Just for Today...

Ouch. That one was designed to wound. And it did. Sean wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t too far from the truth. Hailey had been clear that if—when—Sean brought female company home while he was staying, he was only to use the spare bedroom he’d been assigned. Rob had later said that all Hailey was concerned about was Sean having sex in their bed and Sean hadn’t found it hard to promise that he wouldn’t do that. And he’d once again marveled at his brother’s ability to settle down with one woman for the rest of his life.

“Yeah, there’s bound to be piles of the stuff,” he said agreeably. It was pure instinct to respond to a hurtful barb with a quip.

Jess didn’t come back with the expected rejoinder. Instead she stiffened in her seat.

Sean pulled up to a stop at a red light and turned to look at her. Her mouth was a thin line.

“I was joking,” he said, beginning to feel annoyed. She was just like his family—just like everyone else—expecting the worst from him.

She folded her hands primly in her lap, facing forward. “Of course. The light’s green,” she added.

Sean took off. They were only moments from Jess’s home, according to her directions. If the traffic was bad, it could take up to twenty to thirty minutes to get there from Rob and Hailey’s. But at this time of night, it was going to be little more than ten. Probably for the best.

Two blocks later, he pulled up in front of a series of modern town houses, and Jess directed him down the driveway to the third one back from the street—perhaps anticipating that he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than seeing her right to her door.

“Here’s fine,” she said, her fingers already playing with the door handle.

“Jess, wait.”

She paused for a moment and turned her head to face him.

Sean cut the engine, noting the flare in her eyes as he did so. His annoyance faded. What was she so scared of?

“Don’t worry, I’m not coming in. I just didn’t want to disturb the neighbors.” Sean found Dezzie’s low rumble comforting, but he knew not everyone shared his fondness for the powerful engine, especially not in the dead of night.

“Oh, that’s...nice. Okay, well, thank—”

“Jess?” He cut her off. Sean had always been fascinated by human behavior and psychology. It was, according to his agent and publisher and various reviewers over the years, what made his books stand out from the rest. Yes, he might write about vampires and demons and all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures, but what made his books different was...the word they used was relatable. Although the world of Sebastian Douglas, Demon Warrior was make-believe, Sebastian, his assistant, Robert—a shout-out to his brother—and the people they encountered on their adventures were real. Well, as real as Sean could make them. And the situations they faced, although perhaps not everyday in reality, echoed some of the most common themes of life: hope, duty, loss, friendship, loyalty.

It was one of the qualities that made Sean so good at reading other people.

He wondered if Elvire, the vampire queen who not-so-secretly lusted after Sebastian, would behave the way Jess was right now, if Sean ever let Sebastian and Elvire do the deed. It was something his fans were very keen on—they were very fussy about who Sebastian was paired with and nothing provoked a storm of fan correspondence than a new love interest for his unexpectedly sex-symbol-status hero. Especially since double-agent Elvire had been hanging around since book two, waiting in the background for Sebastian to notice her. And not stake her. Well, not in that way, anyway.

“Hmm?” Jess said, feigning politeness. Sean could see her fingers already clutched around the door handle.

What did he want to say? As a writer, words were supposed to be his forte. Right now he was the superhero whose mortal enemy had flung his trusty weapon from his hands.

“Just...thanks,” he ended up saying lamely.

Her mouth curved almost imperceptibly in the echo of a smile. “Ditto.”

Then she was gone. The door creaked before she banged it shut—must get that fixed—and then in a flash of red from the exterior light hitting her dress, she was inside and hidden from sight.

A strange emptiness followed him home. And while Rob and Hailey’s place had always felt welcoming to him, as he reentered it he couldn’t shake a feeling of displacement.

Calling Suzie inside and pouring himself a glass of wine, Sean grabbed his laptop and threw himself on the sofa that just minutes before had held so much promise for the night ahead. It still smelled of her, of their lovemaking. Only now the body curled up beside his was furry, slightly stinky and already snoring. He opened his laptop. It was time to ramp up the sexual tension between Sebastian and Elvire. The fans were gonna love it—even if he was only teasing them. Happy endings didn’t exist in Sean’s world—not in fiction or in reality.

* * *

SEAN WOKE UP—still on the sofa—with a headache and dry mouth. He’d taken to the red wine a little too enthusiastically after driving Jess home. He’d also written an entire chapter—although he couldn’t help wondering how much of it he would end up keeping. His inebriated writing was often pure drivel, but occasionally it contained a nugget of pure gold—a gift from Bacchus.

Hmm, Bacchus. Sean let his scrambled morning thoughts meander. The god could be an awesome villain, causing havoc by making everyone party orgiastically until they died of exhaustion. Just the kind of enemy to pit against Sebastian. And it could tie in the story line between Sebastian and Elvire that he’d started to write last night, a reason for them to—

An annoying noise—the sound that had woken him—interrupted his train of thought, and it was a moment before he identified it as the phone. Rob and Hailey’s landline, not his mobile.

Whoever was calling was keen to get an answer. The answering machine kicked in but the caller hung up. Then as soon as the answering machine disconnected, the phone started ringing again.

“Yeah?” Sean managed to stumble from the sofa to the phone, but a polite “hello” was beyond him.

“Man! Where have you been? I’ve been calling your mobile for the past hour!” Rob’s voice was equal parts annoyed and frantic.

Sean’s phone was on silent. He’d changed the setting when he’d entered the house with Jess, because he hadn’t wanted to be disturbed. That was too much to explain, though. “What’s up?”

Rob swore. “Stupid Lucy. She’s pulled out.”

“Huh?” Lucy?

“The house sitter—Hailey’s cousin. She’s a university student and she’s met some guy who lives on the opposite side of town so she’s decided she doesn’t want to look after the house and Suzie anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Our flight leaves in a couple of hours.”

Sean scratched his stubbled jaw. He now deeply regretted the impulse to finish the bottle of red. If only he’d left it at one or two glasses. But the way things had ended with Jess had left him with a weirdly unsettled feeling—as if he’d somehow done something wrong. He hadn’t wanted to think too much about that, and diving deep into the cabernet sauvignon pool had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“That sucks,” Sean said, trying to sound sincere. His thoughts hustled to catch up.

“So we need your help.”

Ah. Right. There was the reason he needed his brain right now.

“Can you stay a couple more days?” Rob asked. “Just long enough to organize a kennel for Suzie? If you need help, Hailey’s boss, Jess, could probably give you some advice—there’s a fridge magnet in the kitchen with her clinic details. We thought about asking her to take Suzie, but it’s a big imposition for six weeks. Lucy has agreed she’ll come and collect the mail once a week, and that should be enough—”

Rob broke off as a muffled voice spoke in the background—Hailey. Sean couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“Yes, yes,” Rob said, annoyance strong in his voice. He then clearly passed on what it was Hailey had said. “And don’t forget to take the garbage out when you leave, because otherwise it will sit there.”

It prickled that his brother—his younger brother—didn’t trust him enough to know to take the garbage out. It prickled even more that they hadn’t even thought to ask if he would step in and look after the house for them. It was just assumed that he wouldn’t accept the responsibility.

Just like Jess with her quip about the women’s underwear—Sean hated that people always expected the worst from him.

Especially his family.

Just because he loved words and pictures more than numbers, his family of accountants figured he wasn’t capable of any kind of logic.

Story of his life.

“I was planning to be in Sydney for a meeting I have on Monday,” Sean began.