Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #25)(24)

The conversation went on around me. I didn’t join in. It wasn’t super unusual for me to be quiet at lunch, and there was no way I felt comfortable enough to speak up with this audience. The weird thing was that Will didn’t speak, either. This was the first time I’d really seen him around the basketball guys up close, so I had no way of knowing if that was out of character for him or not at first. Then Matt asked him twice why he was so spaced out and I had my answer.

We both did really terrible jobs of sneaking glances at each other. I caught him almost as many times as he caught me. As for those butterflies in my stomach, I was going to have to get myself some DDT pretty soon, because this was getting old. It didn’t matter if I could see the crazy-soft skin beneath his neck in that shirt, or that his lashes looked thicker than normal, or that the crook of his arm was distractingly beautiful. He was a dick. So he had to be dead to me. Book the damn funeral, please.

Finally, the guys left to grab seconds, or dessert, or both. The moment they were gone, I calmed down. I hadn’t practiced nearly enough mindfulness today, apparently, because I’d been a little highly strung for a few minutes there.

A brief pause hung in the air, then Juliette and Lara turned on Niamh like hyenas.

“Oh my God, Darnell likes you,” Juliette said.

Niamh blinked. “No way.”

“Niamh, come on,” Lara said, tapping her lunch tray for emphasis. “The pheromones were so thick I could taste them seasoning my sandwich. Don’t play dumb. Ollie, Darnell was drooling, yes or no?”

Wow. Lara speaking to me like I was a fellow human being for once. Maybe I was growing on her. “I’m gonna go with a hard yes,” I said apologetically to Niamh.

“Guys, don’t. We’re friends.”

“What’s the problem?” Lara asked. “He’s hot as a soldering iron. If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.”

“You’ve already got Matt, let Niamh have a turn,” Juliette said.

Lara smirked. “I may have Matt, but Matt doesn’t have me. Although now you mention it, he and Darnell do have a bit of a spark. Think they’d be up for a ménage à trois?”

“Darnell might, if Niamh was the trois.”

Niamh moaned and tipped her head back. “They’ll be back soon. Don’t let them hear you.”

“Right, we need a plan of attack,” Juliette said.

Lara sniffed. “No, no we do not. We do not chase men. Men come to us, and we deign to pay them attention if we so choose.”

“Um, Lara, these aren’t men. These are boys. Different species, remember?”

“Same same, just smaller muscles.”

“And brains.”

I mean, I was sitting right here.

Niamh slammed her hands on the table, making the rest of us jump. “Stop. Don’t try to set me and Darnell up. I don’t want to get tied down here, okay? I can’t afford to get serious with anyone if I’m moving to New York.”

“Who said anything about getting serious?” Lara asked with a wicked smile. “And besides. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket. If New York doesn’t work out, you’ll regret not keeping Darnell on your little line here.”

Niamh’s face went hard. I was pretty sure I knew why. She was remembering Lara’s comment about fasting from earlier. “And why wouldn’t New York work out?”

Juliette cleared her throat. I was with her. Could we make an excuse to escape before all hell broke loose? I tried to run through a list of possible reasons, but my mind inconveniently blanked.

“Not saying it won’t. It’s competitive, though, you know? The standards are high. Even perfect girls struggle to get casted.”

“Not that you’re not perfect,” Juliette jumped in hastily.

Lara shrugged. “Niamh’s gorgeous. Obviously. But it isn’t always enough, is it?”

“What else is there?” Niamh asked.

“Well, like I said, it’s competitive. For some of those girls, it’s, like, their lives. They devote everything to it.”

“I devote everything to it.”

“Kind of,” Lara said. “But, you know …”

“No.”

“Well, like, the kind of girls you’re competing with … they wouldn’t be eating mashed potatoes at lunch, put it that way.”

Damn. There it was. Juliette and I cringed. I felt the sting of that one like Lara had slapped me personally.

Niamh’s face reddened, and I wasn’t sure if she was going to cry. I got ready to rise up to hug her, or touch her arm, or shove Lara off her chair, I didn’t know. Then Niamh stood. “Just because you’re so insecure with yourself that you need to hook up with anything that moves for your validation, doesn’t mean you can take it out on me. There are more important things in life than guys, okay, Lara? And if you think you’re better than me because you can strut around in size-two jeans and make out with Renee for a group of immature guys to give them all blue balls over a faux-lesbian fantasy, then please. Don’t. It’s trashy, and me and Juliette are embarrassed for you.”

With that, Niamh stormed away, leaving her lunch tray behind. Juliette gave Lara a stricken glance. Lara waved a hand, bored. “Someone’s on her period,” she said.