use him as a guinea pig then." She approached him, ran a finger through the blood on this lip and tasted it. "Pretty delicious, even with the beer aftertaste."
I sighed. Maybe Josh here owed her a meal, but I wasn't going to let it happen. Just then a group of frat boys emerged from the house.
"Hey, Josh's car is here, but I don't see him. Wonder what happened?" There was a bit of discussion as to whether he'd been drunk enough to wander away and fall asleep somewhere and I could see a search party forming.
I grabbed him and looked him in the eyes. "Josh, go back to your car, tell your buds you got sick, hit the tree and scraped your face. Now you need a ride home from someone who isn't drunk. You won't remember seeing us." I was about to shove him toward the parking lot when Penny grabbed him and took a turn with the eye thing.
"Tomorrow night you'll call that girl Penny and apologize for the Ugly Chick fiasco. You think she's cute and smart and you'll ask her out. Now go!" She aimed him so he wouldn't hit the tree and gave him a push with her boot on his backside. Then she followed me as we ran down the street toward my car.
"A date? You're not going." I glared at her when we were safely away from the house. We could hear the guys exclaiming over Josh's reappearance from down the block.
"Why not? If this whammy thing works and he's really going to do what we told him. Which I doubt." Penny flipped her hair back over her shoulders in a gesture that I bet her sister had taught her.
"Oh, it'll work all right. Vamps have the power to plant suggestions with mortals. I assume he has your number." I stopped next to my convertible and unlocked it with a click of the remote.
"Yes, so why not let him be my practice mortal?" Penny climbed into the passenger seat. "So I won't go nuts when I finally get to see Jenny."
"You can practice a thousand times and I still won't let you tell your sister about our world. Not till I know more about her and whether she can be trusted to keep our secret." I sighed and got in the car. "We stay off the grid, Penny. Besides, it's too soon for you to go testing yourself. When he calls, you can turn him down. Call him an unfeeling bastard for dumping you up there. It's what he'll expect."
"No way. He's the perfect candidate to test whether I can be with a mortal without draining him dry." She grabbed my arm as I started the car. "Of course you'll have to go along as chaperone."
"You're kidding, right?" I gave her a look and Penny let me go to fasten her seat belt. Chaperone. Nothing like making me feel every one of my advanced years.
"I'm going to see my sister eventually, Glory. So I guess I have to prove to you that I can be around mortals without endangering them. Better to practice on Josh than on Jenny, don't you think?" She lifted her chin as I headed toward Sixth Street.
Brainy brat. "I suppose. But sounds like you're trying to call the shots. I decide when things happen in this mentoring business, not the other way around." I stopped at a light and gave her a serious look. "You don't have a clue what you're getting into."
"I'm not a kid." Penny crossed her arms over her chest.
"To me you are. In vampire years you're an infant." I grinned as I drove down the street with the top down on my red convertible, happy that I'd gotten in the last word. It was a really snazzy car for a poor shop owner and I loved it. I'd gotten it after working on a video for a billionaire and the Energy Vampires, a group of local vampire gangsters who I had owed a favor. The EVs weren't to be trusted, but I'd needed the car and for once the creeps had kept their end of a deal.
It was a Monday night and my shop was closed but Rafe's club was open. N-V was doing well and Monday was a night with a DJ. Teens could get in but not drink alcohol, of course. I decided to stop and see if Jerry had been right. If Rafe and I did have more going than friendship. And