alive. Why are we here?"
"You love vintage, right? I just thought we could do something fun for a while, be together like a normal couple at a movie instead of chasing down IDs on buried bones and digging up ancient vampires along with lots of early Vegas history and getting exotic supernatural killers on our tails."
"Speaking of tails ..." I glanced around for Quicksilver.
"He hopped out as soon as we were hooked up to the speaker to find a better viewing spot."
"Now Quick's gone and we're sitting in this parking lot of strangers in the wilderness."
"Cold Creek," Ric said.
"What?" I thought the phrase meant something like "tough shit," at first.
"Cold Creek, Colorado," he repeated. "That's the town just fifteen miles away. We're not in the wilderness, and Quicksilver is just off doing doggy guard duty, I bet."
"There's a hot shower and fast food just fifteen minutes away?"
"Yeah, and we'll go there after the show. Meanwhile we can do what Dolly was meant to do, take a couple of hot kids to the drive-in with her top down and the guy hoping to get the girl's top down. We can neck through a few reels, and I do mean reels, because they show old black-and-white movies here. Just neck like the normal teenagers we never were. Smear your lips with that hot new color lip gloss you're using and I'll get to work wearing it off."
I did adore the kissing part. I dug in my hobo bag on the floorboard. "You like this stuff, huh? It is flavored." I screwed up a bullet-shaped tube of deep raspberry color with flecks of silver glitter.
His "yeah" was one of those gruff, turned-on under-statements he made during sex.
"Let me put it on you," he said, suddenly. "What's it called?"
"Midnight Cherry Shimmer," I said before he tilted up my chin and ran the smooth oily stick over my bottom lip so slowly it was like he used his tongue.
"'Cherry,'" Ric repeated. "Perfect for the tender teen mood I want you in tonight."
He slicked the gloss over my top lip as I felt a deep quiver inside.
"We're way past that stage, Ric," I said anyway.
"What's the harm in going back?"
"Going back? You never were at a drive-in movie. You're way too young too. Didn't you get enough thrills sneaking around dating those rich and spoiled baby socialites in Washington, D.C.? You were the exotic wild child turned bureaucrat's foster kid and high school heartthrob. Don't kid me."
"I meant going back to a more innocent time. The minute I laid eyes on Dolly I was wishing I could take you and her out on a date."
"We kinda got to the endgame of a date right there in Sunset Park over an overexcited dowsing rod before you ever laid eyes on Dolly at the curb."
"I wouldn't regret that moment for the world, Del. Look, that teenage tear of mine wasn't real, any more than those Barbie girls were. Sure, I made it with them ... in the beach house, in the boat house, in the upstairs maid's quarters, in the gazebo in the garden, in their graduation Beamers and Porsches with bucket seats and central consoles, and upright shifts making it an instant three-way. I never made love with them."
I had nothing to say to that.
"Del, you must know that I know all the things you've been doing to spare me any aftershocks from being eaten by vampires."
I could only mutter the next sentence. "I'm supposed to laugh at that phrase, but they tortured and almost killed you."
"I know. I've got most of those memories back. I know how you bent your whole heart and soul to making sure when I came out of my coma it wasn't like waking up fresh from a nightmare, like you do so often. And it wasn't, was it?"
Now he was nibbling on my earlobe, my neck.
Necking. Just the word made me nervous now that vampires were surfing U.S.A. across the whole world. Back in Dolly's day, the term had meant lots of smooching and maybe even tongue if the guy was a J.D., a juvenile-delinquent-in-training, and lots of above-the-waist groping. I'd seen American Graffiti too. It was a forty-year-old antique, even though it was in color.
"I love being behind this steering wheel," Ric said.
"Ric, we're not even moving now. We're parked."
"Right. And I'm in the driver's seat and you've got both hands free. And girls just want to suck face forever."
He pulled me against him. I looked around nervously, but the