PET SHOP BOYS
A Short Story
KIM HARRISON
Contents
Introduction
One
Two
Three
An Excerpt from Ever After
About the Author
Also by Kim Harrison
Copyright
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
I originally wrote “Pet Shop Boys” as one of two possibilities for an anthology. I don’t submit to many anthologies, but this group came to me through my agent, impressed with my Dawn Cook titles, and asked me to try my hand at writing about vampires. This was before the dual nature of Kim and Dawn had been revealed, and I was so tickled they asked that my automatic no turned into a yes. I worked up two shorts, trying to get as far away from the Hollows vampire mythology as I could. Under the advice of my agent that “Pet Shop Boys” had the potential to become a series, I retained it to sit in my cabinet until now.
I’ve long loved the idea of the fey living in a world twin to ours, passing through to snare the unwary when the veil was the thinnest. Bringing vampires into the mix was the icing on the cake.
ONE
“Good luck with the puppy,” Cooper called as the boy leaned back against the glass door, the bells ringing as he tried to push it open. It wasn’t until the boy’s dad lent a hand that the night air slipped in with a dusting of snow and they got outside, their new bundle of yaps and wet spots on the carpet wiggling in the boy’s arms.
“And have a merry Christmas,” he muttered as the door jingled closed behind them. He didn’t like selling dogs and cats when there were strays that needed homes, but the owner, Kay, insisted on always having dogs, and sometimes cats. The Lab pup was the last of the litter, and the shop now felt empty without the soft snuffing and hush of paws on newspaper.
Tired, Cooper rubbed the back of his neck, head bowed as he came around the counter to hang up the six collars the father and boy had been deciding between. Snatching a fold of newspapers, he knelt by the open-topped mesh corral to wad up the used paper and lay new for the next litter. The bubbling of the fish tanks and twittering of finches slowly returned the pet shop into the peaceful haven that had convinced him to work here at minimum wage instead of taking the professor’s assistant job he’d turned down three years ago.
Kay might have had something to do with it, though. Sex in jeans with her own money, she seemed to enjoy his company but kept him totally at arm’s length. He didn’t get it. Every time he was tempted to bag it, she gave him just enough encouragement to stay. God, he was a chump. He didn’t want to be thirty and still cleaning up someone else’s dog crap.
Grimacing, he rose to throw the papers away, pushing through the sheets of milky plastic that separated the back room from the store. The storage room/office was cold—it had been snowing all day with only the dog people coming in since it had become dark. He was tempted to flick the Closed sign around early, but Kay would give him hell for closing before eight.
It’d give me an excuse to talk to her, he thought as he trashed the papers and grabbed the disinfectant spray. Kay spent most of her time in the back when she was in. Cooper was the one who actually ran the place—except for the dogs. Kay brought them in from some exclusive breeder. The cats were from a local shelter.
The warmth of the store was welcoming as he slipped back through the plastic curtain. A quick spray, and the round kennel was clean, all evidence of the dog erased under the scent of bleach. Cooper straightened with a sigh. Twenty-five and a pet shop geek. He’d swear Kay wasn’t gay—the occasional flirting suggested otherwise. Maybe it was him.
The sudden whirling of the birds in their cages brought his head up, and the hair on the back of his neck pricked. Feeling like winter had slipped in under the door, Cooper turned to the big plate-glass windows dark with night and the peaceful falling snow in the streetlight. His eyes widened at the little girl, no more than nine, standing in the middle of the aisle: white tights, little black shoes, and a coat made of black fur. Her vividly red hair was straight under a matching fur hat, and her hands were hidden in a muff.
“Oh! Hi!” Cooper stammered, pitching his voice high as he looked for a parent. “You surprised me! How long have you been in here?” She must have come in while he was in the back, but he hadn’t heard the bells ring.
The little girl beamed. “Did I?” she said cheerfully, seeming to think it funny to have scared a grown-up. “May I see the kittens?”
