Eve smiled, a happy curve of dark red lips, and dug in the pocket of her jacket. She came out with a piece of paper, which she handed over. "Thought you'd never ask, maid of honor," she said. "I had some trouble finding the right party supplies. I was hoping maybe you'd take a look . . . ?"
"Sure," Claire said. It was a long list, and she silently mourned the loss of her day off. "Ah - Eve - ?"
"Yeah?" Eve ran her hand through her shag-cut hair, fluffing it out into the appropriate puff ball thickness. "Hey, do you think this is too much for meeting with Father Joe?"
Claire blinked as she tried to put the image of Eve's combat boots and stiff net skirt into the same space with Father Joe. She gave up and said, "Probably."
"Awesome. I was going for over-the-top. That way, no matter what I wear to the party, it'll be a relief."
Eve had a logic all her own, and usually it was awesomely amusing, but right now, Claire was focused on something else. Shane wasn't going to like it, and truthfully she didn't much enjoy it, either, but she felt like she had to speak up. That was what friends did, right? Speak up even when it was hard.
"I need to tell you something," Claire said. There must have been something serious in her voice, because Eve stopped fiddling with the controller and put it aside. She turned, putting one knee up on the couch, and faced Claire directly. Now that she had Eve's undivided attention, though, Claire felt suddenly tongue-tied, and there was a suspicious absence of Shane as backup . . . and no sound from the kitchen. He was probably lurking on the other side of the door, listening.
Chicken.
Eve saved her from the unbearable tension by saying, in a very level voice, "Oliver talked to you, didn't he?"
Claire pulled in a deep, relieved breath. "You know."
"Oh, he's been dropping hints like atomic bombs for about a month now," Eve said. "Everything short of ordering Michael to call it off." Her dark eyes studied Claire's face, all too knowing. "He told you to tell us to call it off." Claire just nodded. Eve's lips slowly spread into a wicked smile. "See, I always wanted to turn this town upside down, and we are so doing that. I can just hear him now. Back in my day, humans knew their place. What's next, marrying cattle? Dogs and cats, living together."
Her impersonation of Oliver's accent and impatience was so dead-on that Claire burst out laughing, a little guiltily. She heard the kitchen door swing open behind her, and when she glanced back, she saw Shane standing there, arms folded, leaning against the wall as he watched the two of them. "So," he said. "Vamp Central Command doesn't want you guys getting hitched. What are you going to do?"
"Piss them off," Eve said. "You with me?"
Shane's smile was every bit as dark and wicked as Eve's. "You know it."
"See, I knew I could count on you for quality mayhem, my man." Eve settled her focus back on Claire again. "What about you?"
"Me?"
"I know you're friends with them," Eve said. "Lots more than me or Shane. This is going to put you in the middle. I don't like that, but it's going to happen."
"Oliver already tried to put me in the middle, but as far as I'm concerned, who you marry is none of his damn business," Claire said. "I just wanted to make sure you knew what was happening."
"And what about Amelie?"
"It's none of her business, either. This can't be the first time a human and a vampire got married."
"It isn't."
They all jumped - Eve included - because Michael was standing at the top of the stairs, looking over the railing at them, looking casual and rumpled and fresh out of bed. His shirt was still half-unbuttoned.
"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to eavesdrop." He kept fastening his shirt on the way down, which was - from a purely objective point of view, Claire thought virtuously - kind of a pity. "It isn't the first time a vampire and a human have gotten married in Morganville, and that's the problem." He was a tall boy - and, oddly for a vampire, he was almost exactly as old as he looked, which was frozen somewhere around eighteen. It was a weird thought, but Shane looked just a little bit older now than when Claire had first met him, and Michael didn't. And never would.
He settled into his usual chair, the one where his guitar was lying in its case next to it. He was like Eve; he had to have something to do with his hands, and in his case, his default was the guitar. He went for it immediately, and began picking out soft chords and notes, tuning the strings as he went.
"Well?" Shane said, and sat on the arm of the sofa beside Claire. "You can't leave it like that, man."
Michael glanced at him, a flash of big blue eyes, and then set his gaze at a safe middle distance. His music face, Claire thought, the one that he put up like a shield. One place he wasn't looking was at Eve. At all. And that just wasn't right.
"It was before my time," he said. "Back in the sixties, I guess, a vamp named Pavel hooked up with a girl named Jenny, and it got serious. They got married."
Silence, except for the steady, relentless whisper of his fingers on the strings of the guitar. Eve was staring at him intensely, and finally said, "You haven't told me this."
That broke through his shell for a second, and he glanced over at her, an apologetic and gentle look. "Sorry," he said. "I was trying to think how to do it, because it's not a happy ending."
"Didn't think it was," she said. Eve sounded very steady, very adult. "But every story's tragic somewhere along the way. You just have to know where to stop telling the story to make it a happy ending."