Thirty-nine

In the morning, I awoke to the sound of someone pounding furiously on the downstairs door to the building, periodically pausing to shout my name in an annoyed Irish accent.

Looking out my bedroom window, I saw Cooper in the alley below holding a large bunch of shiny, helium-filled Mylar balloons.

I raised the window, letting a blast of wintry air into the apartment. “Cooper! What the hell are you doing?”

He squinted up at me. “Well, I’m supposed to be deliverin’ flowers on behalf of the big man himself, but there’s no feckin’ flower shops open on New Year’s Day, so I’m doing my best, aren’t I?”

“You can come up,” I said. “The door’s not locked.”

“I’d rather you came down,” Cooper said. “Don’t reckon himself would like me intruding on you en déshabillé, as it were. In your nightie,” he added, seeing my lack of comprehension.

“Oh, fine. I’ll be right down.” Closing the window, I wrapped myself in my Michelin Man coat, shoved a pair of boots on my feet, and descended the stairs, pausing at the top of the landing to apologize to the disgruntled neighbor poking his head out the door of the apartment opposite mine.

In the alley, Cooper looked me up and down. “Nice coat.” He thrust the ribbons anchoring the balloons at me. “Here. The finest the dollar store had to offer. It was meant to be a dozen red roses, but it comes with the big man’s apologies.”

I gazed in bemusement at the assortment, which included a number of birthday wishes, Spider-Man, a football, various Disney princesses, and a bright yellow SpongeBob SquarePants. “Um . . . thank you.”

Cooper shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”

“Just out of curiosity, did Stefan approve the substitution?” I asked him. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing and get you in trouble.”

Cooper flashed a quick, feral grin at me. “Oh, that he did. I think the notion quite tickled him.” He touched two fingers to his brow in a mocking salute. “Happy New Year to you, m’lady.”

“You, too, Cooper.” After he left, I tugged the unwieldy bunch of balloons up the narrow stairwell and into my apartment, where I set them free to roam at will. A dozen Mylar balloons drifted and bumped gently against the ceiling while Mogwai stalked their trailing ribbons.

I was making coffee when Jen called.

“Okay, girlfriend,” she said without preamble when I picked up. “What’s the scoop on your New Year’s Eve date with the hot ghoul? And don’t hold out on me. I know it was a big romantic shindig.”

I poured another scoop of coffee into the filter. “Oh, yeah?”

“I ran into Greta Hasselmeyer at the grocery store the other day,” Jen said. “Her niece Michelle is a junior in high school. Michelle’s dating a senior named Dylan Martinez who’s some kind of musical prodigy, and she told her mom that some spooky-hot ghoul hired Dylan to play his cello at a private party on New Year’s Eve. Which, I’m thinking, was for you. So yeah.”

“Touché.”

“Daise!” Jen sounded aggrieved. “C’mon.”

Once upon a time, not very long ago, it would have been hard to imagine that I might be involved in a relationship that I wouldn’t want to hash over in detail with my BFF, but for the first time, I found myself hesitating.

There was just so much that Jen wouldn’t understand. Then again, there was a lot I wasn’t sure I understood myself. The desire to dish won out. “Can you come over?”

“On my way.” She hung up.

Ten minutes later, Jen was batting her way through the hanging forest of balloon ribbons in my apartment. “What the hell, Daise?” she asked me, eyeballing SpongeBob SquarePants. “Are you having a kids’ party I don’t know about?”

I handed her a cup of coffee. “It’s an apology.”

“For what?”

I gave Jen an abridged version of my night with Stefan, glossing over the actual sex and skipping to the part where I had to make an unplanned early exit. “Hence the balloons,” I explained.

“At least he’s got a sense of humor,” Jen commented. “So . . . how are you with all of this? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” I sipped my coffee. “It was . . . intense.”

Jen gave me a shrewd look. “Funny, that’s exactly what you said about hooking up with Cody.”

I’d managed to avoid thinking about Cody, because thinking about Cody included thinking about how easy and comfortable we’d been together in the aftermath of lovemaking and how nice it had been waking up in his bed that last time, all of which made my heart hurt. “Yeah, well, it’s a different kind of intense.”

“Where do you see yourself going in this relationship with Stefan?” Jen asked. “I mean, do you have a future together? Do you want a future together?”

“I don’t know! Do I have to figure it out at this stage?” I asked. “Can’t I just enjoy the good parts?”

“If you were dating an ordinary human being, I’d say yes,” Jen said. “But under the circumstances, you might want to put some forethought into it.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m well aware of the whole immortal vs. mortal issue,” I said. “It’s not something you lose sight of.”