Page 9 of My Blind Date is a Vampire

Plenty of my new colleagues were already gathered in the staff room. Some were seated at their desks and typing away on their laptops, but most were grouped in small clusters and catching up from the summer break. The largest groups were gathered around the coffee machine and water cooler. I hesitated in the doorway, taking everything in from the layout of the desks to the bulletin boards cluttered with schedules and memorandums even though the semester had barely begun.

An uncomfortable sensation coiled in my stomach. Being the new girl was never fun. As a substitute teacher, I was always on the fringe of the teaching staff. I was friendly with the other teachers but never friends. My time at the schools I taught in was never long enough to form any lasting attachments. And if there was one thing I knew, it was that life itself was one giant classroom. Even though some people mature past high school, we tend to carry the mentality we developed during high school into our adult lives. Fingers crossed, I took a deep breath, pasted a cheery smile on my face, and sashayed into the room only to trip over my own feet when all the eyes immediately turned to me and the chatter ceased.

“Oh my God,” I mumbled under my breath and scrunched my eyes shut when my ankle twisted and my feet gave out on me, preparing to kiss the tiles. This was so not the first impression I wanted to make. Although I’d met most of the teachers last week, this was my first time walking into the room as one of them.

The bone-jarring impact I expected never came. Instead, I fell into a wall of muscle and a set of strong arms banded around my waist. There was a ringing sound in my ears and my heart was pounding so loud that the faint and tangy taste of blood bloomed on my tongue.

“Are you okay? It looked like you twisted your ankle pretty bad. Maybe we should head over to the nurse’s office and have it checked out.”

I could feel the vibrations of the husky voice through the material of my dress and nearly swallowed my tongue when I looked up into a pair of warm, honey brown eyes frowning down at me from behind thick-rimmed glasses.

“Uh…” I answered like an idiot, blinking up at him and wishing that the ground would open up and swallow me whole where I stood. I was keenly aware of all the attention on us even though the man in front of me was taking up most of the view with his broad vest. I pushed away from his embrace, stumbling back a few steps. There was a slight twinge in my ankle, but it was otherwise uninjured.

“I’m fine. No harm done,” I stuttered, hugging my laptop bag close to my chest like a shield. “I appreciate the concern, though…and for saving me from paying a ton of money to get dental implants,” I joked, and someone broke out laughing. And just like that, the ice was broken and a few staff members approached us.

“As far as first meetings go, that’s one for the books. The name’s West, from the chemistry department. We didn’t have the opportunity to meet last week, but you’re all anyone can talk about, so I feel as if I know you already. I can see why, though. After nearly six years of staring at the same old boring faces, it feels nice to get some new blood.” West winked at me, and I almost swallowed my tongue when two idents appeared on either side of his cheeks. Dimples were a particular weakness of mine. I almost embarrassed myself further by swooning right then and there.

“Oh, please. As if your ugly mug is any fun to look at. You could at least let the woman settle in before you break out the charm, man,” another teacher commented. I met him last week but had forgotten his name—It might have been Jerry or Gerald. He was a math teacher, and I think his wife was the school librarian or someone from the administration office.

“It’s nice to meet you, West. Is that a first or last name?” I asked, trying not to make it obvious that I was checking him out. Despite what Jerry/Gerald said, West was attractive in a nerdy kind of way. Beneath the starched shirt and sweater vest was a body any hot-blooded woman would salivate over. It wasn’t even eight in the morning and he already had his tie loosened and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up his forearms to reveal ropey muscles and veins running down the length of his arms. His sandy blond hair was disheveled like he’d just rolled out of bed, finger-combed the wavy strands, and left it at that.

“Last, but I just go by West. My first name is kind of pretentious, not to mention so ancient I can feel my bones withering to dust when someone calls me by it.” West scratched the shell of his ear, looking like a sheepish schoolboy.

“Color me intrigued. Any chance I could get you to tell me what it is?” I asked, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. The bell rang just as he opened his mouth to answer. A regretful look flashed in his eyes. “I have a first-period lesson to get to, but to answer your question—” He leaned down to whisper in my ear so that no one else could hear what he said. “—that’s third or fourth date material.” He winked at me before walking to his desk to gather his lesson materials and then walked out of the staff room, smirking like the cat that ate the canary.

CHAPTER 9

The school day passed by in a flash; I only had two lessons to teach on Monday, so I spent most of my time either in the staff room or in the library. I enjoyed both the classes I had; I didn’t get much teaching done since the first lessons were more to build a rapport with the students and getting to know each other. I spent my lunch hour with West and a few other people in the teacher’s lounge. I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly everyone was, even if they hadn’t embraced me into their circles just yet. There were still a few staff members who looked at me with some distrust and were colder in their interactions, but no one was outright rude to me. It helped that I had West by my side to smooth things over and bring me into the fold. I appreciated him going out of his way to make me feel welcome and as comfortable as possible, and yet, I was unsure how to deal with his overt flirting.

