Sunshine opened up Selena's folding chair that Selena used for her clients, then sat down beside her. "C'mon, Lainie. I really, really like this guy, and it's driving me crazy that he won't tell me anything, not even his birthday. So what do you know?"
"I'm not supposed to say anything, Sunny. I was sworn to secrecy."
"Sworn by whom?"
Selena set her tarot card box on the table. "I'm not supposed to say," she repeated.
"What is he, Mafia?"
"Oh no," she said, her voice thick with warning. "They make the Mafia look like Boy Scouts. These are guys no one crosses with impunity."
Someone worse man the Mafia?
"Who are they?"
"Look," Selena said. "Let's just say he's in Tabitha's line of work, okay?"
Sunshine frowned. "Ladies' lingerie? He hardly looks the type to sell that."
"No, goof-ball. What she does at night."
Sunshine formed a small O with her mouth as she understood. "He's a vampire slayer?"
"Yes, and a really good one too."
That explained how they had met in the alley. Sort of, except the people who had attacked her hadn't looked like vampires. They'd actually looked like yuppies.
"There's a lot more to it than that, isn't there?" Sunshine asked.
Selena nodded.
She smiled devilishly. "And you, my best friend on earth, my soul sister who shares Chunky Monkey scoops and beefcake e-mails at the drop of a hat, the woman who made me wear a frothy, ruffled lime-colored bridesmaid dress that added fifteen pounds to my hips, are going to spill your guts to me, aren't you?"
Selena stiffened. "No fair and the dress wasn't lime, it was mint."
"It was lime-icky green and I looked like a sick pistachio. But that's beside the point. You're going to spill everything because all's fair in love."
Sunshine wasn't sure which of them was most startled by the last part of that statement.
Selena turned to face her. "What? You're telling me you love Talon?"
Sunshine sat back as she tried to sort through her feelings for Talon. There was so much about him that she adored, so much about him that she craved, and at the same time she knew nothing about who and what he was now.
All she knew was how he made her feel whenever she looked at him. The way she wanted to go home right now and be with him.
"Honestly, Selena, I don't know. Every time I'm around him I feel so alive. So warm and protected-like nothing in the world can touch me or blight my happiness. He just fits with me. I know this sounds crazy..."
She paused as she glanced at Selena's psychic stand, which was filled with trinkets, rune stones, and tarot symbols. On second thought, crazy to Selena was par for the course.
Sunshine stared at her, trying to make her understand. "Talon and I were married in another life."
A dark light appeared in Selena's eyes. When she spoke, her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "Does Talon know this?"
She nodded. "He even called me his wife last night when I made him sleep on the couch."
"Sleep on the couch?"
"Long story."