It’s date night! 🦖🎃🐷
My computer issues are all fixed and I didn’t lose anything, thank Aphrodite. If you’ve been waiting on an email back from me, I have access to my account again and I will reply ASAP. Now, on to the story!
REMINDER: if you haven’t read Breaking News (Charlie Davies Book 11), this contains spoilers!
Table of Contents:
- Frustrated
- Very Educational
- Dingle
- Pinecone
- Genetic Material
- Sex Energy
- Thinking Out Loud
- Damp Is Sexy
- Evidence Of Vampirism
- Snackster
- A Lick In The Dark
- Armpit
- Stay Vigilant
- No Sense of Shame (FINAL CHAPTER)
CHAPTER SEVEN: Thinking Out Loud
“This is a mistake,” I said when we’d made it about three steps up the corridor and I’d already had enough exercise. “There has to be something we can do in this hotel other than visit the gym.”
“We could go back to the bar, but I’m worried you’ll injure yourself doing your signature dance on one of the tables.”
I nodded. “Yeah, and even though it might help me expend some energy, my sweet moves and hip thrusts probably won’t help you stop thinking about having sex with me.”
“I wouldn’t bank on that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m rapidly becoming less interested in you.”
He smirked. “Maybe we don’t need the gym after all.”
“It’s probably just because we’re outside the room and can no longer feel the influence of its sex energy. I’ve suddenly remembered what you’re like as a person.”
“You were bound to come to your senses eventually.”
“You should run back to your goatherd. Maybe he’ll be able to put up with your bullshit.”
“I think my goatherd might be more interested in your life coach. And based on what my brother’s told me, they’re not interested in adding a third.”
“How does your brother factor into this?” asked a moderately horrified Paulette who’d apparently arrived in the corridor at some point without us noticing. I guess we’d just added yet another thread to the rich tapestry of lies we were weaving this weekend.
Adam and I made the kind of eye contact you make when you’re trying not to burst out laughing. Like when you see someone trip at a funeral. It’s objectively hilarious, but it’s best if you hold your raucous cackling until you’re somewhere private. (I’d learned that lesson the hard way.)
“Tell her, Rick.” I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from chortling.
“It’s a long story, Paulette. It’s probably better if we save it for tomorrow if you want to get any sleep tonight.”
Coward.
Paulette nodded quickly. “Yes, that’s probably for the best.”
Something told me she’d rather not deal with us at all, but she didn’t come right out and say that like Adam or I would have in her position. Maybe she was planning to palm us off on Ted to get back at him for being such a dick.
We said good night to her and she hurried away.
“Do you think anyone’s died here? Maybe we can go ghost hunting.”
“Good plan. One problem, though.”
“Ghosts aren’t real?”
“That’s the one.”
“We could play hide and seek.”
He frowned. “I was under the impression you invited me here so we could spend more time together. It seems like splitting up and hiding from each other kind of defeats the purpose.”
“You have a point, but hanging out too close seems to be a problem for you.”
He looked amused. “For me?”
I shrugged. “You’re the one who insisted I dismount.”
“Dismount? It’s unfair of you to use such sexy words at a time like this.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Let’s go back to the room. I’m now officially no longer attracted to you.”
Laughing softly, he took my hand. Tingles ran up my arm, goosebumps visibly appearing at his touch and making it clear that I was a big old liar. “Come on, Charlotte Regina. Let’s go for a walk and see if we can find something fun to do.”
Personally I was hoping we could find a cupboard to make out in, but I was open to other suggestions.
We decided to take the stairs and roam the corridors, starting more weird Rick and Wanda conversations every time we passed another human. It wasn’t quite making out, but it kept us occupied for a while. Eventually we ended up in the bar and had another drink, after which Adam practically carried me to the door to prevent me from climbing onto the bar and showing everyone just why Adam was the former exotic dancer of our duo. We ended up in a weird alley beside the hotel, the kind of place where I imagine we might end up being turned by a vampire.
