Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(65)

“Was she Protected?”

“College girl, out partying in the wrong side of town. You know the type.”

Michael nodded and held out the beer. Shane stared at it, then him.

“Don’t be an *,” Michael said. “It’s not blood. And I didn’t even take a drink yet.”

Shane took it and drank. The beer burned in cuts, but it was a good kind of burn, and it washed the copper taste out of his mouth. He sat back with a sigh and closed his eyes. The room started making loops, so he opened them again. Really shouldn’t be drinking, on top of the drinking I already did. Yeah, there were a lot of things he shouldn’t be doing. Like living in the house with a vampire, for one thing. His dad would have—

His dad. There was a reason to drink. Shane toasted the absent ghost of Frank Collins, Major Douche Bag, and gulped down another mouthful.

Michael sat on the couch, but at the other end. Safe distance, like he knew Shane was still feeling raw about the whole bloodsucking issue. He picked up his guitar and started playing, some Coldplay song Shane half remembered. “Which girl?”

“What?”

“You know, the girl the vamps were trying to drag off. Who was she?”

Shane considered that, rolling the beer between his hands. “Didn’t know her. Why?”

Michael shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. She probably never even knew they were vamps. But, dude, you really need to do something about your hero complex one of these days.”

“It wasn’t just me. There were two other guys who jumped in.”

“But you started it.”

Oh man, Michael knew him way too well. “Kinda.” Shane tipped his head back and laughed, a little. It hurt. “C’mon, man, you would’ve jumped in, too. I know you. I’m not the only one riding around on a white horse.”

Michael studied Shane for a long moment, then said, “You are way too drunk, you know that?”

Shane choked and nearly did a spit take with the beer. “Uh . . . yeah. Not really my fault, though. I was playing poker. Bunch of college guys, easy money. Only they kept buying rounds. The more they lost, the more they bought. Don’t blame me. I made almost a thousand bucks tonight. And free beer.”

“And then you got into a fight with vampires, and walked home. Drunk and bleeding and carrying cash. In Morganville.” Michael’s face was still, and way too sober. “Man, you really do have a death wish. Why didn’t you call? I’d have—”

“I don’t need a bloodsucking babysitter,” Shane snapped, even though he knew Michael had a big frickin’ point. The beer made him feel hot and sick, but he forced down another mouthful. “Weren’t you supposed to be out with Eve, anyway? What are you doing here?”

Michael shrugged. “She had to go in to work,” he said. “I’m picking her up later. Claire’s at Myrnin’s lab. She ought to pay rent there instead of here, the time she spends doing his crap.”

That gave Shane a bad, even sicker twist in his stomach. “You don’t think he’s hitting on her, do you?”

“Myrnin?” Michael’s fingers went still on the guitar, and Shane got a flash of startled blue eyes. “Jesus. I think she’d have said something. Maybe not to you or me, but to Eve, for sure.”

“And Eve would tell you.”

Michael smiled. “If she thought Claire was in trouble, she’d tell us both.”

That made Shane feel a little better. Just a little. Because when your potential competition was some ancient, occasionally suave dude who dressed in velvet and still looked twentysomething, nothing could make you feel a lot better.

Speaking of looking better, Michael was wearing better stuff than usual, probably because he’d been planning on impressing Eve. Blue shirt, blue jeans. Diamond stud earring in his left ear. “Dude,” Shane said, distracted. “Can vamps get pierced?”

“What?”

“Your earring.”

“Don’t know.” Michael flicked his earlobe with one finger. “I did this last year. When I was still the old me.”

“I never noticed.”

“And here I thought you cared.”

Shane laughed, a little, and kept on thinking. “What about tats? Do they stay on a vampire?”

“I doubt it. We’d probably heal. Doesn’t sound like something I want to try if it isn’t going to stay on.”

“Sucks to be you, don’t it? No pun intended.”

Michael looked up and grinned, and all the bullshit faded away. All the bitter anger (it always tasted like blood and tinfoil), all the weird complication of his best friend drinking blood for God’s sake, all that just up and left, and it could have been two years ago, or three, or more. They could have been twelve years old again, thinking of ways to stick frogs in Alyssa’s shoes, worms in her underwear drawer, whatever.

Shane felt the hot sting of tears in his eyes, and looked away. “I missed you,” Shane blurted. It felt right to say it, and then it felt stupid because Michael was right there at the other end of the couch, and besides, guys didn’t say that crap to other guys. “Whatever.”

Michael got real interested in his guitar, all of a sudden. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I missed you, too. How’d we get like this?”