All the other cars that were black, shiny, and new.
Mine was anything but.
It was old, rusted, and not even the same color paint from one panel of metal to the next.
Hence the reason I parked and walked up myself instead of allowing one of the valets to take it.
Not that I would trust my car with anyone but the mechanic that fixed it, anyway.
I didn’t even let my brothers or Keisha drive it.
The moment I stepped out of the car and got my first good glimpse at the building, I realized that I was in way over my head.
Why I’d allowed my brother to talk me into coming, I didn’t know.
Not when the booger wasn’t even going to make it as my date, anymore.
I’d gotten that pleading call earlier this afternoon, practically begging me to go anyway. If he hadn’t sounded so pitiful over the phone, and given me some damn good puking sounds, I would’ve totally denied him.
Alas, this brother was my favorite sibling—even though I had two siblings—and I’d do damn near anything for him. Well, to be perfectly fair, I loved them both dearly.
Even go to some swanky benefit dinner without him just so I could network for him and his business.
Ready to get this over with and get home so I could crawl into my bed, pantless with half a roll of cookie dough, I started off across the lawn, admiring the pretty lights as I went.
They had one of those light shows pointed down from the trees, making the large, sprawling lawn dance with colored dots to the tune of some sound I couldn’t hear.
I’d just stepped onto the asphalt when I heard someone call my name.
Bradford.
Curse it all, dammit!
“Hi.” I smiled… or grimaced. I wasn’t sure which. At least not until I saw his eyes narrow on my attempted smile.
“Where is your brother at?” he asked.
My brother and Bradford worked together, which made our whole breakup even worse.
See, I was in love with Bradford until he decided to fuck his secretary.
I’d decided to bring my brother and Bradford lunch, and had walked in to an eyeful of Bradford’s balls swinging as he banged his eighteen-year-old secretary on the front office desk.
Needless to say, my brother had felt like shit.
I, on the other hand, had been relieved.
I’d been in over my head with the man, and it was nice to have a reason to break it off without ruining his and my brother’s partnership.
That’s not to say that Bradford didn’t try to get me back at every turn.
It was sad, really, but I wasn’t giving in. Not this time, anyway.
I was glad to have him in my past—where he belonged.
“He’s got the stomach flu,” I told him. “He’s spent the entire afternoon throwing up, and only stopped long enough to call me and tell me he wouldn’t be coming in…” I trailed off as the valet helped Bradford’s date, his eighteen-year-old bride-to-be that was pregnant with his child.
The same one that was still the secretary at their law firm. The same one that thought she was the most supreme being on the planet for getting my man and keeping her job.
When in reality, the only reason she still had her job was because my brother couldn’t find anyone that was willing, or stupid enough, to do the job besides her.
See, not many people wanted to defend vampires, and in this day and age, when it was taboo to be around vampires, be friends with a vampire, or be genuinely nice to one, it was understandable why no one would want to work with someone that defended them.
Vampires weren’t all that bad.
They were a very new thing on this planet that was so set in their ways, and it was going to be a long time before everyone was entirely comfortable with something that wasn’t completely human being out in the open. Free to walk among them and have rights.
Rights that were very often taken advantage of… hence where my brother and Bradford came in.
I had to admit it, Bradford and my brother made a good team.
“Oh, God,” Bradford moaned. “I hope he didn’t pass that to me.”
I did.
“Have a nice night,” I muttered, skirting around the now very agitated that she was being ignored teenager who’d banged my man.
I waved Bradford off and walked up to the reception/whatever the fuck it was called, stand.
“Acadia…”
The man… vampire… waved me through. “Go ahead.”
Blinking at how fast I was let in when the person ahead of me had practically been strip searched, I stepped foot inside, and immediately came to a halt when I saw what awaited me.
The house had been beautiful on the outside, but the inside was magnificent.
Tall, arched ceilings with a massive chandelier that extended from the middle of the ceiling all the way down until about ten feet above our heads. The floor was what looked to be marble, and large marble pillars the same color as the floor extended from the floor all the way to the ceiling.
Each pillar was decorated with strands of Christmas lights in a perfect swirl from top to bottom.
And the decorations that hung from the ceilings made the entire place look like a winter wonderland.
Though, I had to wonder why that was when it was October.
Then I started to really look closely and realized that the decorations weren’t snowflakes like I’d thought, but mini jack-o’-lanterns that were shimmery and sparkly.
And then the lights turned from white to orange, and then from orange to green, and I smiled.
There was the fall look I was expecting!
Stepping past the threshold of the main entrance, I made a loop around the outside edges of the room, staying to the shadows like I normally did.
I didn’t much like being the center of attention, which was also a problem that I faced with Bradford.
He loved being the center of attention.
On any given Friday night, he was always out doing something, meeting new people, and genuinely having a grand old time.
Me, I was on my couch, a Coke in one hand, and the remote in the other, watching Netflix and wondering what my next binge-watch would be.
When I came to a party such as the one I was currently at, I made it a point to stay out of the limelight and keep my face from being seen.
Why? Because I sucked at speaking. I sucked at putting together coherent sentences, and even more, I hated people.
That’s right, you heard me.
I hated people.
I hated the way everyone acted. I hated how the world had turned into a bunch of angry shitheads who felt entitled to stuff they didn’t work for, and most of all, I hated what people became.
Killers. Beggars. Law and rule breakers.
Anything and everything that people could cut corners on, they did, and I saw the worst of the worst as a crime scene tech, and really that only hammered the point home.
People sucked.
And I hated sucky people.
“’Scuse me,” I murmured to a couple that were in a tight clinch.
I caught a familiar set of eyes as I passed and realized the man in the clinch was the same man that’d sat across from me at the vampire bar that Keisha had dragged me to. The same one who I’d heard never left Constantine Worth’s side.
Nervously I looked around in the shadows, happy when I didn’t see that familiar pair of blue wolf-like eyes and continued to walk the room.
I ended up by the bar, and snagged a water that was still capped, and continued walking.