I crossed the room to kiss Gabriel. “Thank you, Jamie.”
“Pretty maids all in a row,” Dick said with a grin, giving us a wink. “Well, not quite maids—”
“Watch it,” we chorused.
“Zeb, don’t you think Jolene would be much more comfortable with an overcoat?” Gabriel asked, motioning to the blue-jeans miniskirt that exposed a good deal of Jolene’s leg.
Zeb shrugged. “What do I have to worry about? Wolves mate for life.”
Jenny’s eyebrows arched. “What does that mean?”
Whoops. This was the danger of mixing new, nonsupernaturals into the group. This was the first solo outing my sister had ever taken with me and my supernatural friends. I was interested to see how it would pan out. I don’t think Jenny was completely comfortable around Andrea yet. And since werewolves were still very much a secret from the human world, she had no idea what to think about Jolene, a gorgeous semi-feral-looking girl who’d just had twins, ate like a horse, and never gained weight.
“It’s just an expression,” I told her as Jolene nudged him in the ribs and informed him that mating for life only counted if the male wasn’t smothered in his sleep.
“You have your pepper spray?” Gabriel asked me. I nodded. “And your silver spray?”
Jamie scoffed. “I don’t get it. If you’re that worried about her, why not just give her a gun?”
Everyone in the room stopped and stared at Jamie in horror, even Jenny.
“Do you really think releasing an armed Jane into the public is a good idea?” Zeb asked.
Jamie frowned, mulling it over. “Good point.”
“And on that note, having had my own childe turn on me, we’re leaving,” I muttered.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Jamie called as we walked toward the front door. Over my shoulder, I heard him say, “Don’t worry, Gabe. My cousin Marnie had a great time at her bachelorette party, and she came home perfectly safe. Of course, she was pregnant by a stripper dude who called himself Marcus the Matador, but she was perfectly safe.”
“Jamie,” Gabriel groaned.
“The wedding was called off,” Jamie added.
Dick chided, “Not helping, Junior.”
We piled into Jolene’s SUV. Our gal werewolf was serving as the designated driver, since she was still nursing. I turned to Jenny, who was trying to swat several stuffed sheep into the twins’ car seats so she could buckle her seatbelt.
“You know you don’t really have to be nervous about Jamie, right? He’s never fed on a human. He’s been on bottled or donor blood since he was turned. He won’t hurt you … probably.”
“That’s not what I was nervous about,” Jenny insisted. “It’s just—I mean, have you seen him? I mean, he was cute when he was a kid, but now it’s just—I mean, it’s not fair! For him to have sexy vampire charm on top of being so good-looking … And now I feel like a sex offender for even saying that out loud.”
I patted her shoulder. “Oh, Jen, it’s not a big deal. I had those same thoughts after I turned him, and that doesn’t make me the biggest pervert in the world.”
She sighed. “Oh, thank you.”
“You’re the biggest pervert in the world, because you’re three years older than me, and that makes you just a tiny bit sicker than me,” I said, grinning evilly.
She groaned, covering her face with her palm. “Thank you, Jane.”
Jolene snickered as she turned her land yacht toward town. “Aw, hell, Jenny, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, those feelings of shame and guilt generally melt away after the second cocktail,” Andrea added. “Add to that, watching your sister carry this around all night, I predict you’ll be feeling just fine in about an hour.”
With a flourish, she whipped out a bouquet made of Tootsie Roll Pops with a long, obscenely pink ribbon stamped with “Last Chance for a Suck!” in bold black letters.
I shook my head. “I knew the penis tiara was going too far.”
She handed me the bouquet. “And I told you I’d get back at you.”
We argued about the various pranks and humiliations of our bachelorette parties and how they might influence the level of havoc played out that night. We argued and giggled and accused, while Jenny listened. And I felt a little bad that Jenny probably felt left out of the conversation.
“You know, I’m kinda glad this is the last weddin’ our group is going to have,” Jolene said. “I’m not sure if our friendships will survive too many more of these.”
“Aww, you’re having our last wedding, Jane!” Andrea exclaimed, her eyes welling up.
“If you start to cry, I will slap you,” I warned. “We will not make it through this thing if you cry when you’re sober.”
“Nobody likes a girl with streaks of blood down her face,” Jenny said, gently patting Andrea’s arm. “Think happy thoughts, like how much fun it will be making Jane stick singles down a couple of the dancers’ banana hammocks.”
“B-banana—Where did you even learn the expression ‘banana hammock’?” I demanded.
Jolene cackled as we pulled into the parking lot of the Meat Market. “Jane, I have a feeling you’re going to learn a whole lot about your sister once we get a couple of drinks into her.”
I groaned. “Jolene, we have got to get you out of the house more often. Ever since the twins were born and your life became sex-free, you’ve gotten all aggressive with your girls’ nights out.”
“Zeb and I have sex all the time,” she protested. “We had sex right before we left the house tonight.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “So, I have a teenager in my house, and I’m lucky to get a handshake. But you have infant twins, and your house is a den of desire?”
She nodded. “The women in my, um, family tend to bounce back into our sex lives pretty quickly. Hell, four weeks after the twins were born, Zeb was cuddling me and kissing my neck and telling me how proud he was of me and how I was handling the kids. And next thing you know …”
Jenny made the “bow-chicka-wow-wow” music.
