Undead and Unwary Page 22

  This was too much, even from Gearhead Boy. “You went from slutty loner to loving a lot of things besides me and it’s making me nervous.”

  “By nervous, Onniebetty means insecure,” the other brat piped up.

  “You stay out of this; you’re only a few weeks old. I’m serious, Sinclair. The cars, playing in traffic without the cars, Fur and Burr—”

  “I forget! They jumped out of my mind, c’mon!” Jessica’s son handed me his drink (victory! that brat was no match for my wiles or how I was just standing there like a blond lump) and started for the mudroom door. “Right now it’s just Fur and Burr and they’re still puppies in this timeline.”

  “Ooooh!” His sister was right behind him. “It’s fun to see them again when they’re babies,” she clarified, like we’d insist on an explanation as to why they would want to play with adorable puppies. “They grow up so fast.”

  From Marc: “Wow.”

  DadDick: “Yeah.”

  From Tina: “She genuinely doesn’t understand the enormous irony in those comments.”

  From me, since I finally caught on: “Oh! I get it. Irony! Heh.”

  But at the last second, she seemed to change her mind, because she turned and came straight at me. “You ratted me out when I was fourteen,” she whispered, small, strong hands clutching my wrist as she leaned up and cupped a hand over my ear and her mouth. “But you didn’t rat me out last month when the garage accidentally burned down.”

  “What?”

  “Shhhh! So listen. It’s not your fault. You wanted to help and they saw it and used it. But you’ll do a good job. So don’t worry.”

  “What?”

  She spun away from me and charged toward the door. “I want a pup right now!”

  “Wait, get back here,” I commanded. “What were you talking about? And we’ve got more questions.”

  “Be speedy, then!” her brother shouted from the mudroom, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to his sister or to me.

  “Get back here right now,” I said in my best “I’m the queen so don’t fuck with me” voice, which had the exact effect it did on Fur and Burr: no effect. Again: why couldn’t I intimidate people when I really needed to?

  The mudroom door slammed shut and I was reminded that a) they had no control over when and where they shifted, or to what age, and b) they’d expected to be gone already. And at once, though there was no logic to it, I knew they were going. The others didn’t seem to pick up on it—or maybe were still brain-fried from the events of the last hour—because they were standing around staring at each other.

  I rushed to the door and groped for the knob. “Wait!” I screamed, furious I hadn’t thought of this sooner. I wrenched open the door. “What are your names?”

  I was greeted by Fur and Burr, who were yapping and licking the faces of two newborns, who seemed surprised but not upset and only wriggled in an attempt to avoid canine drool instead of crying.

  Aw, son of a bitch. Now we’d have to depend on Jess and DadDick to know their names. Which would involve actually naming them.

  I wasn’t going to hold my breath. Vodka and Orange Juice it was!

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  Jess had gone to lie down, and no one could blame her. I felt like a nap myself. Perhaps ten naps. But maybe I should get back to Hell. I had to set an example for the Antichrist, after all. Big-sister stuff. Coworker stuff. I owed it to Hell to return to its Mall of the Damned. I definitely wasn’t worried about the second part of Sinclair’s text. Not a bit.

  “She’s gonna sleep,” DadDick said, returning to the kitchen.

  “Maybe you should, too,” Marc said. He’d fussed over the babies, given them another quick exam, and assured all of us they were perfectly fine. They sure seemed fine. Their diapers didn’t even need changing. “I’ll watch them.”

  “Thanks, Marc.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Christ. All that. I still can’t take it in. Thank God they’re okay, but I don’t—sorry, Tina.”

  “Not at all,” she murmured. “You’re quite correct, it was a great deal to take in. Blaspheming seems appropriate. I have many questions.”

  “As do I.” There was a pause as Sinclair ambled across the room and snaked an arm around my waist to pull me in until our hips bumped. “I suppose making some sort of schedule wherein we can refer to a list of questions for the twins based on whatever stage of their lives they shift into would be—”

  “Completely fucked,” I said before DadDick had to. “We’re not making charts or lists, cripes. ‘Hi, kids, happy twenty-first birthday and what’d you major in, anyway? Your cribs are all made up and ready for you.’ No.”

