Page 35 of My Vampire Plus-One

Shit. “Oh,” I said, laughing nervously. “I…wouldn’t be able to describe his job very well. Besides, he wants to tell you all about it himself. On Sunday.”

Unbelievably, Mom seemed to take that at face value. “Lovely. I’m looking forward to hearing all about his career.”

Me, too. As soon as this call was over, I needed to email Reggie and let him know he’d have to pretend to have a job in tech for this to work.

“And where did you meet?” Mom pressed.

Miraculously, the right answer came to me right away. “I met him at the office.” This was, technically, the truth. I guess we hadn’t beeninsidemy office when he plowed into me on the sidewalk, but this felt like semantics.

“You met him at work?” Mom sounded intrigued. I relaxed minutely. But then she asked, “I thought you just said he was in tech? Is he an accountant, too?”

“Um. No, he’s…not an accountant.” Shit.Shit.“He…doesn’t actually workwithme. We just met at the office.” And then, because I apparently didn’t know how to leave well enough alone, I added, “He sometimes does tech stuff for my firm, though.”

“Lovely,” Mom said again. Dad mumbled something in the background. I heard Chloe bark one more time, and then thesnickof the front door closing. Walk time had begun, apparently.“Well, I’m looking forward to meeting him on Sunday. It’s so nice Aunt Sue is doing this for friends and family to celebrate Gretchen before the wedding hoopla begins in earnest.”

“Yeah,” I agreed perfunctorily. “Really nice.”

“I better go,” Mom said. “My yoga class starts up in twenty minutes. But I just wanted to tell you how happy your father and I are that you are taking someone to the wedding. We worry about you and how hard you work, and we just think it would be nice to see you happy.” I squeezed my eyes shut tight, willing myself not to reply to that. “Please tell that new man of yours that your father and I cannot wait to meet him.”

I almost protested, insisting that my thing with Reggie wasn’t serious enough to justify calling himthat man of yours. A knee-jerk reaction, and a vestige of all the times in my life when I’d had to fight for even a modicum of privacy over my personal life.

I fought against that instinct. Letting them think I wasn’t seriously dating Reggie would defeat the entire purpose of all this.

“I’ll let him know,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it.

TEN

From: Amelia Collins ([email protected])

To: Reginald Cleaves ([email protected])

Subject: Stuff we will tell my family

Hi Reggie,

My mom called when I was at work and asked about you. I tried to be cagey, since we haven’t agreed on our story yet, but I had to make up some things on the fly. Sorry about that.

I jotted down a few more idea on my commute home. This is a work in progress, so if you have feedback, let me know! (Overall, I’m thinking we should stick to lies that have a kernel of truth in them whenever we can. It’ll make it easier to sell the story.)

A.Where we met. I told Mom that we met at the office. (Close enough to the truth, I think??)

B.Your job. I told her you worked in tech and that sometimes you do work for my firm. (I hope that’s okay???)

C.When we met. This didn’t come up during our call, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before someone asks. How about we’ll say 6 weeks ago? Any longer, and my family will wonder why I didn’t tell them about you sooner. Any shorter, and it will undercut our claim that we’re serious enough for me to take you to the wedding.

D.Our first date: This didn’t come up either, but how about we say you took me to Encanto’s, which everyone in my family knows is my favorite restaurant. Then we went to Second City. (I enjoy Second City a lot; doing both of these things together would be a plausible date for me.)

What do you think? Thanks again, SO much, for doing this. You’re a lifesaver.

Amelia

•••••••

From: Reginald Cleaves ([email protected])

To: Amelia Collins ([email protected])

Subject: Stuff we will tell my family