So I met Evan at the Waffle House today, at 1:00 p.m., just like he asked. I did my best not to cringe as I walked inside. And as I expected, I was BY FAR the best-dressed person there. I’m not sure why people think it’s acceptable to go out in their pajamas and oversized Tweety bird shirts, but they do.

It didn’t used to be like this, at least not that I can remember.

Evan and I practically lived at the Waffle House when we were younger. It was around the corner, had good eats and was open 24 hours a day–perfect for our secret late night rendezvous.

We would sit, side by side in a corner booth, and plot and plan and scheme. We were going to make it be big. We had to. We had to be better than our middle class parents. We weren’t going to struggle to pay the bills or put our kids through college.  And we were going to have a huge house and fancy cars and designer clothing. We’d finally be able to stop pretending to be the people our friends thought we were. I could stop searching for Guess jeans at the Goodwill and buy them new and with a credit card of my own. Soon, we would be envied. People would be jealous of us, and all the things that we had. It was just a matter of time.

Today, we sat across from each other in our old corner booth. It had been more than ten years since I’d eaten there, but really, are you surprised? Once I had more than a few dollars to my name, I was schmoozing the society ladies at Antoine’s. I couldn’t be seen at a Waffle House, even if they did make amazing waffles and hash browns.

“Where’d you stay last night?” I asked, wiping a suspicious looking smear near my water glass.

“The Hilton.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was pleasant enough.” He squirted a swirl of ketchup on top of his hash browns. “How’s your head?”

“Better,” I took a large gulp of water and tried to ignore the toddler kicking the back of my seat. “One vodka cranberry too many, you know?”

He raised his eyebrows and set down his fork. “I figured. You always drink when you’re upset.”

“When I’m upset, happy, bored. Pretty much whenever. But we don’t have to worry about that anymore, you know. I guess I get to be immune from things like liver damage.”

Evan cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Yeah, about that.” He looked to either side and then back at me. “That’s what I need to talk about.”

My mouth full of waffle, I nodded for him to continue.

Still leaning forward, he whispered, “I don’t want you to be mad, but I had you followed. You were acting weird and I became suspicious.”

“What?” I said as nastily as I could. I was annoyed, even angry, but honestly I’d done the same thing to him. He was acting weird, like he did when he was cheating, so I sent someone to make sure he wasn’t doing it again. He wasn’t. This was a couple of months ago and he was still acting weird. I stirred my coffee, letting the spoon clang loudly against the mug. “Please… continue.”

“I’m sorry. I just had to know what was going on and, well, now we have another problem.”

The spoon slipped from my hand. “Oh god, Evan. What have you done?”

“The lady. The one who followed you. She knows. And now she’s threatening me. She wants you to turn her or she said she’d go public. She saw you feed on at least three people.”

My heart began to race. I took a deep breath and pushed my plate away. “Well that’s just great. Way to make things way worse, Evan.”  I grabbed my purse and started sliding out of the booth.

“Wait. There’s one more thing.” Evan looked down at his plate. He pushed the remaining hash browns in and out of a puddle of egg yolk. “I’m going to lose my job. That’s why I’ve been gone so much. I’ve been trying to get interviews anywhere I can. My list of connections is almost exhausted.” He lifted his gaze and reached out his hand. “Libby, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Now my heart was really racing. I pulled my hand away and stood up. “Evan, I have to go deal with the first mess you created. I assume you’ll be staying at home tonight. The Hilton can be expensive when you don’t have a job.”

He nodded and began to talk, but I turned and stormed out. Dealing with this lady should be easy. At least with Nerdo Vamp’s help. The thought of not having money–that was making me sick.

**Why not start the series from the beginning? Click here to read about Libby’s first day as a vampire**