Chapter Five

Something was different about Vaughn and it wasn’t just his physical appearance. Could a month apart turn him into someone I barely recognized?

“What brought you all to The Last Stop tonight?” I asked the group.

“That’s none of your business,” Lucas snapped.

“You don’t get to decide that,” I replied. Sensing the tension between us, everyone else stopped talking as Lucas and I stared at each other. He was the first one to look away.

Then Vaughn’s stomach growled, releasing us from the edgy silence.

“Let’s order some food,” he said. The Last Stop had a pretty decent menu for a dive bar. A server came by, then went around the table, taking orders.

Vaughn ordered a burger and an appetizer combo plate. “Can you throw in a Flying Dutchman and a four-by-four to that?”

I gaped at him. He’d just ordered ten pounds of hamburger, and that didn’t include the fries and cheese on the Flying Dutchman. “Are we feeding a pack of hungry wolves I don’t know about?”

He winced but then smiled at me, his dimples flashing. “I’m a growing boy.”

We ordered enough to feed fifty people, but Beckett seemed worried that there wouldn’t be enough. “Maybe we should get one more order of sliders?” he suggested.

Connor nodded. “Two please. And a couple of those french dip sandwiches.”

“For me, too,” Beckett ordered.

Even though the bar was crowded, it didn’t take long for our food to arrive.

The server put the appetizers in the middle and handed out plates. Vaughn made sure I had my favorites first and then proceeded to load up his plate. Until our little communication blip, I’d thought he was the perfect boyfriend. Now I knew he wasn’t perfect, but I appreciated how he always looked out for me.

I checked out Vaughn when he wasn’t looking. He wolfed down his food like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His shoulders were definitely broader, and his arms had new muscles.

“Have you been lifting weights or something?” I glanced over at Vaughn, meeting his eyes for the first time.

He took a big bite of his burger, and cheese oozed out the side.

“Maybe I’m going through a growth spurt,” he said. “I have been powering down steak.” He didn’t meet my eyes when he talked, just kept his focus on his burger.

“That must explain it,” I replied. But I wasn’t sure that was it. Vaughn had never been much of a red-meat lover.

“Anyone heard of the band performing tonight?” Vaughn asked.

“The bouncer said they were called the Thirsty Thieves,” I told him. I was excited to hear there’d be live music tonight. My experiences with The Drainers hadn’t destroyed my love of music. We were at a country-and-western bar, so I assumed we were going to be listening to a country band or maybe bluegrass.

I studied the crowd, checking out the customers a bit closer. I started to get a bad feeling when I noticed that some of them wore matching WANNA BITE? belt buckles. Maybe it was a coincidence, but it sure seemed like advertising that you were a vampire groupie to me.

The band was late taking the stage, and the crowd started to get rowdy. Until finally, finally, they came on and started picking up their instruments. The lead singer’s hair was black, and an oversize mustache took up most of his face. Something about the shadowy figures, their faces obscured by the wide rims of their cowboy hats, made my skin prickle and the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I squinted at him. “That guy,” I said. “For some reason, I want to punch him in the face.”

Skyler and I stared at each other. “Travis,” we said at the same time. His name sputtered out like a curse.

Travis Grando had traded his tight leather pants for faded blue jeans and had grown a mustache. I didn’t even know that vampires could grow facial hair.

I sucked in a breath. “No frakin’ way,” I growled. “We are not getting the band back together, and this is not a comeback tour.”

“We won’t let anything happen to you,” Granny told me. I appreciated the sentiment, but she should be more worried about what could happen to Travis.

What were The Drainers doing here, masquerading as a country-and-western band?