Cooper nodded as he set the spray bottle on a back counter, trying to hide his annoyance. He liked kids, but not when their parents dropped them off as if he was a babysitter—especially fifteen minutes to closing. “Sure, but don’t let them out, okay?”
Huffing a sigh of preteen independence, she strode confidently to the multistory cat cage. Crouching, she made a tiny trill of sound, and two gray heads and one black one popped up from the sleeping pile. The kittens fell over themselves to reach her, pressing against the mesh and meowing. “They like me,” she said shyly, endearing as she glanced at him with her green eyes.
Cooper stood with his arms over his chest and looked at his watch. He couldn’t kick her out. It was cold outside. “Is your mom around, sweetheart?” he asked. There was a discount store across the street, but it was closed. Maybe the bar down the way. The girl seemed as if she was used to being alone.
“I want the black one.” She looked up, her hair framing an almost triangular face and lips too red for such a little girl, fingers pushed into the cage as far as she could get them. “She looks like me.”
Cooper dropped back a step and smiled. He didn’t see the resemblance, but he wasn’t nine years old. “You can have her if your mother says it’s okay. Why don’t you go get her? We close in five minutes.”
The girl pulled her hand from the cage and stood, her eyes alight. “I’ll trade you for her.”
Oh, for crying out loud . . . Cooper glanced at the Open sign and sighed. He’d dealt with children before. “My boss won’t let me trade. Is your mother at the bar, honey?” He was getting the oddest vibe from the kid, a weird mix of wealth and abandonment, like a child of privilege raised by a rich drunk, a child never lacking for anything except a constant source of love, forced to take it in overindulgent spurts when sobriety hit.
“I’ll trade you.” The little girl confidently got to her feet and reached into her muff. “His name is Leonard. He bites, the little brat. I wanted a cat so we could play, but Mama picked a dumb bat. See?”
Cooper’s eyes widened when her thin fingers opened to show a mouse-size wad of fur coiled up and its eyes tightly closed. She’s got a bat! he thought, images of rabies and needles racing through him. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, swooping to the nearby display stand for a rodent box. “Put it in here. You shouldn’t ever play with a bat. Never, ever.”
“See! That’s what I told Mama!” she said triumphantly as her little white hand dropped the dead or unconscious animal into the box, and Cooper closed it, stifling a shiver as the animal’s tiny nails scraped. “She thinks bats are safe ’cause they can fly, but I like cats. They can sneak around even in the day.”
Oh my God, Cooper thought, wondering if he should take the little girl in the back to wash her hands. A bat that let you pick it up wasn’t healthy. Who the hell was supposed to be watching her? “Honey, do you know your mom’s phone number?”
“You want to trade?” she asked, innocent eyes wide.
A chill took him as he patted her head. “If your mother says it’s okay. Do you have her cell number?”
From the front of the shop, a feminine clearing of a throat startled him. Snatching his hand from the little girl, he spun to
the woman standing just inside the door, arms over her chest and her hip cocked as she looked severely at the little girl.
The bells didn’t ring, he thought as the little girl scuffed her shiny party shoes, the black kitten settling in her arms and almost disappearing in the girl’s fur coat. How . . . , he thought. How did she get the cat out of the cage so fast?
“Emily, I told you to wait for me,” the woman said as she approached, her narrow hips swaying and pointy boots making a decisive tap on the oak flooring. But for all of Cooper’s worry that she’d seen him touch her daughter, the woman was clearly amused, her angular face and small nose showing a delightful good humor. The family resemblance was obvious, from their red hair to the deep green of their eyes, skin so pale as to make their lips blood-red.
Cooper’s face warmed, and he stepped away from the little girl. He shouldn’t have touched her, but by God, a child shouldn’t be running around with a dead bat in her pocket.
“I was careful, Mama,” the little girl said defiantly. “I waited until the dog left.”
