Vicki shrugged and sat on it.
“That good, huh?” Dad wiped his brow, winking at me.
“She hasn’t changed a bit when it comes to shopping, Greg,” Vicki whined.
My vampire folded his arms, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Vicki for a second, then, his head whipped up and he looked at me with an open-mouthed frown—my cue to leave.
“I’ll just hang this up.” I headed into my room quickly, feeling a jitterbug run down my spine.
When I headed back out to help Dad with the spare room, I half expected David to jump out and attack me. But he didn’t. Worse, he continued to help Dad—all the while saying nothing at all—well, nothing at all to me. He was mad. I knew it. I could tell.
The two boys struggled with the offending sofa while Vicki, who must’ve climbed in past Dad, vacuumed the imprints off the carpet where furniture had been. At last, the bulky lounge shifted, and David pretended to struggle with its weight as he and my dad carried it out of the room and angled it up the stairwell to the attic.
“Ara?”
I looked at Vicki, then the stairs and the front door, and considered running for a second.
“Come help with the dusting, please,” she said.
Against my better judgment, I sauntered into the spare room and took the feather duster from her.
“Make sure you dust the cornices, too. I hate cobwebs.”
“Don’t go to a vampire’s house then.” I grinned, imagining David’s house was full of coffins, cobwebs and bats. If David had Vicki and Dad over for tea, she’d conceal a feather duster in her handbag and sneak off to the bathroom every five minutes, but secretly, she’d be removing all of David’s eight-legged pets. Then again, the only reason a vampire would invite Vicki and Dad to tea is if they were the main course.
“I suppose you think you’re pretty funny?”
I looked up, snapping out of my reverie in a suddenly Vicki-less room. “Actually, I do. I think you’d look rather fetching in a coffin.”
David’s eyes narrowed in obvious confusion. “Ara, what are you talking about?”
“The cobwebs.” I pointed to the ceiling, then dropped my hand slowly, realising that wasn’t what he was referring to. “Oh. The dress?”
“Yes. The dress.”
“I—You know what?” I sunk my hip down on one side, propping my hand on it. “Bite me!”
“Don’t tempt me, young lady.”
“It’s just a dress. Get over it.”
He shook his head and backed away as Dad and Vicki waltzed in, carrying the bed head. “Vicki, please, let me take that.” The human David took over for the angry vampire, and I secluded myself in my task while the three of them continued furnishing the room around me.
As time ticked on and my mediocre chores came to completion, I leaned on the tall chest of drawers across from the foot of the bed and watched David, suddenly aware that he wasn’t so much angry that I hadn’t accepted his gift, but hurt. In his day, it was common for a man to send his date a pretty dress. And my declining it was probably seen as very rude. But these were modern times. Things had changed. Women had rights now.
My head nodded in self-satisfaction, but my heart danced a lonely samba under my rib cage as the afternoon sun lit the room and kissed his golden skin. He made it so hard to be mad at him; I knew he was mad at me, and I was mad at him for being mad at me, but now I was mad because I didn’t want to be mad at him anymore—and that made me feel uneasy because I had a right to be mad that he was upset that I hadn’t accepted a gift.
He dusted off his hands after he placed a small set of drawers next to the bed, then smiled at me—the conceited I-know-what-you’re-thinking-and-I’m-finding-it-funny smile.
“Er!” I stomped my foot, balling my fists up beside me. “You’re so annoying.”
“Ara?” Vicki looked up from making the bed, then looked at David as I stormed out of the room and slumped on the settee in the hall.
Dad walked out after me and stopped by soon-to-be-Mike’s door with a look of intense thought, then snickered and walked away. Vicki, with her arms folded around a spare blanket, followed him—after casting an accusatory glare at me.
I folded my arms, scoffed in her direction when her back was turned, and refolded my arms.
“Another one of Ara’s infamous tantrums.” David, with his towering height, stood in front of me.
“I’m not throwing a tantrum.” I slid down in the chair, biting my teeth together.
“Hm.” He turned and headed back into the spare room. “Coulda fooled me.”
“Coulda? You mean…did!”
“Yes.” He stopped and leaned on the doorframe. “I must admit, that was very clever of you—stuffing your purse with a lesser amount. But you can’t read minds, mon amour—” he tapped his temple, “—so your plan was doomed from the start.”
“Well, you assumed I was submissive, so yours was too.”
“Submissive?” He dropped his arms and moved over to me. “Ara, is that what you think?”
“I don’t know. You seem to know all my thoughts, so you tell me.”
“Ara. Look at me.” He knelt in front of me. “Please?”
With my movements as rigid as a frozen elastic band, I rolled my head upward, but kept my bottom lip in a completely tight pout.
“My love, I’m sorry. I never meant to offend you. I—” He took my hand; I let him, with only a little bit of a fight. “I was being playful, mostly. I truly did not think that my spending money on you would be considered rude or controlling.”
“It’s not that, David.” My tone sung with reason. “It’s that when I tried to decline, you got mad at me.”
“Mad?” He doubled back a little. “You think I’m mad?”
“You’ve been ignoring me,” I said quietly.
“Ara,” he laughed my name out. “I’m not mad. Not at all. Jeeze, girl, sometimes you really can make a mountain out of a molehill, can’t you?”
Tears coated the surprise behind my eyes. “I thought you’d yell at me.”
“Yell?” His brow pulled low on one side, thought washing across his face. “Ara, what kind of man do you think I am?”
“One that likes to get his own way.”
As if a rope had just pulled his soul out onto the carpet, his face went pale, his eyes draining of the smile. “I’m so terribly sorry if I’ve given you that impression. I—” He shook his head and dropped my hand. “I truly never meant for you to feel that way.”