Page 92 of Bent Out of Shade
Waving at Tatiana that all was well, I allowed her to drive off, but if she thought her storytelling was over, she was deluded.
“You need anything?” I said to the female vampire. Coffee I could do, blood not so much.
She scanned the neighborhood. About my height, she had the broadest shoulders I’d ever seen on a woman. Her biceps were the size of my thighs while her torso tapered down to a narrow V at the waist. A former bodybuilder or could the undead gain muscle mass?
“I’m good,” she said. “But there was another vampire prowling around outside your wards. I never saw their face and they’re gone now.”
“Tell Zev, okay?” It had to be Vincenzo, looking for Sabrina. Until we determined whether he was awake during the day, we’d have to be careful leaving the house.
Heading inside, I called out Sadie’s name, but receiving no answer, I beelined for the living room where I halted in the doorway.
My daughter rolled on another coat of paint, drops splattering onto her skin as she sang along loudly to the K-pop blasting out of her earbuds. The plastic sheeting on the floor looked like a Kandinsky painting, and I wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get a smear of paint on her butt, but the purple on the walls cleanly met the white ceiling paint, and the room didn’t stink too badly.
I waved my arms until she noticed me and shrieked, pulling the earbuds out.
“Geez, Mom.”
“How much did your father do?” I motioned for her to stay back because I was already sweaty and gross in two-day-old clothing. I didn’t need paint spatter to complete my look.
“None of it.”
“Yeah, right.”
She shook the roller at me, sending paint into her hair. “Why have me do this if you assumed I’d do a bad job?”
“Because you were grounded, and I wanted to punish you. I figured you’d do an okay job, but I’d have to help on the corners and seams.” I crossed my arms. “Was it Caleb?”
“No.” Huffing loudly, she shoved one of her earbuds back in.
Hmm. Tatiana would have mentioned if Emmett had come over and I’d have gotten a text from Jude, so who… “Did Laurent stop by?”
She froze and gave a half shrug. “He might have checked if you were back from the vampires. And helped. A bit.”
I twirled my finger around the room. “Which bit?”
“The edges,” Laurent said from behind me. He held an angled brush with traces of white paint on it, and there was a smudge of purple on his arm, but he hadn’t gotten a single drop on his clothes. “And the kitchen.”
With his biceps straining tight against his faded T-shirt, the dust of stubble along his jaw, and the paintbrush in his long, elegant fingers, he was a sexy handyman fantasy come to life. Honestly, at this stage in my life, I got hotter for a man who could fix things than a man who just looked the part.
As hot.
Regardless, I currently looked like a swamp witch and was never getting my second date. Which didn’t matter right now because he shouldn’t have taken over. “Laurent,” I sighed, “this was supposed to be her punishment. You shouldn’t have stepped in.”
He set the brush down on the painter’s tray. “I know, ma chèrie, but it was so horrible. The walls, they wept.” He shuddered theatrically and I laughed. “The only one it would have punished was you, and you’d been through enough.”
“Oh my God!” Sadie stamped her foot. “Wept? Could you be more of a drama queen?”
“My mistake,” he said somberly, though his eyes twinkled.
How was I supposed to stay irritated with a man who came to check I was safe from vamps, put his extensive renovation experience to use so my house looked pretty, and called me “ma chèrie”—which was a total step into romance-land from ma chèr?
Who was I kidding? I was already so settled into romance-land with him I’d thrown away my tourist visa.
“Let’s see the kitchen.” Head held high, I strode past him.
