Page 42 of My Vampire Plus-One

He cracked one eye open. “Am I close, at least?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Rats,” he muttered, looking crestfallen. “No pun intended, of course.”

I snickered. “Of course.”

“Okay, so what about…famous Italian painters? The legacy of Alexander the Great? Oh!” He nearly jumped out of his seat with what, again, looked like genuine excitement. “What about American neutrality at the start of World War I?”

“You’re getting closer with the last one,” I said. “He studied central European history at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.” I paused, taking in Reggie’s rapt expression. “He co-wrote a book on World War I when I was in high school.”

“Unbelievable,” he breathed. “Will I get to meet him tonight?”

“Unless he managed to finagle his way out of coming, yes.”

His smile was so broad it nearly split his face in two. “Brilliant. I’ll have to think of the perfect questions to stump him. Now,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “what do I need to know about your mom that you haven’t told me?”

I thought about that. Whatdidhe need to know about Mom? “Well, I guess you could say she’s very eager to meet you.”

“Naturally,” he said. “What else?”

“She’s impressed by accomplishments.” That was true enough. “She’s proud of my brother Sam for becoming a lawyer. I think she’s also proud of me for becoming a CPA, though she’s probably not as impressed by my job as she is by Sam’s.”

His eyes went very wide. “Why? Your job sounds really difficult.”

I looked out the window to avoid his gaze. Hearing him ask the same question I’d been asking myself for years hurt more than it should have. “It might just be my imagination.”

I didn’t think it was, though. They threw a big party for Sam when he graduated from law school. Which was super valid, ofcourse. Sam worked his ass off to get his degree while still holding down his full-time job in marketing. When I passed the CPA exam, our parents got me a briefcase. No party. And no fuss.

“It may just be that they don’t understand what I do,” I hedged. “Dad was a history professor. Mom taught English. I guess they’ve just never seen the appeal in accounting.” I shrugged. “Or maybe the whole numbers thing just confuses them.”

“Well,Ithink what you do is incredibly impressive,” Reggie said, with a vehemence that surprised me.

“Really?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I’ll admit I don’t have a very solid grasp on what it is accountants do other than organizing…um, something with financial documents and money, and…uh…” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Taxes, and stuff. But it seems hard, and also important.”

He looked so hopelessly flustered as he tried to reassure and compliment me that I found myself utterly disarmed. I inched closer to him in the backseat before I’d realized it had happened.

“I really do like what I do,” I said. “I just wish that was enough for my family.”

“So do I,” Reggie said, his voice full of sympathy. Then he brightened. “Hey, I have an idea. If your mother is so impressed by accomplishments, telling herthe truthabout me would scandalize her, wouldn’t it?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Might be fun.”

It took me a minute to realize what he was getting at. “Oh. You mean…tell her that you’re not working?”

He stared at me in silence for a long moment, brow furrowed in confusion. “I mean…sure. That too, I guess.”

I tried imagining telling Mom I was dating someone who was unemployed. “No, I don’t think that would work.” At the look on his face, I hastened to add, “There’s nothing wrong with nothaving a job, I promise. It’s only that it’s been at least a decade since I’ve dated anybody who wasn’t either working or pursuing a degree. Or both.” I shook my head. “She just wouldn’t believe I’d even have a way tomeetsomebody who wasn’t working.”

“I’m not working,” he pointed out. “And you met me.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. “Mom just wouldn’t get it,” I said, as kindly as I could. “I promise the truth about you doesn’t matter to me, but I think we should just stick to what I already told her. We met at the office. You work in tech.”

He sighed. “Fine. If you told your mom I work in tech, I’ll play along. Would it be okay if I gave that backstory a few creative flourishes, though?”

I didn’t see any harm in that. “Sure.”

“Good,” he said. “Becauseworks in techsounds pretty boring.”