Page 23 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Twelve

Two months earlier

Subject: HELP!!!!!!

Dear Mr.Elliott:

Greetings and Salutations! I hope this missive finds you well.

I wish to inquire about your availability during the last week of November.

I have a PROBLEM with my neighbor and am at my wit’s end.

He seems to think that because I allowed him access to my piranha tank ONCE that he is at liberty to pilfer from it whenever he wants.

I want to pay someone to DISPOSE of the problem entirely (if you know what I mean! !!!!).

Your skills come highly recommended. Money is no object. Please let me know at your earliest convenience whether you can take this JOB.

Yours very truly,

J. B. W. C. Corlienne IV

Peter rubbed at his temples. He’d only just started reviewing his email, but already a headache was forming.

One downside to his career: Even when Peter was on a job, he still had to think about what came next. All contracts inevitably ended. If an inquiry came in, he had to consider it, no matter what it was.

Fortunately, Peter no longer had to take everything .

He’d built up enough of a reputation as a fang for hire that he could be choosy.

He refused on principle to take on problems like Mr.Corlienne’s, which could be solved if the parties simply talked to each other.

Murder was rarely a defensible solution to a simple miscommunication.

He refused to dirty his hands over nonsense.

In truth, he tried to avoid taking any job that required murder.

Staking vamps allowed him an outlet for his occasional fits of rage, but the satisfaction was fleeting and inevitably gave way to guilt.

Peter preferred jobs that used his mechanical reasoning rather than his admittedly impressive skills with a stake.

He’d never met a lock he couldn’t pick, had never faced a broken machine he couldn’t repair.

He took immense satisfaction in these facts.

It was why he’d taken his current job in the first place, despite his idiot employers. Accepting an exorbitant sum of cash just for cracking one measly safe almost felt criminal.

Peter rubbed a hand over his face and deleted Mr.Corlienne’s email before moving on to the next.

It was another missive from John, asking for an update on his progress in Chicago.

Peter was tired of John’s constant nagging. Especially since he had nothing yet to report.

Emails from his employer were better than video calls, at least. With emails he was spared both the man’s obsequious nature and his eyesore of a red plaid suit.

When I woke up the following morning, Peter was already dressed and packing up his duffel with military-like efficiency.

He didn’t look at me and showed no sign of wanting to talk about what had happened the night before. Which was fine with me. I was operating on almost no sleep and zero caffeine and didn’t have the bandwidth for awkward conversations.

He was waiting for me in the car after I checked us out of our room, not even bothering to glance my way as I slid into the driver’s seat.

“Our next stop is East Junction, Wyoming,” he said abruptly, staring at his journal. “It’s the closest spot in my journal to where we are right now between here and Indiana. Looks like it’s about a nine-hour drive.”

I knew all this already. We’d gone over our itinerary more than once before leaving California and agreed we would stick to the plan after getting to the motel the night before. He was babbling, clearly grasping at straws to avoid talking about last night.

As frustrating as that was, it also somehow made him more human. It certainly made him more male.

It was probably for the best. What would we even say if we did talk about it? Hey, Peter. We kissed last night, and even though I’m not sure it was a great idea, it’s all I can think about this morning?

Regardless—this game he was playing, whatever it was, had me rattled.

“East Junction,” I repeated. “To that bowling alley, right?” If he wasn’t going to address last night, neither would I.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Gary’s Bowl-A-Rama in East Junction, Wyoming, is our next stop.”

“You sure there aren’t places in your journal that are a little closer?

” I asked. “Or prettier?” I wasn’t looking forward to this next leg of the trip.

I hadn’t been to Wyoming in years. Parts of the state were beautiful.

But if memory served, the stretch of highway that took us from eastern Nevada to East Junction was one of the ugliest drives in the country.

“There are,” he admitted. “But they’d take us in the wrong direction.”

“I still can’t believe past-you went to a bowling alley.

” In truth, I could no more picture Peter bowling than I could picture him sprouting wings and flying.

And then, because I hoped teasing him would snap us out of whatever this awkwardness was, I added, “You must have been way more fun than you are now.”

