Page 21 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding
“What about your brother? Does he work?”
“He’s still figuring things out,” Pandora said. It was true enough. She’d never really heard Dante talk about what he wanted for his future. To them, there was truly nothing but time.
“Any other prominent family members to know?”
“I don’t think you’ll be expected to remember any of the others, given how many there are. It’ll be easier to get to know them when you have faces to go with names.”
“True. So, what about hobbies? What do you do when you’re not working at the coffee shop?”
“Mostly, I am reading. Or going to the shops for books. Or library or estate sales to get more books.”
“We have that in common, then,” Victor said, the edges of his lips curving up, making charming little creases form in the corners of his eyes.
“Yeah, I noticed you always have books on you.”
Victor gave her a sheepish look before reaching into his coat pocket and producing a small, well-worn paperback.
Pandora, completely taken by that, pulled her bag off of her shoulder and tugged it open to reveal three well-loved paperbacks.
“May I?” he asked, pointing toward them.
Pandora felt a surge of unease, knowing how many people looked down on romance books, especially ones with scantily-clad models on the cover. But she tamped that down, reminding herself that there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
“Sure,” she said, watching him reach for them all, then flipping through them.
“They make special tape for spines like this,” Victor said when he got to her bodice-ripper with the worn cover.
“Yes! I was going to fix it once I finished it.”
“These books from, what, the eighties, are hard to come by.”
“They are. I lucked upon a whole box of them. Lucy and I have been working our way through them since.”
“Lucy is your co-worker?”
“Technically, she’s my manager. But also my best friend. Though my family hasn’t met her yet, actually. So you and she will have that in common when the time comes.”
“Why not?” Victor flipped the romance novel over to read the blurb on the back.
“Oh, I don’t know. Different schedules, I guess.”
And a millennia-old rivalry.
No biggie.
“So, what about favorite foods and films? Or music?” Pandora asked.
“Foods? All things Italian,” Victor said.
Oh, great. Italian. Where almost every dish was heavily flavored with garlic, which could potentially kill her in large doses.
“I like going to see films based on books I love. Then complain how much better the book was.” Victor’s admission made Pandora smile.
“Always a fun pastime,” she said.
“As for music, I’m afraid I seem to be stuck in the eighties.”
Pandora smiled. “A staple genre.” Her brother was more of the audiophile in her family, having strong feelings on every genre and the best artists within each. Whileher parents basically thought that anything that postdated Beethoven was basically “noise.”
