"So the meeting with the Brightens didn't go well?" Della asked.
"No, it went fine," Kylie mumbled around her chocolate-covered finger. When the sweetness disappeared, she pulled her finger out and aimed the top of the bottle down and gave the digit another squirt of sweetness.
"Then why are you sucking chocolate syrup off your finger like it's whiskey? Wait! I know why, I heard about the fiasco with your dad and mom-the whole pregnancy thing. Hilarious." Della dropped her elbows on the table and laughed."Not hilarious." Kylie frowned. "How did you hear about it?"
Della shrugged, looking a little guilty for bringing it up. "Someone heard it go down. Everybody was talking about it. Sorry." She made an apology face.
Kylie moaned. "Will I ever stop being the source of gossip around here?" She held her head back and squeezed a good squirt of chocolate straight into her mouth.
"Now that's gross!" Della chuckled.
Kylie brought the bottle down and licked her lips. "I didn't touch my lips to the bottle. I just poured it into my mouth."
"And on your chin."
Frowning, Kylie wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "Sorry, I'm feeling desperate." She snagged a bowl and spoon and went back to the table and emptied a half a cup of the sweet feel-good stuff into her bowl.
"Damn," Della said. "You are feeling desperate."
Kylie scooped a spoonful of chocolate into her mouth, licked the spoon clean and said, "Monique crawled into the stall with me."
"Who? What stall?"
"Monique. Lucas's Monique. She climbed into the bathroom stall with me in the restaurant bathroom."
"Oh, shit! Did you two like duke it out or something?"
"No." Kylie licked the spoon. "I just peed all over myself." She took another spoonful of chocolate into her mouth.
Della sighed. "Are you okay?"
"I will be after I finish off this bottle," Kylie said.
Della half grinned. "If I was a real friend, I'd stop you from drinking it."
Kylie shook her head. "If you were a real friend, you'd help me finish it."
"Shit. Why not?" She pushed over her glass of blood. "Give me a couple of shots."
Kylie arched an eyebrow. "For real?"
"Yeah." Della pushed her schoolbooks to the side. "Screw homework, let's get drunk off chocolate. I could use a pick-me-up, too."
Kylie saw pain reflect in her friend's gaze. She gave an extra-hard squeeze of chocolate into the vamp's glass. "What really happened while you were away, Della?"
Chapter Twenty-six
The vamp stared down at her glass of blood laced with chocolate. She swirled the glass and seemed to watch the two ingredients blend together. "I skipped out on Steve the first night and went to see Lee."
That didn't surprised Kylie, she knew Della was still hung up on Lee, but it didn't explain how she ended up getting hickeys from Steve. Unless it wasn't Steve who gave her the hickey, but Kylie didn't think she'd lie about that. And something told Kylie this wasn't all about Lee. It was about a shape-shifter with a cute butt.
"And?" Kylie asked, dipping her spoon back into her own chocolate.
"And he went out on a date with his new fiancee." She brought the glass to her lips and sipped. "Hey, this shit is really good."
"Yeah." Kylie waited for Della to continue. She didn't have to wait too long.
"He took her to a Chinese restaurant. I followed them." Tears filled Della's eyes.
Feeling her friend's pain, Kylie set her hand on Della's. Della pulled it away.
"Then they spotted me and I realized I looked like an idiot. I was all kinds of embarrassed." She took another sip of her chocolate blood and looked up. "Then like some damn knight in shining armor Steve showed up. He'd followed me. He saved my ass from looking like a total fool. Pretended we were on a date. He kissed me in front of them. Like we were this hot couple."
Kylie took another spoonful of chocolate into her mouth. "And the kiss was pretty good so you guys made out later?"
"No. I mean yes."
Kylie pointed her spoon at Della. "Which is it?"
"Yes it was good, but it didn't happen until the next day." Della leaned in and frowned.
"The mission went bad. I was stabbed," Della confessed.
Kylie's mouth dropped open. "But Burnett said-"
"I made Steve promise not to tell him. It wasn't life threatening." She moaned. "The bad thing is that Steve saved my ass. Not just at the restaurant in front of Lee, but again with the rogues and then when we ran into some nasty weres. I was in pretty bad shape, couldn't fight. I hated it." She paused. "He checked us into a hotel and was taking care of me. I don't know how it happened, one minute he was doctoring me and the next we were playing doctor."
"Oh my!" Kylie said. "So you actually-"
"No, we didn't. Came close. Thankfully blue balls don't really kill a guy."
"Blue balls?" Kylie asked.
Della rolled her eyes. "You don't know what blue balls are?"
"No. Should I?"
Della grinned. "At least you should know if a guy ever tells you he can die from it, he's lying. Andbelieve me, some guys will actually say that to guilt a girl into doing the bumping dance. I had one try it on me once, before Lee. I told him I'd go to his funeral, and never dated him again."
"But what is it, really?" Kylie made a face. "Or is it too gross? It must be gross because they never mentioned it in any of the pamphlets my mom gave me."
Della chuckled again. "It's when a guy gets really turned on and is ready to do the deed and then the deed gets canceled."
Kylie leaned in. "Do their balls really turn blue?"
Della burst out laughing. "I don't know, I've never gotten down there and checked."
Kylie blushed, but then she didn't really care in front of Della, so she just laughed. "So you think Steve had blue balls?"
Della rolled her eyes. "He looked pretty uncomfortable. I shouldn't have let it get that far. I was just ...
mixed up in the head."
"Or maybe you really like Steve." Kylie pointed her spoon at Della. "I'm not saying you should have had sex, but the guy's crazy about you and you obviously like him, too. So why are you treating him like a disease now?"
Della took a big swig of her chocolate blood. "Because ... when I realized what was happening, all I could think about was that in a year or so I'll be standing in another restaurant watching Steve with his fiancee. I can't do that again." Tears filled her eyes.