So I'm a Vampire... Now What? - Book 2 (Original Version)

Chapter 10.1 - It's a Wonderful Life

"Well I'm glad you're not a dude anymore," I said as I sat down in the booth across from Louise.

"For some reason, it's always been easier to do the distance glammer with guys," Louise admitted. She slid four of the eight poured shots of tequila across the table towards me and I eyed them suspiciously. Louise didn't pay any attention to me and continued. "Chicks always give me trouble for some reason. They fight me every step of the way."

I fiddled with one of the shot glasses and tried to find a reason to stay pissed, but she was plying me with alcohol after all. You can't stay mad at someone who's buying your drinks. First rule of the bar. I know it's true because I just made it up.

"You're utterly unbelievable, you know that?" I managed to summon some tiny bit of indignation.

Louise just scoffed at me.

"You still pissed about the whole dead, not dead thing?" She said, sounding very British.

It occurred to me that this was the strongest I had heard her British accent in ages. She must have surrounded herself with Brits if it had gotten so strong. Louise tended to mimic the speech patterns of people around her, but now I wondered if it wasn't somehow connected to her particular talent in glammering. That kind of connection with someone was incredible and I doubted that it was a one-way street.

"Well you could have had the decency to write, call, email, telegraph, send up some fucking smoke signals. You know: anything but silence and letting us think you were dead."

I knocked back a shot and Louise did as well. She raised a curious eyebrow at me.

"Us? Which us?"

"Me and Claude. And Sammy."

"Sammy? I didn't think she liked me that much."

"Sammy didn't not like you. She just didn't hate you. But that doesn't mean she wanted to see you dead." I glared at her. "We had a memorial service for you and everything."

"Did you really?"

"Well... I poured out some vodka on a grave that had your name on it. That counts, right?"

"I don't even like vodka," Louise murmured but looked touched and a little embarrassed that we'd gone to such an effort. "If it was the grave over in Blessed Memorial, then it one hundred percent counts. I'm technically 'buried' there. I haven't been by in ages."

"Well, this just got awkward, because I was totally lying."

"So no memorial service?"

That actually triggered a memory with me and I remembered how devastated Jaime had been about her father's death. It also reminded me of how I had felt, that deep emptiness that seemed like it could never be filled and for a moment I felt tears spring to my eyes. There was a feeling of guilt that it seemed I was crying more for myself than for Roger and the shit he had just endured dying over the past few weeks. It was a stark reminder of the pain I had felt at losing Louise and knowing that it had been because of me and there had been nothing that I could do to save her.

At least Roger's death was real.

"You know, I never told Jaime that you had died," I said, noting the surprise on Louise's face. "I seriously had not a clue how to even have that conversation. Like what was I supposed to say? 'Hey, Louise is dead and by the way she was a vampire?' I have zero clue how she even took you suddenly vanishing from her life, but I know that it had to hurt." At least Louise had the decency to look embarrassed by that. "Right now, she's passed out drunk and alone at home, grieving her dad who is actually dead. She fell asleep crying, you know that? The only reason that I'm here right now instead of being there to comfort her through this really shitty time, is because of you being not dead anymore. Plus the fact that she fucking hates me and is probably going to regret crying on my shoulder in the morning, but you know what? I'm willing to take that heat because I know how much pain she's carrying right now. What I want from you right now is answers, so can you at least give me that so I don't feel like a complete asshole for abandoning her?"