Jolene chuckled. “I’ve never been inhibited or anything, but once Zeb saw me give birth and lived through it, there wasn’t much about my body that could gross him out. I didn’t worry so much and just enjoyed myself. Basically, the twins were the start of our own sexual revolution.”
“That really doesn’t help me, because I’m never … ever giving birth. But Gabriel has seen my body do other weird stuff. Third-degree burns. Gunshot wounds. That sort of thing.”
“It’s comparable,” Jolene promised me.
“Ugh, this would be so reassuring if I wasn’t thinking about you having sex with my best friend right now.”
Oh, the butt-cheek bacchanalia of the Meat Market. How I had missed it. Jenny watched bug-eyed as three men in strangely ill-fitting sailor uniforms shook it to “In the Navy.” Andrea had a roll of singles the size of a softball and kept waving them around so the dancers would constantly circle our table. Jolene, having suffered through her own phallic-themed bachelorette saga, was kind enough not to make the whole night about humiliating me. She limited herself to exclusively ordering me drinks with extremely sexual names. I don’t even want to know what goes into a “Screaming Sex with a Bartender.” I just know said bartender was really happy to even hear her say the words aloud.
And then I realized that I had had sex with the other bartender on duty. I’d dated Joe Tilden in that regrettable summer after my sophomore year of college when I discovered low self-esteem and tequila. Joe had gotten my hair caught in his watchband mid-thrust and mistook my yowls for cries of pleasure and continued toward an unremarkable end. Of my handful of partners, he was memorable but not for a good reason. I turned on my heel, directing my body entirely away from the bar, and prayed that the strobe lights had damaged Joe’s eyesight over the years.
“Oh, my gosh, is that Joe Tilden?” Jenny whispered, her face flushed and red. I prepared an elaborate justification for her staying in her seat and not embarrassing me in the interests of sisterly love and devotion. But Jenny ducked behind my chair and hid her face in my shoulder.
“You OK, Jen?”
“Don’t let him see me!” she whimpered. “Oh, my gosh, I’m so embarrassed!”
“Jennifer, what is going on?” I demanded.
Jenny’s blush stained her cheeks even brighter. She relaxed as Joe turned his back and began working the opposite side of the room. “Well, you remember before Kent and I got engaged, he went on a spring-break trip with a few of his friends from chiropractic school, and I got upset? We had that huge argument about his goals and where I fit in on his five-year plan?”
I nodded. “It was the only time Mama ever came to me because she was concerned about where your life was going.”
“Well, we took a little break to see where our relationship was going. And I may have gone on a one-woman tear through most of the bars in the Hollow,” Jenny said, covering her face with her hands. “Joe and I went back to his apartment after last call. I didn’t even enjoy myself because I kept getting my hair caught in his stupid—”
“Watchband!” I gasped.
Jenny’s eyes went wide. “You, too?”
I clapped my hands over my mouth as a hysterical cackle burst from my throat. Jenny paled and looked vaguely ill.
“I told you that you’d find out all kinds of new stuff about your sister!” Jolene crowed. I scowled at her.
“Oh, this is just wrong,” Jenny moaned.
“I wonder if he went after cousin Junie as some sort of family hat trick?” I said.
Andrea smirked at me. “You know, they say that you have sex with every person your partner has had sex with. So …”
“Andrea, I appreciate your burgeoning puckish sense of humor, but this is just like that time you wanted to wear the ‘Team Jacob: Because Vampires Shouldn’t Sparkle’ T-shirt at the shop,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s funny but not the time or place.”
“Jolene, since you seem to be one of the few people here Joe Tilden hasn’t slept with, could you go to the bar, please?” Jenny pleaded. “We’re going to need drinks, lots of them.”
About five cocktails in, I realized I’d forgotten the girls’ bridesmaids’ gifts out in the SUV. I was giving them little clutch bags and shoes to match their dresses, which was actually a gag gift. Their real gifts were framed photos of the three of us on the porch swing at River Oaks. My sister was getting a picture of the two of us in matching Easter dresses when we were three and seven. She loved that sort of thing.
I know I yelled my car-seeking plan loudly enough for the girls to hear me, but they were distracted by Marcus the Matador taking his whirl on the stage. I teetered out to the car, wishing I could trade my ice-pick heels for a pair of bunny slippers and pondering why I’d thought that alcohol and stilettos would be a good mix.
I was a few steps away from my car when I heard the gravel crunch behind me. I sniffed and picked up the scent of motor oil and tobacco. I turned and saw a dark figure outlined against the lights of the bar. He was wearing overalls and a ski mask, which was unusual for June. And in general, people in ski masks are up to no good.
“Oh, did you pick the wrong girl to mug,” I said, rolling my eyes. “OK, Skippy, we could do this the easy way, you going home with both testicles intact. Or there’s the other way. I sort of gave away the ending there.”
He whipped a canister out of his pocket, and I could see that it was silver spray. And that’s when it was confirmed that I was dealing with Ray McElray. How many muggers carried vampire self-defense spray around just in case they mugged the undead? Having been sprayed directly in the face by the stuff last year, I knew I didn’t want it anywhere near me. I caught his hand and wrenched it back.