  “Perhaps just think it over,” he coaxed, smiling the smile that I always felt below the equator and when was the last time I got laid, anyway?

  Too bad the smile was for DadDick, who was immune.

  “Not now, please, you guys.”

  See? Also, “you guys”? I wasn’t doing anything. He should have said “you guy.” “Yeah, back off, Uncle Sink.” Never let it be said that my horniness for my husband allowed me to stand by while my friends were being overwhelmed. “DadDick has had a tough few days.”

  “My name is Dick!”

  “See? He’s falling apart! He’s bursting at the seams like an overstuffed sausage.” Hmm. Not my best. “Wait, why are you yelling at me?”

  “I’ve had enough of your obstinate refusal to call me by my fucking name.”

  “I think you should yell at anybody but me, Dick,” I warned.

  Elizabeth.

  “Quit that,” I snapped, pulling away from him. “You’re not in charge of how I behave even when I’m self-absorbed enough to pick the wrong time to get into a pissing match with a vulnerable, exhausted new father who insists on calling himself by the wrong name. Okay, that didn’t come out like I planned. I’ll rephrase. The thing is, Not-Dick, I can’t be expected to—”

  “Tina, Marc, Sinclair”—DadDick’s knuckles went white as he leaned on the back of a kitchen chair—“could Betsy and I have a minute?”

  “Of course,” Tina murmured, falling into step behind Marc and Sinclair, who were leaving in what could best be described as an undignified scramble. Cowards. “Please excuse us.”

  Be kind to him, my own.

  He started it!

  You must be the mature one.

  He’s older than me!

  Elizabeth.

  Oh, go away. And get out of my head. Whitebearwhitebearwhitebear.

  ????

  Never mind.

  The kitchen door swung back in and we were alone, except for Fur and Burr, who had done that puppy thing where they were playing then basically passed out to nap where they collapsed. Their fat little bellies huffed in and out with quick breaths because their puppy lungs were so small. I’d find it much cuter if it didn’t remind me that their puppy bladders were also small.

  That’s Not My Name huffed, squeezed the back of the chair once more, then straightened and speared me with his exhausted, bloodshot gaze. Intimidating and, it must be said, a little gross. He looked about one half-step behind a nasty dose of pinkeye. Also: eye boogers. Sometimes I really appreciated being undead.

  “Do you know why, Betsy?”

  “No?” That seemed safe enough.

  “Of course not. Have you ever once asked yourself why I would object so strongly to a perfectly nice name like Nick? Hmm? Elizabeth? Or should I call you Beth?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Or Liz.”

  He was so cruel! “Ugh.”

  “Liza?”

  “I think I’m starting to see your point. Your brutal name-calling has helped me see the light so let us never speak of this—”

  “I don’t like hearing it because it reminds me that in another life or timelin
e or parallel universe or whatever, I was enough of a dumb fuck to let Jessica go. I can’t bear the thought of it. I have nightmares about it, get it? And yeah, this week has been tough but I’d rather be in the middle of this supernatural freak show—”

  “Hey!”

  “—than the alternative.” He’d quit with the chair squeezing and had progressed to tile pacing. “I’ve got to come to grips with the fact that my babies are unlike any other children in the world, that they could be powerful or vulnerable or both. That’s hard enough, but at least I’m here for it. I’m not trapped in a stupid decision that I would have made out of fear. Not even a decision, maybe a reflex from the sheer terror of being in your lives.”

  “But if that was true, it’s not like you’d know it,” I pointed out in a small voice. “You’d never have known. You can’t mourn what you never had, and never knew you could have.”

  “But I do know it! Now, here, I’m aware of how close I came to missing all of this.” He waved a hand but I was sure he meant his home, his friends, his babies, his smoothies, and not the toaster he gestured at. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t remind me how close it was every time you deliberately let the wrong name fall out of your mouth.”

