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before, and I sure liked it. It was really convenient living with someone who could answer the phone during the day while I was sleeping the unholy sleep of the undead. And it worked for Marc, too. I refused to charge rent, so he paid the utilities and ran my errands when he was off-shift. I had always figured doctors made more money than secretaries. I was wrong.
    "Termites, huh?" He tried to show me an odious yellow paper, but I waved it away and sat down at the table. "I didn't think people got termites anymore. I thought that was, like, a '50s thing."
    "Actually, they cause more damage than all other natural disasters combined."
    "Somebody's been spending too much time on the Web again."
    "I didn't feel like downloading more porn." He grinned, which made his green eyes sparkle. That, along with the goatee, made him look like a friendly demon.
    That was probably why I liked him from the start. I only knew two people who had green eyes, true green eyes, not the lame hazel color like I had. One of them was my mom.
    "Get rid of the bugs, but the house is wrecked. It's gonna cost big bucks to repair."
    "Well, shit."
    "Right."
    "There must be something we can—did you bat your pretty eyes at the bug guy?"
    "Like Scarlett O'Hara. Believe me, it was my pleasure… the guy was
built
. But alas, he was mostly immune to my charms. Wouldn't budge on the quote, or the bad news. Got a date Saturday, though."
    "Are we sure they're termites? I thought those little bugs flying around were ants."
    "Nope.
Insecta Termitidae
. In other words, we be fucked."
    I sipped my tea and drummed my fingers on the table. Maybe it was time for a change, and God had visited upon me
Insecta
-whatever to get the message across.
    "Maybe Jessica—"
    "Shhhh!" I hissed.
    "Maybe Jessica what?" the lady said, walking into the kitchen.
    "Forget it," I said. "What, did I miss a memo? Are we having a meeting?"
    "Actually, yeah." She yawned and grabbed the bread, then dropped two slices into the toaster. She was wearing her usual workday uniform—blue jeans, a T-shirt, and sandals. Her coarse black hair was skinned so tightly back from her skull, her eyebrows were forced up in a look of perpetual surprise. "Pretty inconvenient, too. I hate setting my alarm for two a.m ."
    "Cry me a river. You don't think I miss feeling the sun on my face once in a while?"
    "Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch," she replied good-naturedly.
    "We got the report, and it's like your guy thought," Marc said.
    "Wait a minute. 'Your guy'?"
    "Jess paid for the exterminator consult," Marc explained.
    I let my head drop into my hands. "Marc, we can't depend on Jessica to bail us out every time we have money problems."
    "We can't?"
    "Marc!"
    "Yeah, but…" He shrugged. "She doesn't care. She's got more money than she could spend in thirty lifetimes. So why should we care if she wants to help us out? It's not like she'll miss it."
    "Uh, guys? I'm right here. In the room."
    "Well, she's not paying to fix the house," I declared, wiping tea off my chin, "and that's that."
    "Well, what do you want to do? We can't sell the house until the termites are kaput. I guess we could get an apartment…"
    "Or a suite at the Minneapolis Marquette," I muttered. The smell of sweetly toasting bread was making me nuts. Item Number 267 that sucked about being a vampire: food still smelled great, but one bite and I'd puke. I was strictly a liquid diet girl now.
    "What was that?" Jess asked, fishing her toast out of the toaster, juggling them over to the table, and sitting down.
    "Guess who came to work tonight to order me to quit and move into the Marquette with him?"
    "Eric Sinclair?" They said this in identical, dreamy tones. My best friend and my roommate had a severe crush. Then Jessica giggled. "Eric came to Macy's? Did he burst into flames the moment he passed the first cash register?"
    "I wish. He tried to hypnotize my boss into firing me."
    "Did you kill him?" Marc asked.
    "I wish. Then I had to work overtime, and