I would not deny that there was some attraction during our initial meeting, but as the day wore on, I quickly realized that any attraction on my part was purely superficial. Besides, workplace romances were a big no-no for me. I’d witnessed the kind of havoc that working together with your partner could wreak on a romantic relationship and I did not want to put myself through any of that. Besides, I was pretty sure the librarian had the hots for West. I caught her glaring daggers at me during lunch while West regaled me about the semester he spent abroad in Rome during his college years. No way I was getting myself involved in workplace drama during the first few weeks of my new job. And, lest I forgot, I had a date with my supposed soulmate to look forward to. No need to sabotage that before I’d even given it a chance.

By the time I knocked off work, I was on a euphoric high. The song “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves was stuck in my head and I hummed it out loud as I walked to my car, enjoying the little jolts of pure joy that shot through me when a few students called out to me and wished me a good evening.

Still humming to myself, I unlocked my car and put my handbag and laptop carrier in the back seat, bending down to push them both under the passenger and driver’s seats so that they wouldn’t be visible targets in case I got carjacked or something; it was a habit I learned from my mother. I did not expect to find West waiting by the passenger side door when I popped my head back up.

I yelped, my heart giving a violent kick to my ribcage, and I bumped my head against the doorframe. I cried out, rubbing at the sore spot and messing up my hair.

“Oh, jeez! Are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” West jogged around the car and tried to check for bumps, but I waved him away.

Between the slight pounding on the top of my head and the arrhythmia, I was kind of annoyed at him since it was his fault, but I didn’t bite his head off like I would have if it were one of my brothers. “I didn’t hit my head that hard. I’ll be okay. Did you need something from me?” I grimaced.

West’s outstretched hand hovered awkwardly in the air and his expression was twisted as if he were the one in pain. “Uh…” He cleared his throat, averting his gaze and staring down at the pavement in an uncharacteristically bashful move. “A few of us are heading down to the Drinking Hole to celebrate the first day of school. Or maybe it’s to congratulate ourselves for surviving the first day. I’m not really sure, but it’s sort of a tradition, and I wondered if you’d like to join us?” He could not have looked more hopeful, so I desperately wanted to say yes. This was an opportunity to get to know everyone outside of work and sink my roots a little deeper into the community. Beverly and her meddlesome matchmaking were ruining my life already!

“I already have plans for tonight, and I can’t bail at the last minute. Next time?” I hoped that West and the others wouldn’t take the rejection the wrong way. People had accused me of being stuck-up for way less in the past, and alienating myself from the people I was going to be spending a lot of time with day in and day out was the last thing I wanted.

“Sure. I should get out of your hair now and join the others before they put all their orders on my tab. I’ll see you tomorrow. Hope you have a good evening.” His words were kind, but there was a hardness to his eyes that wasn’t there before. Clearly, he’d made his own assumptions about what my plans were, and I knew right there and then that I had to nip this little crush of his in the bud soon. For now, I had a date to prepare for.

* * *

“Dang it!” I yelled in frustration when I poked my eye with the mascara wand for the second time, blinking rapidly when my eyes started tearing up. I had this weird fear of having anything too close to my eyes. When I was younger, it was a battle for my parents to administer eye drops when I needed them. As a matter of fact, it was a three-person job. Usually, Dad would hold me down and either Bennett or Charlie would pry my eyes open and keep them that way so that I didn’t close them while Mom squeezed a few drops of the medicine in my eyes. Frankly, it was a miracle, and my own sense of vanity, that allowed me to wear contact lenses on a daily basis, but applying mascara was a pain in the butt since my eyelids refused to cooperate and fluttered closed on their own accord.

I grabbed a wet wipe from the bathroom countertop, removed the layer I’d just applied, and started all over again. I had about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes left before Landon showed up at my door, and I was still in a towel and struggling with my makeup. At least my hair was still straight, if not slightly wavy, from when I flat ironed it on Saturday.

I don’t know why Beverly insisted that Landon come pick me up from my house. Now I was working under pressure. I could have just driven myself to the restaurant. It would have saved us a drive filled with awkward silence and tension. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with this dude knowing where I lived either; I had seen way too many episodes of Dateline and had a dozen scenarios swimming in my mind of how this date could go horribly wrong. On that note, I made sure to throw a taser into my purse before squeezing myself into the dress I’d picked out for the night.

I agonized over whether the dress I’d picked was the right choice for almost an hour when I got home from work. On one hand, I didn’t want to give Landon the wrong idea by wearing a revealing dress, but I didn’t want to show up looking like a scrub either, especially when we were going to a classy restaurant.

I ended up choosing the sexier dress and admiring the way it hugged my curves in front of the bathroom mirror. It was a champagne-gold mini-dress with a deep V neckline, baring a generous amount of cleavage. There was a time when I would have shied away from wearing something like that before I learned to love the freckles sprinkled across my chest, but I loved the way the color of the dress accentuated my red hair and sea-green eyes. The puffiness around my eyes had gone down considerably, and I was willing to endure some mild eye irritation and opted for contact lenses. I’d kept my makeup as natural as possible except for my lips, which were coated in bold, red lipstick.

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