  Oh.

  Huh.

  “I suck,” I said with pure sincerity.

  He shrugged.

  I decided to pretend he’d said something like, No, no, that’s crazy, don’t beat yourself up, and elaborated. “No, I do. That’s awful. I’ve been awful.”

  “I wasn’t debating the point.”

  I let it go; I had it coming and then some. “I’m so sorry.” I decided to do something nice and lined him up to take a shot at me. “I guess you could say I wasn’t thinking.”

  DadDick—sorry, Dick—let it go.

  “You could also say I was really stupid and insensitive.”

  Hmm, still nothing. A gentleman and a detective! I stopped trying to get him to insult me so I would feel better and got back to the groveling. “I’m so sorry, Dick. It will never happen again.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, polite yet exhausted now that his anger had been doused with the water that was my apology. God, my metaphors were getting worse! How was that even possible? “Appreciate you hearing me out. I’m going to go make sure Jess didn’t wake up and need something.”

  I caught his elbow as he turned away. “Dick, I don’t think I’ve ever said it, but I love you. I’d love you for your own oddly named self even if you weren’t in Jessica’s life. But you are, and so I love you for that, too. I double love you! And what I’ve been doing—the name thing—it’s a shitty way to treat someone you care about. I’m truly sorry and I meant it—it won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you,” he said again and smiled a little. I tentatively reached for him and he rested his head on my shoulder for a few seconds. We both pretended not to notice that he was crying a little. Stress, I figured. Hoped. Because if my thoughtless asshattery had reduced him to such a state, I had a lot to make up for.

  No time like the present, even when you could accidentally time travel.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  Label maker in hand, I was deep into my project when Marc walked in on me. I held a finger to my lips and he shrugged; he knew how it was with her. We’d need to be quiet, but not silent. Jess was a heavy sleeper even when she got a solid eight hours per. She was sprawled facedown on her bed right now, her exhausted snores muffled by her pillow. The Food Network was blatting away on the television near the wall across from her bed. Jess wasn’t a foodie or close to one, but she liked the background noise of people chatting and cooking. Her mom had been far too refined to slime her manicured paws cooking for “loved ones” (the quotes were ironic), so the Watson kitchen had been the opposite of a warm, friendly room the whole family liked to congregate in. It was more like a lab that had been shut down for lack of funding.

  “Huh,” Marc said from the doorway as he glanced around the room. “This is new.”

  “Yeah, Dick and I had a thing.”

  “The name thing.”

  “Yep.” God, had I really been that obviously offensive, or had Dick confided in Marc? Dumb question, even for me; it was both. Who hadn’t confided in Marc at one point or another? Dead men tell no et cetera. “It’s been a strange week for all of us. Whatever problem you’re bringing to me, maybe it could wait?” Which was shitty, because I never hesitated to burden him with my silly bullshit.

  Okay, new plan. After I made things right with Just Plain Dick, I’d offer Marc a friendly and attentive ear. Maybe both ears. This, of course, assuming I managed not to offend any other loved ones before the weekend. I’d better update my schedule.

  “No problem. And I’m not bringing a problem, I just wanted to check on you. Because you’re right, and even though I hate to feed your immense starving ego, your week has probably been the strangest.”

  I grinned. “Probably?” Then, “Aw, come on. Starving?”

  “Like I said, hate to spoon-feed that insatiable ego you’ve got lurking in you. How’s Hell?”

  “You won’t even believe it. It’s actually starting to come together.” What was that strange tone in my voice? It seemed familiar. I almost had it. What was the opposite of shame? Got it: pride. “Laura’s gonna be psyched when she sees I finally made progress.”

  “Mm-mm. Once she got you down there she pulled a Houdini?”

  “Well, yeah, but she’s got stuff besides Hell to deal with. Her charity work alone eats something like fifty hours a week. She went down there—dammit, now I’m doing it again, Hell isn’t down anywhere! But like I said, she went down there plenty of times without me.”

