“Oh, I would have, too,” Dara sighed. “What a wonderful job it must be.”
Jessica veritably beamed with pleasure. “It is, but it’s been a lot of work, too. I’ve basically been renovating it from the ground up since I took it over. Lots of hours, lots of money. And the previous manager, Mrs. Davis, is retiring but isn’t exactly fond of the idea of leaving me in charge. So she’s been a real peach to deal with sometimes. But I honestly think all the effort will be worth it in the end. It’s going to mean revitalized business, not only for me, but hopefully for everyone else around us in the Courtyard, too.” She told Dara about the big party she’d been planning for months, to celebrate the release of A Prince at Midnight.
“I saw the standee in your window,” Dara said, and admitted she had loved all the previous books in the series. “Are you going to have the author at your party?”
Jessica goggled at her. “R.Q. Vander Gries?” she asked, with an air of reverence. “No way. How would I even get ahold of her?”
Dara said, “Jason and I give a lot of money to local charities, including the library system. I know Vander Gries did a reading at one of the branches last year. I bet if I sent a few emails, I could get you in touch with someone who can get you in touch with her management. It’d be worth a shot anyway, right? She does live in Dallas. That’s not too far away for her to drive.”
Lucy thought her best friend’s jaw might drop completely off her face. “You would do that?” Jessica gasped. “For me?”
“It’s nothing,” Dara said. “You’d still have to do all the hustling yourself—you know, convince her to make the trip down here and all.”
“Oh, I can hustle,” Jessica laughed. “I can hustle with the best of them. But the party’s only a week away. It’s probably too short notice.”
Dara shrugged. “Still. She’ll have other books. You can get her to come down next time.” She returned her attention to yet another stake she was finishing off, dropping it on the pile and picking up another dowel rod.
Jessica shot a look of disbelief at Lucy, but her eyes were sparkling with happiness.
“What about you, Lucy?” Dara asked without looking up. “What’ve you been doing with yourself since high school?”
“What?” Lucy nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Oh, I um…I went to college for a couple of years, took some basic courses, but I never finished a degree.”
Now Dara did look up, her surprise evident. “You were pretty good in school,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “What with your advanced classes and whatnot.”
Lucy shrugged self-consciously. “Yeah. I’d skipped a grade in elementary school, too. But I, uh, had some family issues. My dad got sick for a while, and I moved back home to help my mom with him. I got sidetracked. Since then I’ve had a few different jobs. For the past eight months I’ve worked at Acray-Sys.”
Dara puckered her lips, blowing wood shavings off the end of her stake. “I’ve seen the Acray-Sys campus. What is it they do there again? Software development?”
“Yeah. Mostly timeclock software. The company was founded by Alexander Craydon. A-Cray-Sys.” No sooner had she said it then Lucy felt silly for explaining. As if Dara—or anyone—cared about the etymology of her company’s name. Why did she always have to go off on such weird tangents? Dara probably thought she was the biggest geek she had ever met.
But Dara just smiled kindly at her. “And you met Aaron there?” she asked.
Lucy gave a quick nod and felt a blush immediately bloom on her cheeks.
“Wow,” Dara laughed, “you really like him.”
“He’s the best boss ever,” Lucy declared, and again felt foolish. She sounded like a lovesick schoolgirl, gushing over her crush like he was the class basketball star or something. “I’m uh,” she stammered, “I’m just his executive assistant, though. His secretary.”
“You are not ‘just’ anything,” Jessica said. “Aaron would lose his head without you.” To Dara, she added, “She’s liked him for the past six months, and he finally made a move on her the other night. Told her what a great person he thought she was, asked her out to dinner and everything.”
“Oh,” Dara said, “how exciting!”
Lucy blushed again. She considered explaining to Dara that she wasn’t even sure Aaron remembered calling her, much less mentioning dinner, but then she decided to just let it go. “Yeah,” she said, staring at the half-finished stake in her hand, “he asked me out for pizza. But that was right before all this vampire stuff happened…” She thought of Aaron lying in a stupor back at her apartment, and angry tears pricked at the back of her eyes. “Now who knows if we’ll ever get to do anything together?” Much less go out for a pizza, she thought dismally. By now, Aaron was probably deathly allergic to garlic.
Dara’s mouth thinned to a line. “Don’t worry, Lucy, we’re going to fix this. We’ll get our guys back. I refuse to believe anything different, and neither should you.”
Lucy nodded, but turned her attention to Jessica. “What about you, Jess? Do you really think we can do it?”
Jessica’s eyes gleamed. “Of course I do. You guys,” she gestured at Lucy and Dara, “are in love. Which makes this a love story. And like I told you, in a good love story…” She stared expectantly at Lucy.
“There’s always a happy ending,” Lucy finished, fighting not to roll her eyes.
Jessica gave her a level look that discouraged any arguing, and she hacked her knife into her dowel, attacking her stake with renewed fervor. The others did the same, silence dropping
