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she’s out of sight, I grab Shane’s hand. “Let’s go.”
    We duck out a side exit, which leads to a long hallway. I drag him halfway down at a trot, then realize we’re running from a drunken bachelorette, not the Mafia.
    When I try to let go of his hand, Shane takes my wrist and pulls me to a stop. “Thanks,” he says. “I owe you.”
    I try not to look at the place where our skin is touching. “It was the least I could do.”
    “Is she your friend?”
    “More like arch-nemesis. But I feel bad for the guy I stepped on.”
    “Collateral damage,” he says.
    “I didn’t know how else to get rid of her. She didn’t care that you were ignoring her.”
    “I considered glaring her away, but I have to be careful.” He shifts his glance above my shoulder. “It sounds wacked, but some people get a little out of control when I look directly at them.”
    “Oh.” I have just enough martini in me to say, “Because you’re a vampire.”
    He drops my wrist and leans back against the wall. “So you know.”
    “I read the brochure.”
    “What do you think?”
    “I quit.”
    “Oh.” He nods, then turns and saunters down the hall toward the exit, his gait suggesting a contained swiftness, like a greyhound on a leash. I accompany him to see his reaction, and because the only other way out is through the bar.
    After a few steps he says, “Did you quit because you don’t want to work with vampires or because you don’t want to work with crazy people?”
    “You’re not vampires, and you’re not crazy. It’s a good joke. I just found a better job, that’s all.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Working for an account exec at a PR firm in D.C.”
    “That’s a commute from hell, but congrats, anyway.” Shane opens the glass door at the end of the hallway, which leads to a painfully bright liquor store. He heads to the beer fridge. “Do you want to get something to go?”
    “Go where?”
    He opens the refrigerator, then looks at me through the door. His breath fogs a circle on the cold, clear glass. “Your place?”
    Normally with someone who looks and moves the way he does, I’d purr, “The sooner the better.” But even I have my taboos. Men who belong to psychos, for instance.
    “What’s the deal with you and Regina?”
    Shane shuts the refrigerator and leans against a pyramid of twelve-packs. “Regina and I have a special connection.”
    “Does this connection include sex?”
    Shane glances at the gangly guy behind the counter, who watches us without embarrassment, then turns back to me. “Not anymore.”
    “How long anymore?”
    He squints at the ceiling as if the answer is written there. “Maybe two years.”
    He’s telling the truth. I’ve learned a thing or ten about spotting a liar.
    I don’t trust him enough to bring him home, however. Not yet.
    I step forward and open the refrigerator. “Let’s take a walk.”
    We stroll down Main Street, in the general but not specific direction of my apartment. Sherwood’s downtown measures only four blocks by three blocks, so we’ll have to double back soon.
    The night swelters and the popcorn we bought at the store parches my tongue. I’m dying to break out the beers, but every so often a cop car cruises by, slow and predatory as a shark. Aside from domestic disturbances and drunken students, the police don’t have much to do here, so their presence is more annoying than comforting.
    “So what were you before you became a vampire DJ?”
    “Something much more monstrous. I was a wedding DJ.” He pulls his wallet from his jeans, then hands me a tattered business card.
    MCALLISTER MUSIC, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO . Aha—I thought I heard a hint of that distinctive Pittsburgh-northeast Ohio dialect.
    “Do you still hear ‘The Electric Slide’ in your sleep?”
    “Actually, I had a reputation as the DJ for cool couples. They knew I’d play what
they
wanted, not what their parents wanted.”
    I turn over the card. Small block letters read, NO CHICKEN DANCE