Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [746]
“Have you and Gervaise been going together long?” I asked to camouflage how uncomfortable I was.
“I met Gerry, let’s see, seven months ago. He said it would be better for me to have a separate room because he might have to have business meetings in his, you know? Plus, I’m going shopping while I’m here—retail therapy! Big city stores! And I wanted someplace to store my shopping bags so he won’t ask me how much it all costs.” She gave me a wink I can only say was roguish.
“Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.” It really didn’t, but Carla’s program was hardly my business. My suitcase was waiting for me on a stand, so I opened it and started to unpack, noting that my hanging bag with my good dresses was already in the closet. Carla had left me exactly half the closet space and drawer space, which was decent. She had brought about twenty times more clothes than I had, which made her fairness all the more remarkable.
“Whose girlfriend are you?” Carla asked. She was giving herself a pedicure. When she drew up one leg, the overhead light winked on something metallic between her legs. Completely embarrassed, I turned away to straighten my evening dress on the hanger.
“I’m dating Quinn,” I said.
I glanced over my shoulder, keeping my gaze high.
Carla looked blank.
“The weretiger,” I said. “He’s arranging the ceremonies here.”
She looked marginally more responsive.
“Big guy, shaved head,” I said.
Her face brightened. “Oh, yeah, I saw him this morning! He was eating breakfast in the restaurant when I was checking in.”
“There’s a restaurant?”
“Yeah, sure. Though of course it’s tiny. And there’s room service.”
“You know, in vampire hotels there often isn’t a restaurant,” I said, just to make conversation. I’d read an article about it in American Vampire.
“Oh. Well, that makes no sense at all.” Carla finished one set of toes and began another.
“Not from a vampire point of view.”
Carla frowned. “I know they don’t eat. But people do. And this is a people world, right? That’s like not learning English when you emigrate to America.”
I turned around to check out Carla’s face, make sure she was serious. Yeah, she was.
“Carla,” I said, and then stopped. I didn’t have any idea what to say, how to get across to Carla that a four-hundred-year-old vamp really didn’t care very much about the eating arrangements of a twenty-year-old human. But the girl was waiting for me to finish. “Well, it’s good that there’s a restaurant here,” I said weakly.
She nodded. “Yeah, ’cause I need my coffee in the morning,” she said. “I just can’t get going without it. Course, when you date a vamp, your morning is liable to begin at three or four in the afternoon.” She laughed.
“True,” I said. I’d finished unpacking, so I went over to our window and looked out. The glass was so heavily tinted that it was hard to make out the landscape, but it was see-able. I wasn’t on the Lake Michigan side of the hotel, which was a pity, but I looked at the buildings around the west side of the hotel with curiosity. I didn’t see cities that often, and I’d never seen a northern city. The sky was darkening rapidly, so between that and the tinted windows I really couldn’t see too much after ten minutes. The vampires would be awake soon, and my workday would begin.
Though she kept up a sporadic stream of chatter, Carla didn’t ask what my role was at this summit. She assumed I was there as arm candy. For the moment, that was all right with me. Sooner or later, she’d find out what my particular talent was, and then she’d be nervous around me. On the other hand, now she was a little too relaxed.
Carla was getting dressed (thank God) in what I thought of as “classy whore.” She was wearing a glittery green