“I’m not angry about the dog,” the woman said as she laid a possessive hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You can’t sell Leonard, no matter how you dislike him.”
“He bites!” she protested. “I hate him! You always take his side, and it’s not fair!”
“Ma’am, any bat that lets you pick it up is ill. I have to turn it over to Animal Control,” Cooper started, wanting them out of his store but having a legal responsibility, too.
“The bat is a pet,” the woman said. “It has never seen the night sky but for today.” Her eyes narrowed in a staged severity as she glanced at her daughter. “You and I are going to have a chat, young lady.”
Cooper hesitated, and the woman extended a long slim hand for the box. He couldn’t help but notice there was no wedding ring, and her smile held a sly evaluation as his eyes rose from it to find she had seen him look.
“Please,” she said, her voice softening. “The bat isn’t ill. I wouldn’t allow my daughter access to disease-ridden vermin. What do you take me for?” She laughed, throwing her head back to show her long, beautiful neck, and the birds fluttered, clinging to the mesh and twittering.
Uneasy, Cooper handed her the box. “A pet?” The woman obviously wasn’t a drunk; she looked thin from aerobics and Pilates, not alcohol. “I think he’s dead,” Cooper added, and the woman’s expression fell.
Jerking, she popped the box open, her eyes closing in relief as she brought the bat out and held it for a moment before carefully placing it in her coat pocket. “He’s sleeping,” the woman said in relief, shooting an angry look at her daughter, who was now holding the kitten like a baby, rocking back and forth and crooning.
“Please, Mama,” she said, her loving gaze fixed on the kitten. “You never let me have anything.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t I just? Well, how would you like me giving you a year’s grounding?”
“Mama!”
“Put the cat back and wait for me outside, or I’ll make it two!”
Emily puckered her lips, and Cooper thought he was going see a temper tantrum to end all tantrums, but when her mother cocked her head, the little girl lost her bluster. “I waited and waited,” she whined, swaying petulantly to make the hem of her coat hit her legs. “I was patient, just like you said. You never let me have anything!” But it was soft in defeat, and Cooper took the kitten, feeling awkward as the little girl stomped to the door and pushed the heavy door open, the bells making only a dull thud against the glass as she went out.
Cooper shivered in the draft before turning back to the woman. Damn, she was striking, her cheekbones high and her eyes wide and full of a questioning depth as she waited for Cooper to stop watching her daughter skipping across the snowy parking lot to the late-model Jaguar.
“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed for no reason he could fathom. He wasn’t the one with the kid running around with a bat.
She smiled to show very white teeth. “Don’t be,” she said, reaching to touch his shoulder before turning to the window. Surprised, Cooper froze. “I know how this looks,” she said softly, watching Emily dance in a puddle of light with her arms raised to catch the drifting snow, her chiming laughter somehow making it through the glass. “Emily is a precocious thing. I appreciate you not calling the authorities. The bat is part of a well-maintained colony. He isn’t ill, just ill-tempered. Teething.”
With a small sigh, she started for the door. Cooper touched his arm, feeling as if her hand was still there. He couldn’t help but watch her legs in her black nylons, gaze rising to her round, very grabbable ass, and then to her thin waist, all shown off by an expensive-looking leather coat. He sighed as well, for an entirely different reason, flushing when the woman paused, clearly having heard him. Poised before the door, she turned. “The snow is beautiful tonight. Are you free?”
“Uh, no,” he muttered, suddenly uneasy. Kitten still in his arms, he went behind the counter. The woman was gorgeous, sexy, and sophisticated. What would she want with him?
Hand on the door, she looked to her daughter, a wistful expression on her face. “She misses her father.”
“Really.” He didn’t know what to say, and he perched himself on the worn stool. He couldn’t help but look. But that was as far as it was going to ever go. Right?
“She’s been watching your store for months,” the woman said, her heels tapping a curious tat-a-tat, tat-tat beat as she came back to him. “Her heart has been set on a kitten, but I won’t allow her to take a stray. Must not start bad habits. It’s sweet, really. She thinks you’re immeasurably brave for taking care of dogs. She calls you the dog master.”
