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We slipped into the back entrance of the house and just sort of stood around for aout with Jessica for a while-give her a chance toHow everything was going The thing about Jess-you couldn&039;t force information out of her She&039;d tell you or she wouldn&039;t I planned toas I could

Anyway, I was pretty much done with Alonzo I&039;m sure he was done with olf in the dark" kind of guy In fact, I had never seen Sinclair with one man friend In further fact, as far as I knew, Tina was his only friend

Anyway, Sinclair was done with Alonzo Tina probably wasn&039;t even there-she was tracking Jon down for us

So it was that part of the party where you want your friends to leave, and they want to leave, but it was too early to look at your watches

"It&039;s getting late," Alonzo said, stealing another glance at his big silver watch Thank God! Normally that weird tic of his o off somewhere But this time I welcomed it "And unlike some, I must feed before dawn With your permission, Majesty ?"

"Of course Um, try not to kill your food" I tried to say it as a joke, but it probably sounded like an order Enough-I was too eure it out "Thanks for co over"

"The pleasure wasfor the phone to ring And noill go back and wait so with h slipperiness in his tone that justover"

He went I listened for Sinclair but he didn&039;t pop out fro up in the drive Tina was standing unobtrusively in the short hall to the kitchen, ready to spring forith a cup of tea Guess she&039;d quit looking for Jen for the night

I slung my coat into the mudroom closet, kicked off my boots, andwith Marc and Jessica and reading Sun Tzu&039;s The Art of War His sleeves were rolled up His feet were bare He looked as co downbreathlessly to hear about iance? Did he bone me at the intersection of Dale Avenue?"

"Oh" He turned a page "About the first, Alonzo is gradually falling under your spell"

"My spell?"

He looked at me innocently "Why, dear, your natural charm No doubt you had it before you were a vaer now No one of any intelligence can resist you for long"

See, there it was again, just like Alonzo-the 98 percent certainty that this guy was just fucking with me I just waved a hand and let him continue

"I only have to wait a few more days, and then he will be yours and, by association, ours As for the latter, if you wanted to use your walk to, ah, show carnal interest, there is nothing I can do about it And if you bit hioddaed "I was not especially worried"

"Okay, there&039;s got to be so all over h you seem, uh, not too worried about it, I&039;ll tell you how the ent"

"The ith the guy who&039;s going to fall in love with you?" Marc asked

"He&039;s not going to fall in love withto fall in love with anybody-which he&039;s not-look, can we stay on track, please?"

Just then I saw Marc slip Jessica so small and white-it looked like a business card-and whisper to her I cutsecrets? What did you tell her? Share with the class! Are you getting sicker? You&039;re not getting sicker, are you?"

I couldn&039;t so out of irlfriends, so I didn&039;t exactly have a baseline for comparison purposes But still You&039;d think I could tell soive you one I was giving her the business card of a guy I want her to see He&039;s a really good doc-ht? I was embarrassed to ask I knew Marc&039;s dad was sick, but surely I would have heard if he&039;d died Soht? We share with the class!

"How&039;s your dad?"

"He&039;s really good" Weirdly, Marc said this in an alot him in this new place, he likes it a lot It&039;s a real house, not a hospital or anything He&039;s one of a couple guys who lives there, and the nurse ns the place keeps an eye on theet theircare of them in an obvious way If he wants to retreat to his own space and watch a baseball ga rooood coreat" I said this with total sincerity And it was, beyond obvious reasons: so, so great to hear good news for a change "You should bring him by to-"

"Meet all my cool new vampire friends?" Jessica se probleay and living with va with any of us" I shrugged