Bite Me by A.J. Cole (popular books to read .txt) 📖

grin, one she realized she absolutely could not control. “Shut up, Car.”

The other girl gasped, swung her legs off the side of the lounger, and sat up. “Mel! You met someone, didn’t you!”

“Who, me? Vampirella? Come on, you know that isn’t possible.” She almost giggled.

“No, I don’t! Why do you always sell yourself short? I mean, fine, you can’t go out in the daylight, and you have gross food needs, but you’re gorgeous, have a figure even I’d kill for, and any guy who could keep up with you should count himself lucky to even be in your presence!"

Mel sighed, giving her friend a fond smile. “You’re a trip, you know that?” Her momentarily controlled expression disintegrated once more into its former grin-self. “But you’re right.”

“Ha! Ha! I KNEW it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

“Are you telling me you knew it?”

“I am, indeed. Ha!” She jumped up and headed inside. “This calls for something besides soda,” she called over her shoulder.

Mel had a sudden flash of Mel(vin)’s face looking simultaneously horrified and incredulous because he’d just learned the girl he thought was so wonderful had a bizarre genetic disorder…“Something besides soda, eh? Like what – hemlock?” she muttered. Then much louder, “I’m fine with soda!”

“What?”

“I said - ”

“Can’t hear you, hon! Hold on!”

“Grr.” Yes, she growled. This simply wouldn’t do. Getting up, she walked quickly into the house before her friend could get back with the drinks, hoping to stop her.

Too late. Carlina had taken out two shot glasses. Both were already filled from a bottle of Glenlivet she’d swiped ages ago from her father’s liquor cabinet, and two bottles of icy cold beer sat beside them, one of which she was emptying carefully into a pilsner glass.

“Aw, come on, Car, don’t you think you’re going a bit far with this?”

The other girl looked up from what she was doing. “Are you kidding? God, Mel, when’s the last time you even had a date? And when - ” she paused to finish pouring, making sure the foam didn’t overflow, “when was the last time you had a date on Valentine’s Day, or even close to it?”

“Hmm, let’s see…” She leaned forward on the breakfast bar, propping her chin in her hands. “Uh, never?”

On the other side of the bar, Carlina started to fill the other glass. “That’s exactly right, my pale friend. Never. And that is why we’re celebrating!”

“But we haven’t even had a date yet. Which means I haven’t had a chance to tell him anything, and I – what? Why are you laughing?”

“Nothing. You remind me of Edward when – ”

“Oh, no, you don’t! I assume the Edward to whom you refer is not Scissorhands?”

“Why won’t you watch ‘Twilight’? Even if you hate it, at least you’ll know what we’re all talking about most of the time. Here.” She pushed a shot glass and the beer closer to Mel. “So what’s his name?”

“His name.” She took a quick, deep breath and downed the shot of whiskey, buying time. “Ack! I forg…” she choked out, and after making a number of grotesque faces, tried again. “I forgot how awful that stuff tastes! Yuk!”

“It’s very expensive.”

“And I’m sure you and your dad find it mahvelous, dahling, just mahvelous! But you and your dad are normal human beings who don’t subsist almost exclusively on fruit juice and coffee.” She shook her head quickly and shuddered as the liquid sent her esophagus into heat shock.

“I’ve seen you drink wine, so what’s the big deal?”

“Spritzers, Car. Wine spritzers. Wine diluted with soda. Not hard liquor. Blagh!” She grabbed the beer and guzzled almost half of it to cool her throat. Beer was okay, too, once in a while.

Carlina gave her friend a pitying look. “I don’t know – you can dress ‘em up, but ya can’t take ‘em drinking.”

“And who is ‘them’ if I may ask?”

“Vampires, of course. Silly.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Yeah, well, you still haven’t told me his name.”

Oh, lord, that again. “I’m not sure I want to.”

“Why not? Think it’ll jinx things?”

Mel frowned. “Jinx…what are you talking about? I’m not naming a new pet or having a kid or something. The reason I don’t want to tell you is, well, because his name is kinda dorky. I mean, he’s not, but his name is.”

Carlina leaned closer. “Ooh, now we’re getting somewhere! Tell me first what he looks like, then.”

A dreamy smile lit up Meloria’s features, her eyes seeing something far nicer than her surroundings. “He’s tall – in fact, he’s got to be at least six-four. I’m six feet and the top of my head barely reaches his shoulder. He seems to be sorta buff, but he’s also slim – ”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I don’t. I haven’t exactly seen him without his clothes on,” she said, as the word “yet” seemed to float in the air somewhere between the top of Mel’s head and the ceiling. “And, yeah, he’s…Car, he’s beautiful! Blue-green eyes, dark lashes, incredible features, dark hair…” She ran out of descriptives and heaved an audible sigh.

“Wow.”

A silence of near-reverential proportions overtook them. For Meloria, the moment was the first of its kind in her life, and she really wished the practical side of her would quit poking her with its common-sense stick. Feeling like someone with a multiple-personality disorder, she drifted between story-book visions of her dancing with him on a ballroom floor, both of them dressed like some kind of royalty, and the mental image of him backing away in disgust as she pleaded with him to give her a chance…

“How did you meet?”

“Huh? Um, well, I was walking to work, and he saved me from being jumped by three guys.”

Carlina goggled for a second. “You say that so…so nonchalantly! Holy cow, Mel! You nearly got mugged?”

“Yeah, right.”

