“Nice,” he said. “I went to France when I was a kid, but I don’t remember much about—”

“This isn’t an art gallery, Dexter O’Shea!” A woman called out from behind us.

I spun at the sound and saw the elephant-riding, pyramid-gazing blond beauty pointing at us from behind the counter. She wasn’t quite as flawless in person, but she was definitely pretty in that looks-good-for-her-age kind of way. I guessed her to be in her midforties.

“Are you two going to order or not?” Her words were commanding, but her smile was playful.

“Aw, Lina, you know what I want!” Dexter called. He leaned in close to whisper to me, “I bet she already has it made.”

His breath tickled my ear, and I felt a pleasant little shiver run from the hairs on my neck all the way down to the tips of my toes. I had never experienced anything quite like it in my immortal memory, and it was the first physical reaction in this new human body that I’d enjoyed. I wondered what other sorts of things this Dexter might be able to make me feel before I turned vampire again.

“I heard that.” The woman, Lina, interrupted my thoughts.

She reached behind the cash register and slid a tall glass across the counter. “One iced mocha, no whip. Yawn.”

“Told you,” Dexter said to me as he stepped up to retrieve his drink.

“And what about your friend?”

She looked at me now, and I felt pinned under the gaze of dark eyes that seemed incongruous with her blond hair, piled in a messy bun.

I stepped back, pretending to study the menu, but really, I was struggling to remember how to order a coffee. I had heard humans do it countless times, and I knew it wasn’t as simple as asking for a cup. Words like “venti” and “dolce” and “skinny” rattled around in my brain, but I wasn’t sure how to string them together.

I cast my gaze around for my brother and found him planted in Dexter’s abandoned chair, leaning in toward Poe. “Reg, what do you want?”

“A coffee.” He waved a hand in my direction without looking up.

It was all I could do not to pull my lips back and threaten him with the fangs I no longer had.

“One plain coffee,” I said. At least now, anything I ordered would be impressive by comparison. “And I’ll have a large iced non-coagulated vanilla latte.”

I smiled, proud of myself, but a beat later, I knew I had said something wrong.

Lina narrowed her eyes, almost imperceptibly, and they seemed to pierce right through me. “You mean nonfat?”

I lifted my chin, to keep myself from sinking into the floor. “Obviously. That’s how everyone orders it back east. It must be a New York thing.”