henry looked at her, disgusted, and Vicki just shook her head. “Coreen…”
“Please?”
Nibbling her bottom lip thoughtfully and, after staring off at her newly installed windows designed specifically to keep out the sunlight, Vicki finally turned back to Coreen and stated, “Blood tastes so much better when you’re dead.”
Coreen rolled her eyes. “Does the word ‘duh’ mean anything to you? Give me something else!”
Vicki smirked. “You don’t have to hold your breath under water.”
Henry chuckled and Coreen pouted. And then Henry froze. Looking up at Vicki, he found her staring at the door. She’d sensed him too.
Detective Mike Celluci had just entered the building.
Let the games begin.