Her friend knew what she meant – she’d witnessed Meloria’s transformation once when their little group had gotten into an argument with another group who tried cutting the ticket line at a play; at first, there had been quiet outrage, but this was soon followed by the offenders suddenly turning very nasty and threatening to beat the dead skin cells off of Mel and her friends. One of them pulled a switch blade, and Meloria, her eyes glittering in that scary way she didn’t seem to know she had, did a Crocodile Dundee on them. She actually said, “That’s not a deadly weapon – now these…are deadly weapons!” She'd raised her hands, displaying a terrifying set of long, black talons, drew one hand back to strike out, and the group of baddies had shrieked like little girls and run away. Then, as her friends watched, the talons had retracted, Meloria took a slow, deep breath, and said, “Well! That was stimulating!”

After that, none of the three guys in their circle felt the need to worry a whole lot about the girl they had formerly considered poor, defenseless Meloria. Thinking briefly about the incident, Carlina realized that her friend’s “rescuer” had in reality saved the three would-be muggers, and she chuckled.

“You think it’s funny, do you?”

“Sorta. So what happened?”

Mel shrugged. “He walked me – no, we ran, I think – anyhow, he came into the store with me, the idiots chasing us stood outside leering at me for a few minutes, but then I showed them that I was on the store phone and made it obvious I was calling the police, so they took off.”

“What did Toby think of all that?” She took a sip of beer.

“Toby! What a troll! The first thing he said was, ‘Hey, it’s Vampire Girl!’ I sooo wanted to hurt him! Then he kept saying stuff, like, ‘didn’t she tell you?’ and ‘you guys have to go out…’ Huh. That one had to do with his name.” She paused, her friend raising her shot glass like a salute and knocking it back in one gulp.

“Okay, I’m ready – what’s his name?” Carlina rasped, proving the liquid’s price didn’t stop it from being any smoother for her than it had been for Meloria.

“If you laugh, Car…”

“Never.”

“Don’t say that. You know you…fine. Melvin.”

Carlina’s eyes bugged slightly, giving her that urban lemur look her friend had grown accustomed to seeing whenever something bizarre happened – or when she was trying not to laugh hysterically.

“He said everyone calls him ‘Mel,’ okay?” Mel grated, hoping to ward off the worst.

“Me – heeh.” Carlina grabbed her beer and tried to drink it, but only succeeded in spitting it out all over the counter, drooling what was left in her mouth back into the glass.

“Oh, gross!” Mel shouted. “And you say what about my food requirements?”

The other girl put up one finger, obviously unable to speak, and dashed off to the bathroom.

Defeated, Mel headed back outside with her beer. She stared up at the moon for a few minutes, happy in its fragile, borrowed light, and thought about Melvin. Two days had passed since the almost-mugging incident, and she still hadn’t called him. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t even looked at his business card. Why? Probably because daydreaming about the possibilities was so much less threatening than trying to bring them to pass. She knew she’d have to tell him about herself right away, and knew, too, that she was procrastinating out of pure fear of his reaction.

“Bummer, Dude,” she murmured, quoting her hippie father. Her purse was on the ground next to the lounger; biting her lower lip, she put her glass on the ground, picked up her purse, and pulled out the shiny silver card. “Huh – that’s different. Who uses silver business cards?” She shrugged and raised it slightly to the light, barely making out the words printed on its surface in spidery black letters. “Well, what d’ya know… ‘Gothic Gems’… ‘Silver, Platinum and White Gold Jewelry for Role-Playing, Renaissance Fairs, and Night Pursuits’… What? What do they mean by ‘night pursuits’? Do I really want to know?”

Below these lines was the address, website, store e-mail address, and the words “Brian Cullen, Owner/Proprietor,” and below that, “Seriously. That’s My Real Last Name.” Meloria cackled. On the very bottom left was printed “Mel Carrington, Sales Representative,” and on the bottom right, an e-mail address with a phone number under it. His number, he’d said.

She heard Carlina doing something in the kitchen and figured this would be as good a time to call as any. She’d been somewhat fortified with alcohol, her friend was right there for support, and – she gritted her teeth and took out her cell phone. After a final moment of hesitation, she punched in the number, put the phone to her ear, and waited. And waited. And waited. At last, a canned voice-mail recording told her that the party she was trying to reach was unavailable, and to please leave a message at the tone, blah, blah, blah. When the beep…beeped, she bit the proverbial bullet and said, “Hey. Uh, Mel. This is, this is Mel. Heh. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner, and if you don’t remember who I am, no sweat. Give me a call if you’d like – you have my number now, so, yeah. Bye.”

She hung up, stuffing the card in a back pocket of her jeans, feeling like a complete dweeb. God, how she hated leaving recorded messages! She always felt awkward, and knew her words reflected that fact. Not that she could do anything about it now, she told herself, dropping the phone back into her purse. Which was the exact moment when her ring tone signalled an in-coming call.“Crap!” Fumbling a little, she managed to retrieve it before it stopped playing the silly music pre-programmed into its circuits and quickly pressed the “answer” key without looking to see who it was. “Hello?”

“Hey, Mel! It’s Mel.”

What a soothing, deep voice he had, her melting psyche whispered. “Uh..oh. Hey!”

“Sorry I didn’t pick up when you called. I didn’t recognize the number, so I waited to see if the caller left a message, and you did, so, I called back.”

Perfectly logical. “Okay.”

“So…what’s up?”

Oh, right!