I studied his face, trying to decide if he was teasing me. I didn't think so. "You really collect Rodgers and Hammerstein sound tracks?"
He nodded, eyes bright with laughter.
"Just Rodgers and Hammerstein, or all musicals?"
"I don't have them all, but all."
I shook my head.
"What's wrong?"
"You're a romantic."
"You make it sound like a bad thing."
"That happy-ever-after shit is fine on stage, but it doesn't have a lot to do with life."
It was his turn to study my face. Evidently, he didn't like what he saw, because he frowned. "This date was your idea. If you don't approve of all this happy stuff, why'd you bring me?"
I shrugged. "After I asked you on a dress-up date, I didn't know where to take you. I didn't want to do the usual. Besides, I like musicals. I just don't think they reflect reality."
"You're not as tough as you pretend to be."
"Yes," I said, "I am."
"I don't believe that. I think you like that happy-ever-after shit as much as I do. You're just afraid to believe in it anymore."
"Not afraid, just cautious."
"Been disappointed too many times?" He made it a question.
"Maybe." I crossed my arms on my stomach. A psychologist would have said I was closed off, uncommunicative. Fuck them.
"What are you thinking?"
I shrugged.
"Tell me, please."
I stared into his sincere brown eyes and wanted to go home alone. Instead. "Happy ever after is just a lie, Richard, and has been since I was eight."
"Your mother's death," he said.
I just looked at him. I was twenty-four years old and the pain of that first loss was still raw. You could deal with it, endure it, but never escape it. Never truly believe in the great, good place. Never truly believe that the bad thing wasn't going to come swooping down and take it all away. I'd rather fight a dozen vampires than one senseless accident.
He pried my hand from its grip on my arm. "I won't die on you, Anita. I promise."
Someone laughed, a low chuckle that brushed the skin like fingertips. Only one person had that nearly touchable laugh--Jean-Claude. I turned, and there he was, standing in the middle of the aisle. I hadn't heard him come. Hadn't sensed any movement. He was just there like magic.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Richard."
4
I pushed away from the seats, taking a step forward to give Richard room to stand. I felt him at my back, a comforting presence if I hadn't been more worried about his safety than my own.
Jean-Claude was dressed in a shiny black tux, complete with tails. A white vest with minute black dots bordered the gleaming whiteness of his shirt. The collar was high and stiff, with a cravat of soft black cloth tied around it and tucked into the vest as if ties had never been invented. The stickpin in his vest was made of silver-and-black onyx. His shoes had spats on them, like the ones Fred Astaire used to wear, though I suspected the entire outfit was of a much older style.
His hair was fashionably long, the nearly black curls edging the white collar. I knew what color his eyes were, but I didn't look at them now. They were midnight blue, the color of a really good sapphire. Never look a vampire in the eyes. It's a rule.