“You know they’re not real either, right?” Adam said.
“I was thinking out loud again?”
“Yeah, you’ve pretty much been narrating everything aloud since we left our room.”
I frowned, concerned about what I’d said on the trip. “Sorry for any inappropriate comments about your body.”
“It’s fine. It’s nice to know just how often you think about me with my shirt off.”
“You should burn all your shirts.”
“There are less dramatic ways to go about this.”
“As long as we’re both aiming for the same goal in the long term.”
He laughed and pulled me into a hug, which was nice but would be nicer if we’d burnt the shirt first. I was just about to narrate how badly I wanted him to kiss me when a noise from the other end of the alley caught my attention.
“Vampire,” I whispered.
“Human,” Adam replied, looking over my head at the undead creature. “It’s not an undead creature, Charlie. It’s a regular woman.”
Oops. Narrating again.
“Yep, you were.”
I turned to look at the vampire and confirm that he was wrong – “I’m not wrong, Charlotte Regina.” – but when I saw her, I realised he was right.
“What a shock.”
“I don’t like this,” I grumbled. “Are you sure I’m speaking aloud and you’re not just reading my mind?”
“Telepaths can go on the list with ghosts and vampires of things that aren’t real.” He frowned as he studied the woman like he thought she was super hot or something. “I don’t think she’s hot at all. I think she’s acting suspiciously. And I also think she’s Paulette.”
“Paulette’s not your type?”
“No. My type is you. You need to stop being so jealous every time another woman appears within a hundred metres of me.”
“I’ll work on it when you burn all your shirts for me.”
“Speaking of taking off shirts –”
“You want to head back to the room immediately?”
“No. Paulette –”
“You want to see Paulette with her shirt off?”
“Not at all, but I’m pretty sure she’s holding it in her hand.”
I turned to look, confused by the fact that the marriage counsellor was flashing my pre-boyfriend, then realised what he meant. She’d changed her outfit from when we’d seen her earlier. She had a wad of material in her hand which was hard to see in the dark alley but did seem to be her other shirt. Apparently she couldn’t see us since we were a distance away and lurking in the shadows, but we watched as she hurried to a dumpster and threw her shirt in there, then hustled back inside.
Adam and I looked at each other and I knew we were thinking the same thing – “You literally said what you were thinking aloud.” – so we immediately started walking towards the bin.
“This is weird of us, isn’t it?”
“In the context of our decision to come to this marriage conference in the first place, not really,” Adam replied.
When we reached the skip and peered inside, it didn’t seem like such a strange decision to go through Paulette’s rubbish.
“Is that blood?”
The bin was covered in scunge so we didn’t get super close to inspect things. Even from our distance we could see that her shirt had dark stains on it, but the lighting wasn’t great so there was a chance it was, like, pasta sauce or something. Given her shady behaviour, though, it seemed much more likely to me that she’d murdered her husband.
“Really? You’re jumping straight to that conclusion?”
“You’re telling me she didn’t look like she wanted to?”
“She definitely wanted him dead,” he conceded.
“And you said yourself she was acting suspiciously.”
“In hindsight, it’s not so strange that she looked around like she was worried someone might be watching her and then ran back inside. We’re in a dark alley late at night.”
“And throwing away the shirt in an outside bin instead of in her room?”
“A little weird,” he admitted, his beautiful eyes turning thoughtful. “Thanks, Charlie. I think your eyes are beautiful too.”
That was unfair. Now I was thinking about heading back to the bedroom.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea just yet. You still seem like you’ve got a bit too much energy.”
“At least now we have something fun to keep us occupied instead.”
He smiled with his soft, sexy lips. “I like your lips also. What’s your idea?”
“To do what we usually do,” I said. “Bury our problems and excess energy in work.”
“How exactly are we going to do that?”
I grinned. “We’ve got a case to solve.”
“Which is?”
“Find where Paulette stashed Ted’s body.”
Copyright © 2021 by Clare Kauter
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