Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel by Sarah Zettel Read Free Book Online Page B

said a male voice while I was still drawing breath.
    “Brendan.” I was going to have to assign him a ring tone. Except every time I thought about it, it felt too much like making some kind of commitment.
    “Good morning,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
    “For what?” I slumped back against the wall and tried to push my too-short hair out of my eyes yet again.
    “I’msorry for not coming by last night after your shift, even though we really need to talk, and for calling so early in your personal morning now. Anything I forgot?”
    “That’ll do for now. What’s going on?”
    “I’m downstairs.”
    I lifted the blind with one finger and peered out. A familiar figure stood beside the half wall that ringed my building’s courtyard, waving his cell phone in the air, as if he knew I’d peek, which he probably did. I’m nothing if not predictable.
    “You are not expecting me to invite you up for breakfast,” I said into the cell phone, just to make sure Brendan understood making me wake up before eleven o’clock was a definite relationship misdemeanor.
    “I brought dosas.” Down below, Brendan pointed to the white bag and a cardboard beverage tray on the wall beside him. “And coffee.”
    “Jessie!” I hollered toward the living room. “Hit the buzzer!”
    I hung up on the sound of Brendan’s chuckling.
    Fortunately, my other roommate, Trish the Lawyer, had headed out to her office hours ago. This left the bathroom clear so I would be able to meet Brendan both looking and smelling civilized. I came into the dining room, wearing my usual off-duty combination of faded jeans and plain T-shirt (red today) with my hair slicked back under a red headband as a compromise between aesthetics and speed. Brendan moved around our dining nook. He, of course, looked edible, and would have even if he hadn’t been setting out plates for the spicy Indian crêpes he’d brought.
    “You are forgiven,” I said loftily as I sat down and peeled back the lid on a very large cup of coffee.
    “You may want to hold up on the forgiveness”—Brendan forked a dosa onto my plate—“at least until after we eat.”
    I eyed him with what was not entirely feigned trepidation as I handed across a napkin. “So, is this a bribe, or the breakup meal?”
    “You’re breaking up?” Jessie ducked her head out of her bedroom. “What’d she do?”
    I should have known.
Jessie’s gossip radar was second to none. “You were just leaving, weren’t you, Jess?” I frowned hard at my roommate as she emerged from the hallway.
    “Not if Brendan’s breaking up with you.” She plopped herself down in the third chair. As usual, Jessie VanReebeck was immaculately groomed. Her heart-shaped face was spectacularly made up, and her floral-print swing dress perfectly matched her strappy sandals and dangling earrings. Jessie possessed this uncanny ability to look fun, approachable, and professional at the same time, and I tried not to resent her for it.
    “Why are you breaking up with her?” She fixed Brendan with a surprisingly steely glower.
    “Because I’m carrying Mayor Thornton’s love child.”
    I snarfed a hot gulp of coffee. Jessie blinked, and Brendan lifted his soulful, apologetic gaze to her without cracking even a hairline of a grin. Not to be deterred, Jessie scooted her chair around to face me. “Why’s he breaking up with you?”
    “There’s nothing to break up.” But as I said this, my heart gave a strange and not entirely comfortable squeeze. I craned my neck so I could see past Jessie to Brendan. “You’re not breaking up with me, are you?”
    “I am not breaking up with you. I promise.” That knee-weakening smile worked even better when he turned it on soft and low.
    “There,” I said to Jessie. “You can go now.”
    “Actually…”
    “You can go now.” I reminded her in my best being-slow- is-hazardous-to-your-health voice. Jessie, unfortunately, hadbeen exposed to this voice enough that she was beginning to