God, I hated him.
* * * * *
This was the rest of my blinkety-blank day:
First, I had to come out of the bathroom. I couldn’t live there, as much as I wanted to at that moment. There was water but there was no food and I was hungry.
When I did the bed had been made and Edwina was setting the table between the armchairs with plates and cutlery.
She turned to me, all perky housekeeper, and smiled, asking, “And how are we this morning?”
“Murderous,” I replied.
Her body twitched and her head tilted to the side in that weird birdlike manner of hers.
She took a moment to study me. “I see you’re not in a very good mood again,” she observed.
“No. I. Am. Not,” I retorted. “Where’s Lucien?”
“Here,” he declared, sauntering in coolly like he hadn’t just humbled me, kept me from my family, shackled me with his mind.
“You haven’t left yet?” I snapped out my question.
“I’m showering, we’re sharing breakfast then I’m leaving.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to get a move on when I realized Edwina was still in the room. Not wanting a repeat of twenty minutes ago, I pressed my lips together and wrapped my arms around my middle.
Lucien watched me do this then, as he walked to the bathroom, he mumbled, “You’re learning.”
I turned to Edwina and asked, “Do we have any lighter fluid?”
Edwina’s brows shot up to her hairline as I heard Lucien’s bark of laughter from the bathroom cut off in mid-rumble as he shut the door. This made my hands clench into fists.
“I don’t think so, dear,” Edwina answered, confused at the question and the byplay.
“Maybe you should put it on your grocery list,” I suggested.
“Are you planning a barbeque?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “A big one.”
That’s when I heard Lucien’s second bark of laughter.
Damn the vampire.
* * * * *
Lucien and I shared breakfast.
We sat in the armchairs in my bedroom and he calmly ate while reading the paper as I made another attempt to get laser beams to shoot out of my eyes.
It goes without saying I failed in this endeavor.
Unable to take the silence, I asked, “Why are we eating in the bedroom?”
“Because I want to,” he replied.
“But why?” I pushed.