Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(61)

“You okay?” he asked her. He felt her nod, breath warm against his throat. “All right, you just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

She laughed and snuggled closer. “You need a car,” she said.

Didn’t he just?

? ? ?

They made it home without incident, thankfully, although Shane was almost sure they’d been followed the last block. By that time it had been nearly full dark, and he’d felt stares on him from half a dozen dark spots.

He managed to balance Claire’s weight, unlock the front door, and kick it open with a bang as he stepped across the threshold. There was a weird kind of sensation to it, every time, as the house itself recognized him. Welcomed him home.

It meant that no vampire would be lunging in after him, at least.

He didn’t trust it, though. He slammed the door shut, jammed a dead bolt home with his elbow, and yelled, “Yo, heads up! Little help here!” Because his arms were about to fall off. He moved forward, trying not to bang Claire’s injured ankle against the walls or the furniture, and by the time he’d emerged at the end of the hallway, Michael Glass was just hitting the floor at the bottom of the staircase. He was dressed, but there was something about it that looked like he’d done it on the way down. He took one look at Claire, cradled in Shane’s arms, and drew in a deep breath.

“It’s not like that,” Shane said. “Nobody fanged her. She fell. It’s her ankle.”

“Couch,” Michael said, and shifted aside his guitar, game controllers. “You carried her home? In the dark?”

“Not like you were answering your cell, asshat.”

Michael looked up at him, then up at the stairs, where Eve was just pelting down them, a black dragon-printed robe belted around her. From the flash of legs, that was pretty much the extent of the outfit. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

The Guy Code ruled the moment, and all Shane could say to that was, “No problem,” as he eased his girl down on the battered sofa cushions. She immediately squirmed up to a sitting position and pulled up the leg of her jeans.

Her ankle was swollen, all right. And starting to bruise.

“I’ll get ice,” Eve said, and ran off to the kitchen. She hesitated in the doorway to call back, “Claire? You need anything?”

“Better balance? Oh, and Angelina Jolie’s lips?”

“Cute. Settle for aspirin and a Coke?”

Claire nodded. Eve disappeared through the swinging door.

“Thought you guys were going out to dinner,” Shane said. He couldn’t resist, really. And it was worth it to see Michael think about lying, because he was just bad at it.

“We were,” Michael finally said, which was the truth. “And then we didn’t.” Also the truth. “We can still make the movie if we hurry.”

“Don’t,” Claire said, and winced as she tried to move her ankle. “It’s explode-o-porn.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Michael looked honestly baffled. Shane really couldn’t blame him, and the resulting harassed look from Claire was pretty much fantastic.

Eve came back with a plastic bag full of ice and a couple of towels, and carefully packed it all around Claire’s ankle before running back to retrieve the aspirin and Coke. The medical treatment completed, all that was left was to not comment on what Michael and Eve might have been doing to not answer their phones.

That was almost impossible, in Shane’s view. Eve and Michael looked so obviously barely out of bed it was crazy. But there was the Guy Code, and then there was the Code of Housemates, which meant he couldn’t really say much at all about that unless he wanted to get the hell mocked out of him in return.

So instead, he sighed and said, “I really need a car.”

? ? ?

He kind of meant it, and kind of didn’t, but over the next few days he found himself looking more and more at the cars for sale in Morganville. There was one car lot that sold a bunch of brands, but there was no way he could afford the shiny new ones anyway. So he ended up looking at the clunkers—the rusting, beat-up models that people wanted to unload cheap. He had a little money saved up, but not much, and after seeing three cars in a row that were barely running and yet still out of his budget, he just about gave up.

Until he came across the little sign in the window of Bernard’s Best Resale, which said CAR FOR SALE, BEST OFFER. That was all. No number, no picture of the car, nothing. Which meant it probably was a dog, but he wasn’t exactly rich with choices.

Besides, he could use a new shirt or something.

The bell rang as he entered, and the thrift-shop smell hit him immediately—mothballs, and dry paper. Fans turned overhead, stirring the smell and spreading it around, and there was nobody else in the place, except Miss Bernard, dozing off behind the counter. She came awake with a snort as he walked over to the men’s shirt aisle, blinked behind her thick glasses, and patted her thin gray hair. “Collins, isn’t it? Shane Collins?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. The ma’am was automatic. Miss Bernard had been his second-grade teacher. And his fourth-grade. Not happy memories, but then, school in general hadn’t been his greatest time ever.

But it had been better than what had come after, mostly. So there was that.

“Well, Shane, what can I do for you? You need a nice new shirt for a date? Or a suit? How about a nice suit?”