Cooper nodded, looking at a clipboard of fish inventory as he began cursing himself. A lonely, rich, beautiful woman was coming on to him, and he was looking at fish totals? But with a young child and a dead or divorced husband, she would have enough emotional baggage to ground a plane. He didn’t want to become involved no matter how good the sex might be, even crazy good. “No harm, no foul,” he said, jaw clenched.
“Well,” the woman said as she stood before him, her hands spaced wide on the counter, “you’re being extremely nice about it. I feel as if I owe you dinner at least.”
Cooper glanced up, but his refusal hesitated at the look in her eyes: hesitant, hopeful . . . vulnerable. “No, really. It’s okay,” came out instead his intended, “Sorry, I’m busy.”
“I insist,” she said. “My name is Felicity. My employer is hosting a holiday party at Gateways tonight. That’s where we’re going . . . dressed like this.”
Cooper nodded, his pulse quickening. He was cautious, but he wasn’t dead. Gateways was one of the most exclusive dance clubs in the tristate area, having opened six years ago. And, judging by the number of times it made the front page, it had been a problem to the local cops since that time. He’d never been in there.
“He’s got the entire place rented out. Arranged for a band. If I don’t bring a man with me, I’m going to be fending off drunk coworkers all night,” the woman said, dropping her elbows on the counter and cupping her chin in her hands, her green eyes daring him. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
Her blouse was falling open, and with a herculean effort, he didn’t look—much. But the rest of her bent over the counter like that was even sexier, and Cooper struggled to keep his thoughts on what she was saying. He wanted to go, but he hesitated. She was smart, beautiful, and she didn’t care that he worked at a pet shop. What’s wrong with this picture,
Cooper?
“Emily will be there,” she coaxed as she stood, and Cooper began to breathe again. “It’s family oriented. We’d love to have you join us.”
Cooper thought of his microwave dinner waiting for him at his two-room apartment. Frozen meals, sitcoms, and reality TV were dragging him down, killing his ambition. I’m an ass if I let this slip away. Go get yourself a story to tell!
“Okay, you convinced me.”
The woman clapped once as her red hair flew everywhere and her black boots tapped on the old oak flooring. “The band starts at ten,” she said, and Cooper was struck by how much her alive and excited eyes looked like her daughter’s when she had held the kitten. “Why don’t you come early so we can talk before it gets noisy?”
“Nine thirty,” Cooper affirmed, and she smiled, extending her hands for the kitten.
“Wonderful! Emily is so perceptive. How much for the cat?”
“You’re going to get it for her?” Cooper asked as he handed the squirming thing over.
“Absolutely!” Felicity snuggled the animal under her chin and smiled as whiskers tickled her neck. “I can’t have her trying to trade Leonard again!”
Cooper raised his hand against her credit card, brought out from the same pocket the bat was still in. “No charge,” he said, thinking of the germs that might be attached despite the woman’s assurance that it was a pet. “We don’t actually sell the cats, but we do ask that you make a donation to the Humane Society.”
Felicity smiled as if confused and tucked her card away. “See you at nine thirty, Cooper. Tell them you’re with me, and they’ll let you in. Felicity. Remember it.”
“I will,” he said, then hesitated. “How did you know my name?”
“Emily told me,” she said, eyes glinting. “I told you, she’s been watching the store for months.” And then she turned, steps clacking as she walked out the door with the kitten in hand.
Cooper watched appreciatively, thinking that he had the right seeing as they were going on a date. The bells didn’t jingle for her either, and his smile fading, he followed her to turn the Open sign around. Bemused, he shook his head, thinking about how the rest of his evening might go if he played his hand right. “If nothing else, I’m finally going to see the inside of that place,” he said to the remaining kittens, and they curled up in an uncaring little gray ball.