Phoenix Fallen by Heather R. Blair Read Free Book Online

only one time, one rough night, both of them lonely and down, that they had come close to anything else.
    Close enough that Fannie had been on his lap. That had been in his old crappy apartment, a Friday night in the dead of winter, with his heat barely working. One minute she had been next to him on the couch, the next she was straddling him and he was kissing her. He remembered feeling ambivalent. Willing, but ambivalent. Then Fannie pulled back. She had looked at him for a long moment, her hands cupping his face.
    "If I have sex with you, we aren't gonna be able to be friends anymore. Not like we are now. And damnit, Jules, I want to be your friend more than I want to fuck you."
    She got off him, got them both a beer from the kitchen and that was pretty much that. They fell asleep together on the couch watching old movies and the subject had never come up again.
    He wondered if she had ever told Scott about that night. And decided she probably had. As far as he could tell Scott and Fannie shared the same soul, two halves of the most complete couple he had ever known.
    It was beautiful, but the downside was how the hell were you supposed to live up to that shit? It set the bar so high, it was clean out of sight.
    Fannie looked him up and down, her eyes narrowing. "What's wrong with you?"
    "I'm undead, I'm a goddamn shade and I may lose my company." He quipped dryly. She shrugged that off, cocking her head as she studied him.
    "Besides that." Then her eyes lit up. "Oh, you got that 'I need to get laid' look on your face." Scott laughed and Jules shot him a warning frown.
    "Bullshit."
    "Oh come off it, Jules. I can always tell. Who is it this time?"
    And so he told her. Sitting around her comfortable kitchen counter, the twins zooming around in the living room while Scott rode herd and let them have some one-on-one time.
    He told Fannie all of it. The part about Rissa being a vamp didn't even phase her. Though something else did.
    “Jeez, Jules! A white girl? Are you shittin’ me? You just broke the hearts of half the sisters in the city!” Fannie had her hands on her hips, glaring at him from over the gleaming black-and-white kitchen counter.
    “Jesus, Fan. It's not like that. Anyway, so speaks the woman who married a honky.”
    “Scott is not a honky. He’s not even white, he’s just a little…beige.”
    Scott wrinkled his nose as he came up behind Fannie. “That makes me sound like a goddamn paint chip, woman.”
    “You can paint me anytime, baby.”
    Jules groaned and covered his ears. “Shut the hell up, you two.”
    After some unnecessary, in Jules opinion, smacking, kissing and squeezing on Fannie and Scott’s part, Fannie got back to business.
    “I want to meet her. Bring her ‘round for dinner.”
    “Fannie.” He gave her a look and she gave him one right back.
    “I’m serious, Jules. You bring her over. Next Saturday evening will work just fine."
    "I don't think she's speaking to me right now. I made her feel like shit."
    "So, do something that will make her not feel like shit. For heaven's sake, women aren't rocket science, Jules." Behind her, Scott choked on the beer he'd just opened. He went back to the kids hastily, before Fannie could do more than glare at him.
    She turned back to Jules.
    He opened his mouth but Fannie shushed him with a look that brooked no argument. “Just do it, Jules.
    "Now. Have you heard when Kelsey and her man are gonna have this damn wedding? Oh my god, I'm just dying to find out the exact date. A vampire wedding! And you know that man of hers will go to town. All out gorgeous, I just know it.
    "It's still set for Paris, right?” She gazed at Jules as if daring him to tell her otherwise. Fannie was over the moon about getting to go to France for Kesley’s wedding. There was an almost maniacal glint in her eye.
    “Yes. Paris.” He sighed. He wasn’t nearly as excited as Fannie about going back to that city. Not after his last visit had gone so swimmingly.