Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“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. While her parents basically thought that anything that postdated Beethoven was basically “noise.”
“What about you?”
“I like the stuff we play at the coffee house. Coffee-house music, I guess. Singer-songwriter stuff. It’s great background music for reading.”
“What is your go-to coffee or tea order?” Victor asked. “Since you already know mine.”
“I like chamomile tea.” She didn’t mention that the calming effect of it worked wonders when her vampire urges were getting a little out of hand.
“Chamomile. Not a caffeine addict, then?”
“Sometimes, but I’m sensitive to it.”
“Working the overnight shift can’t be good for your sleep cycles either,” he said, nodding. “Caffeine would only exacerbate that.”
“Yeah. So, what else should two engaged people know about each other?”
“Do you have any idols?”
She nodded. “Basically, anyone who can actually write. I tried once. I felt like I was typing for ages and ages. I was sure there were five thousand words. At least.”
“How many was it?” Victor asked, lips twitching.
“Two hundred.”
That got an actual laugh out of him, dimple and all.
“I also admire artists,” said Victor. “I have no artistic skills myself. But I often wish I did.”
“OK, what else? Do you drive?”
“I can drive, but I don’t have a car right now. You?”
“No. Pet peeves?”
“Open-mouth gum-chewers,” Victor said with the kind of immediacy that said he really couldn’t stand that. “People who dog-ear pages in books that don’t belong to them. Close talkers. People who stop suddenly on the pavement, then act like you’re the problem for ramming into them. Interruptions when someone is clearly in the middle of something. Group projects. Meetings that could have been emails or texts. Too much?” he asked when he caught Pandora smiling at him.
She couldn’t help it, she was charmed by his curmudgeonly nature.
“Not at all,” she said.
“What about you?” he asked.
“I guess people who are always thinking things were better in the ‘good old days’,” she said, thinking of her parents, of how inflexible they were to new ideas or customs. Especially when it came to human–vampire relations.
“Your parents.” Victor assumed correctly.
“Yeah.”
“Well, in a way, this is you rebelling against that mindset,” he said.
“That’s true,” she agreed. “If we get away with it.”
“Having doubts?”
How could she explain to him that she had a mind full of all of the failed fake-dating plots in the books she’d read? That she could immediately come up with over a hundred ways it could go wrong. And she wasn’t even factoring in the secret-vampire element.