Page 64 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding
“Especially your awful cousin. Did you see the way she narrowed her eyes when you said you were going out with Victor after the fitting?”
“No,” Pandora said. “But I’ve been trying not to look at her.”
“I don’t trust her. I’d make sure she’s not slinking around eavesdropping at your door or stuff like that.”
“Yeah.” Pandora tried to flatten her hair. Having no luck, she turned away from the mirror and headed to the door. “We probably shouldn’t leave those two alone together for any longer than absolutely necessary.”
When they got back to the table, though, Elias was missing.
“Where’d he go?” Lucy asked, glancing around.
“Dunno. He was looking at something out the window, then just excused himself and left.”
“Love when the trash takes itself out. Maybe I can get the server to make my meal to go, so you two can get some time alone. Ugh,” she grumbled as Elias came striding back into the restaurant. His hair was windswept and there was a hardness around his mouth that hadn’t been there a few minutes before.
“Thought we lost you,” Lucy said. “I was about to order a round of drinks to celebrate.”
To that, Elias gave Lucy a small smile as he sat back down. “Saw someone I knew,” he said as Pandora took a sniff, wanting to see if she scented blood on him. But there was nothing but his posh cologne. “But we should order drinks regardless,” he said, flagging down the server and ordering a bottle of wine that certainly sounded expensive. “My treat,” Elias said, as if sensing that everyone else at the table were on extremely tight budgets.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Victor said, trying to put his hand over his glass.
“I insist,” Elias said, grabbing the stem of the glass and pulling it away so he could fill it.
“So,” Lucy broke in, her voice loud. “How was your visit with your family, Victor?” Victor visibly relaxed, his arm sliding behind Pandora’s seat again. But this time, his fingers brushed her back.
“It went well. They’re excited to meet you,” he said, giving Pandora a smile. “And your family. They were veryworried about our parents not having met yet, despite us being engaged.”
“Yes, strange, that,” Elias said, getting a hard elbow to the ribs from Lucy.
“Oops,” Lucy said, not sounding apologetic at all as she raised her glass to take a long swig.
“Well, we can get that arranged,” Pandora said, nodding. “My parents have nothing going on.”
They batted around dates until they found a few when neither had uni or work, and decided to speak to their parents about a meet-up.
All the while, whether he realized it or not, Victor’s fingers were toying with the ends of Pandora’s hair, making that warm sensation course through her once again.
The mood had lightened considerably. Until the bill came.
“Elias is paying,” Lucy said, cutting through the tension. “It’s his penance for making us all endure his company.” She gave him a sickly-sweet smile as he reached for his wallet and tossed far too much money into the bill folder before rising from his seat. “And now, he’s going to get out of your hair by walking me to the Tube,” she said as Elias pulled her chair out for her. “It is a huge sacrifice on my part to suffer his company for another minute. But that’s how much I love you two,” she said, giving them a wiggly finger-wave before turning and all but shoving Elias toward the door.
“Am I the only one picking up on something … strange between the two of them?” Victor asked as he rose and then waited for Pandora to do the same.
“No. There’s definitely something weird going on there.They’re annoyed by breathing the same air, it seems,” Pandora told him as they moved outside.
Sure, Pandora knew there could be some species-based tensions between them. But since they’d met, Elias had proven himself to be more modern than she’d first thought. He even told the crowd about a particularly amusing interaction he’d had with a local, and particularly grouchy, gargoyle. Who’d tried to sell himself in service to Elias because he was sick of the schoolchildren looking up at him on their walk home and making fun of his missing fang.
And she knew from experience that Lucy had no issues with vampires either.
So the two of them tossing species-based barbs at each other instead of looking for anything personal to gripe about made Pandora think that they actually didn’t dislike each other, but were just digging their heels in and sticking to the story that it was hate-at-first-(and every)-sight rather than admitting that as they spent more time together, they saw they had mistaken initial assumptions about each other.
Pandora knew her friend to be hot-tempered and stubborn. She could see Lucy having a difficult time admitting their first impressions were wrong, and letting bygones be bygones. Lucy once held a grudge against a neighbor for years over one small disagreement about parking spaces. After all the snark tossed between Lucy and Elias, Pandora imagined that Lucy was just sticking to the same energy as the first meeting, despite the fact that the zingers they were tossing lately felt a lot less pointed – and that Elias hadn’t even been taking any digs at Lucy during dinner.
She hoped for everyone’s sake that the two of them would sit down and have an adult conversation where they could both agree to change their opinions of each other based on new evidence.
“Do you think there’s something going on with them?”
“Definitely not,” Pandora said.