It seemed to work. A corner of his mouth kicked up into a half smile. “Perhaps I was.” He closed his journal and turned to look at me for the first time that morning. “Maybe we could visit someplace prettier once we’re a bit farther along.” He swallowed. “Together, I mean. If you want.”

A hint of the same raw vulnerability I’d seen last night flashed in his eyes, there and then gone again. I turned my key in the ignition, forcing myself to focus on the sound of the engine, on pulling out of the parking lot, rather than on how he’d just sort of asked me out on a date.

Was that what that had been? Maybe I’d misread it, but my heart was running a full-on stampede in my chest all the same.

I was about to tell him I would like to visit someplace prettier—together—when there was a loud sound from just behind the car followed by the entire back half of the vehicle going thud .

I’d only managed to pull the car a few feet out of the parking spot, but I instinctively slammed on the brakes, jostling both of us.

“Shit!” I exclaimed. “What was that?”

“Probably a flat tire,” Peter said. He turned around, looking towards the back of the car. “Do you have a spare?”

“I have no idea.” The last time I’d driven this car farther than to the grocery store and back had been ten years ago, when I’d driven to California from Chicago.

Peter stared at me. “You set out on a cross-country road trip without making sure you had a spare tire?”

I bristled. “I had a lot on my mind, okay?”

Peter shot me a judgmental look before opening his door and walking around to the back of the car. He let out a low whistle. “Definitely a flat. There’s a nail sticking out of your rear left tire.”

I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. This was just great. We were in the middle of nowhere. Gods only knew how long it would take a tow truck to get here.

Peter gave the car a solid thump. “Pop the trunk for me. I’ll see if there’s a spare.”

The trunk itself opened easily enough. But the compartment beneath the trunk that would, apparently, house a spare tire if there was one, was locked down tight.

“I don’t have a key to that,” I said, regretfully.

“Hmm.” Peter knelt on the ground and began fiddling with some red and black wires at the bottom of the trunk that I’d never seen before. A few slightly alarming sparks later, there was a mechanical popping sound from within the car.

Peter grinned, triumphant. “Got it.”

Before I could ask him what, exactly, he had just done and how he had known how to do it, he easily lifted the lid to the compartment as if it had simply been waiting all this time for Peter to come along.

There, sitting on a pile of rags, was my spare tire. It looked at least as old as the car itself, but there was no nail sticking out of it, which was a big improvement over our current situation.

Peter leaned over the tire and examined it.

“This should be good enough to get us to a repair shop,” he said, running an index finger along the tread.

“But barely. We’ll need to replace it with something that can handle a few more thousand miles.

” He surveyed the other back tire, then grimaced.

“Let’s replace them all while we’re at it. ”

I blew out a long breath. Everything was going to be okay. “Should I call a tow truck?”

“No need.” Peter rolled up his sleeves to the elbow, showing off forearms corded with muscle. I didn’t know why a man rolling up his shirtsleeves was somehow sexier than the same man wearing a short-sleeved shirt—they should conduct scientific research on this question, honestly—but gods, it was.

Oblivious to the way I was ogling him, Peter hefted the spare out of my trunk like it weighed nothing at all and leaned it against the back of my car.

“Fortunately, you have a jack,” he said, as though I knew what the hell a jack was. He extracted a large metal object from my trunk, then knelt on the ground beside the busted tire. “Shouldn’t take me long to switch them out.”

I stared at him. “You can change a tire, too?” It was true that some vampires had useful skills, but the old How many vampires does it take to change a lightbulb?

joke wasn’t a classic for nothing. If Peter could change a tire with his bare hands, he was probably the handiest vampire in recorded history.

He looked up at me from where he knelt. “You can’t change a tire?”

“I can , but only if I use…” I trailed off, wiggling my fingers. We were in a public parking lot where anyone could hear me. I didn’t want to explain that if I used my magic, I could fix anything.

He nodded, understanding. “And you don’t want to use your—”

“ No ,” I said emphatically. “Not in public, in broad daylight.” Besides, I couldn’t risk doing magic again so soon after I’d done a significant spell last night. I had a schedule I was determined to stick to.

His lips quirked into a cocky grin. “It’s good that I’m here, then.”