“Don’t you see? We simply must get married. Richard and Janet…Dick and Jane!”

She gaped at him for a long moment and then, reluctantly, joined him in laughter.

“So you don’t like the new wife?”

Janet moodily stirred her coffee. It was after midnight, and they were the only couple in the coffee shop. “It’s not that I have a personal problem with her. She’s just…not our kind, is all.”

“She’s Polish?”

She snorted a laugh through her nose. “Nothing like that…I’m not that big a bitch. It’s hard to explain. And you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

He grinned, flashing his fangs. “Try me.”

“No way, José. I want to hear about you. I didn’t know there were such things as vampires. Assuming you’re not some pathetic schmuck who filed his teeth to get the girls.”

He considered lifting her, in her chair, over his head, but decided against it. Among other things, it was unnecessary. She knew what he was, oh yes. She had felt his heart. And he had felt hers. “I didn’t know there were such things either, until I woke up dead.”

She leaned forward, which gave him an excellent view of creamy cleavage in her wine-colored dress. “How old are you?”

“Not so old, for a vampire. Not even a hundred yet. And as it’s not polite to ask a lady her age—”

“Thirty-six.”

Perfect. Giggling girlhood was left behind, she was closing in on her sexual peak, and the best was still ahead. He tried very hard not to drool.

“I’m the old maid of the family,” she was saying. “Most of my friends have teenagers already.”

“You have plenty of time.”

She brightened. “See, that’s what I always say! Just because we’re trapped in this damned youth-obsessed society doesn’t mean we have to do everything in our twenties. What’s the fucking rush?”

“Exactly. That’s what I—”

“Except my family thinks totally differently,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “They’re very in-the-now, if you know what I mean. Sometimes there’s…there’s fights and stuff, and you never know if today’s your last day on Earth. There’s lots of pressure to make every single day count, to cram everything you can, as often as you can. Nobody really stops and smells the fuckin’ roses where I come from, you know?”

“That’s fairly typical of…of people.” He’d almost said “of mortals,” but no need to push things. As it was, he had a hard time believing this conversation was taking place. She’d insulted him, pounded him, knew what he was, and was now having coffee with him. Amazing! “If your life span is so brief—what? seventy years or so?—well, of course you want to make every minute count.”

“My family’s life span is even shorter,” she said moodily.

“Ah. Dangerous neighborhood?”