Undead and Unwary by MaryJanice Davidson Read Free Book Online Page B

new tactic. “So, how’s my mom?”
    “Huh?” Jess had at least ten IQ points on me, which anyone overhearing this would assume was a testing error. “What?”
    “My mom. Who you went to see.” Wait. Whom? Whom she went to see? Gah, Sinclair was rubbing off on me in all the wrong ways. And now I was thinking of Sinclair rubbing. Must not . . . be distracted . . . by thoughts of . . . hot husband . . . “With the babies you forgot.”
    “Oh. I didn’t . . .” She waved vaguely at me. “You know.”
    “I don’t know, Jess, you postnatal weirdo. What’s going on? You look like someone clipped you with a brick.”
    “Don’t be a dope. Nobody’s been near me with a brick.”
    Sighing at the effort this was taking (vampire queen/best friend’s work was never done), I plunked down on the queen-sized bed she’d had for a decade. Jess was indifferent to her riches (the wealth was impressive, but her shitpoke father had earned it all, making it much less awesome in her eyes) and formed deep emotional attachments to restaurants, pals (we’ve been friends since junior high), and beds. (Also, DadDick and the babies, I assumed. Before you accuse me of vanity, I listed myself second on that list.) So the bed didn’t so much sag as suck me in, like quicksand in a quilt. But I was used to its ways and kept both feet on the floor.
    I really liked Jessica’s room. It was the most modern in terms of setup and decoration, the carpet a deep caramel, the walls tan, the furniture all light wood (blond wood?). The wallpaper was red and tan and there were red accents all over the place, including the quilt and several picture frames.
    And gawd, when would she stop displaying the one of us on my twenty-first birthday? Drunk off my ass was nota good look for me. Jess looked cutely rumpled and was grinning into the camera while hoisting a daiquiri-filled plastic cup, her arm slung around my shoulders in what looked like camaraderie, but in fact she was keeping me from pitching face-first into the floor.
    I was so much more than rumpled; I was sweaty, and my face was so flushed I looked like I’d sworn off sunscreen before napping in a tanning bed. My T-shirt was more stained than a new mom’s, making it difficult to make out the lettering (“Step Aside, Coffee, This Is a Job for Alcohol”), but worst of all was the expression on my face. One eye was half-closed, my mouth was hanging open like a dying trout’s, I was giving Jess the side-eye stink eye (she had just cut me off, which unfortunately did not prevent the vomiting doomed to start an hour later), and basically looked like a crazy cat lady in her youth, pre-cats.
    And it had pride of place on the wall! I could only pray that once the twins were sleeping more, Jess would update their walls with baby pics, a new-parent phase I was actually looking forward to. I wanted to pull an Anne Geddes, draping the sleeping babies over all kinds of strange surfaces and then snapping away until I had enough for a calendar.
    I wriggled on the bed, trying to get more comfortable without actually getting slurped in. Sinclair and I slept on a—wait for it—superking. Yeah. I know. But the thing was doomed; we went through a half dozen a year. Was there such a bed as a super-duper-king?
    “Did somebody come up to you and say something? Are—nnf! Stop it, bed, I know all your tricks . . . are you getting audited? Were you meeting a new boyfriend?” The last was completely out of character, but Jess was a sleep-deprived mom now, and they were crazy.
    “Yes. But it’ll be fine.”
    “Wait—yes?” Oh God! In a moment of carelessness one of my feet had left the floor! I shifted my weight until I had them both planted again. Might be time to make a break for it. “Which yes?”
    “I’ve got to go,” she replied, laying off the pacing in favor of darting to the door. Her fingers went to the clipping barely peeking out of her pocket, checking to see if it was still