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time. I’d definitely use a straight one, one of those big fat ones they give you for bubble tea.”), but he definitely had some new, creepy habits in death. Undeath. “What . . . uh . . . are you going to do . . . uh, now?”
    He opened the freezer door. Peered inside. Reached in to the shoulder (damn, that freezer was deep) and emerged holding . . . oh God, the horror . . . holding . . . “Check it out.”
    A bottle of vodka.
    “Oh. Uh, very nice.” I was inwardly rolling my eyes. Tina’s vodka obsession was contagious. Lovely. Too bad her willingness to overlook most of my bad habits and terrible decision-making wasn’t.
    “Stop rolling your eyes,” he said impatiently, crossing toward me. “Look.”
    I looked. “Stoli Elit,” I read aloud, “Himalayan Edition.” I squinted. “That font looks expensive.”
    “It was!” For some reason, he sounded delighted.
    “Three thousand bucks?” Good thing Marc had hung on to the thing; I might have dropped it. “Are you kidding?”
    “I hid it behind all the corpses,” he continued gleefully. “Genius!”
    “Genius,” I acknowledged with a shudder. When? When would roommates saying things like “I hid it behind all the corpses” become commonplace? Was I rooting for the answer to be “never” or “any minute now”?
    But he was right; no one— no one —would look for it there. In fact, knowing there was a big weird bottle of incredibly overpriced hooch in there with scads of mice Popsicles made me want to poke through the freezer even less. “But Marc, I mean, it’s none of my business, but you can’t afford this.”
    My best friend was rich, and I’d married rich, and my father had made an excellent living before engaging in the Midlife Crisis Jaguar vs. Garbage Truck battle and losing, so money had never been that big a deal, but still. Marc wasn’t rich, had never been rich (air force brat, and unless your dad was, I dunno, King of the Generals, that didn’t make for a cushy lifestyle), and was still hip deep in student loans last time I checked.
    Hmm. Did he still have to pay those back? Nobody knew he’d been dead, however briefly. Kind of how some people knew I’d been dead and some people assumed it was some sort of nasty practical joke, and the government was years behind on the paperwork anyway so I just sort of plowed ahead and nobody bugged me about it. But Marc was still a person, according to the government. Social security card, birth certificate, lack of death certificate, tax forms—all that was still good.
    But: he’d been dead. He was still dead. It was something to think about.
    “Other than a car—which my dad helped me buy—it’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever gotten.”
    “Well, as long as you’re happy with it. MGM was out of Grey Goose?”
    “No. It’s a present.”
    “Oh. Ohhhhh.” I took another look at the long slender brown and gold bottle—and for that price, the gold font should be actual gold. For that price, they should come to your house on command and pour you a shot, then tuck you into bed and read you a story.
    Sure, the bottle was pretty, and the vodka was probably top-notch, but booze was smoothies was milk was Shamrock Shakes was tap water was anything but blood. I was thirsty all the time. Only blood helped; only blood quenched any of that raging permanent thirst. That didn’t stop me from binging on liquids all night. I couldn’t get drunk on booze anymore, though. Odd that Marc would drop so much money on something he knew, to me, might as well be ditch water. “That was really nice of you.” If not well thought out. Gah, next time just a gift card for DSW, Marc. “Thanks a lot. I can’t wait to—”
    “For Tina, idiot.”
    “Oh.” Whew! “Idiot” was a little bitchy, though. Not inaccurate, but still. “Why? What’d she do?”
    “Her birthday’s Friday.” He said it without reproach, because he knew me and he knew my Swiss-cheese memory. True