  “She did? Well, if you’re looking for ideas about how to torture the denizens of your second home—”

  I shuddered. “Please, please don’t call it that. Most people, their second home is a cabin somewhere. Mine’s Hell. I can’t. No.”

  “You could make them play kill-bang-marry.”

  “Nobody plays kill-bang-marry anymore.”

  “How are they supposed to know that if you don’t tell them? If the person in charge of Hell says playing kill-bang-marry is still a thing, then it’s still a thing.”

  “Uh-huh, and every time we play, someone ends up crying.” Meaning: I end up crying. It does my ego zero good to find out how many of my friends would rather kill me than marry or bang me. Tina and Marc want to marry each other (“A sexless marriage is the best marriage.”), Sinclair wants to do all three to me in no special order, and everybody wants to marry Jess, because she’s rich and low maintenance. A lot of my friends secretly want to be kept men. Or women. Plus, I didn’t want to cry in Hell. Not in front of the damned—they’d never let it go. “No, it’s too awful, even for people there to be tortured for eternity. I’ve gotta put my foot down somewhere, Marc.”

  “Okay, how about what’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever had in your—”

  “No.”

  “I was going to say mouth!”

  “Not much better, pal. A thousand times: no.”

  “Aw, come on, I’ll bet someone who’s been in Hell for a thousand years could come up with crazy stuff nobody’s ever heard of.”

  “No. I wouldn’t let you play that game with vampires and a zombie and a new mom; why would you think I’d okay it in Hell? Like I said, even that’s too awful for Hell.”

  He shrugged but didn’t seem put out. Usually he’d be in partial-pout mode if I shot down two ideas in a row. Odd, even for him.

  “What’s going on? Did you seriously come up here to give me terrible ideas you must have known I’d nix?”

  “Only partly,” he replied, leaning against the doorway to get comfy, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Mostly I’m supposed to keep you here so you don’t run off. Teleport off. Whatever.”

  I froz
e in midlabel, then forced myself to relax. I had thought it was dumb delightful luck that Sinclair didn’t start with the nagging the minute the newborns were newborns again. Not only did he not bug me, he’d left. I had assumed he was checking over his gigantic electric shaver of a car, but he hadn’t come back yet. And that didn’t bode well. And I wasn’t thinking about the second part of his text. Nope.

  “Ah, you’re still here.” Tina had appeared in the doorway beside Marc, who stepped aside to let her into the room. “The babies are asleep. All the babies.” Ah. She meant Fur, Burr, Thing One, Thing Two, and my brother/son. At least that was what I hoped she meant. She was old enough to consider the rest of us as babies. Hell, she’d been Auntie Tina to Sinclair the first dozen years of his life.

  The age issue aside, I felt a stab of guilt since I hadn’t been able to play with BabyJon for days. I hadn’t laid eyes on him in at least two. Maybe I’d been kidding myself and the reason he turned out so great in the future was because I didn’t have time for him when he was little. An awful thought; I had to swallow the lump it brought to my throat. I was missing my brother’s childhood and had no one to blame but myself. Other working moms made it work, ones with much less time, money, resources, supernatural abilities, and jobs from Hell where they couldn’t set their own hours. I wouldn’t consider “bring your brother/son to Hell” day, but there were other things I could do. Things I’d better do, or I’d wake up one night and BabyJon would be enjoying his prom. And probably resenting the nickname BabyJon.

  Tina read my mind, because she was terrifying. “He adores you. And when he is older, he will honor your work.”

  That probably wasn’t true at all, but she was a sweetie for saying so.

  “Besides, my queen, you should—ah, perhaps turn off the television?”

  Eh? Oh. That could only mean one thing. Tina wasn’t a fan of the Food Network. She considered it torture porn (“I cannot enjoy any of those dishes unless I dilute and puree them. Why would I put myself through such an ordeal?”). However, she would occasionally keep Marc company in the wee hours and watch it with him. Which was how she learned of his deep abiding hatred of Giada De Laurentiis, a perfectly lovely woman Marc wanted off the air forevermore.