I fight evil creatures, I don't date them (Preface)

I step out of the shower the next morning and start doing my hair. When it’s dry I walk into my room and see Black lying on my bed, staring at me.

“What do you want?” I ask. She rolls over to show that she would like me to pet her stomach. I glare at her for just a moment before giving in. I sit on my bed and scratch her stomach while she purrs. “You’re still a hypocrite, you know.” I stand up and start going through my closet, searching for something cute to wear. I always have just the tiniest bit of trouble trying to be current. Personally, my favorite era was the fifties. Today’s clothing, however, leaves something to be desired compared to the classics. I put on the new outfit I had bought earlier in the week, knowing that it looks current enough.

My buzzer rings and I run to the door. Unlike William, Reese has to go through the downstairs hall before he can get up to my apartment. “Who is it?” I ask the little device.

“The day’s entertainment,” Reese answers back. I smile and buzz him up. I open my door and wait for him to appear at the end of the hall. When he does I duck inside and grab my purse. I shut the door behind me as he walks up.

“You and your parents live in this small apartment?” he asks surprised.

“Oh, just me and my mother; my parents are divorced.” He nods, accepting the fib. I notice that I haven’t really had a problem lying to Reese until now. He’ll never be able to meet my parents… but that’s foolish of me to think. I won’t know him for much longer. After this thing with William clears up, I had been planning on moving. I could stay longer, but if I did my lies would catch up to me sooner rather than later. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Where are we going?” I ask as we exit my apartment building.

“It’s actually very cliché. Don’t hold it against me,” he says grinning.

I live in the city, so I can walk to a majority of the places I need to get to. I’m guessing that wherever Reese and I are going is somewhere downtown, since we start walking in the opposite way that I go to the deli every morning.

“Cliché, huh? Sounds fantastic,” I say and we laugh. We walk up to Sunny’s Bowling Alley and I let out a burst of laughter as he opens the door for me.

“What happened to not holding it against me?” he asks.

“Oh, no, it’s just that I haven’t been to a bowling alley in… a while.” I laugh and shake my head. The last time I had been to a bowling alley was in 1961. We get our shoes and grab a lane. Since it’s Friday afternoon there aren’t many people bowling. This is good because it gives less people witness to my horrible bowling skills.

“You never told me how… bad you were,” says Reese laughing. I turn around, dropping my bowling stance and raise an eyebrow.

“You never asked,” I say, throwing the ball down the lane hitting one pin. I can track a werewolf and incapacitate a vampire but I can’t bowl. Figures. “You’re not exactly bowling a perfect game.”

Reese laughs. “At least I’m in the range of three digits.” I squint at him and try and pick up the spare. No such luck. I sit down and take a sip of my Coke.

“So, what do you do when you’re not sitting in the deli?” asks Reese. He throws his ball and hits almost all the pins save three.

I shrug. “What do all teenagers do?” Reese laughs. This is half sarcasm and half genuine curiosity.

“You’re not exactly like all teenagers,” he says, walking back to sit down. My body tenses and I panic a little. How could he know? Did he see William with me and assume something? How? There’s no way he could know…

“Celeste?” Reese’s voice yanks me out of my minor panic attack. He pulls my business card out from the back pocket of his jeans and chuckles. “All I meant was that most teenagers don’t have business cards.”

“Oh,” I say, breathing in relief. “Yeah I guess I’m not like normal teenagers.” This was a drastic understatement.

“Are you going to answer my question?” he asked.

“Oh, right… well, I read.” It sounds stupid when I think about it and Reese laughs. I can’t exactly tell him what I really do, now can I?

“That’s it?” He seems surprised. Do I look that interesting?

“Well, no, I do other things. I buy groceries… go places with my mother.” I just realize that I haven’t done any teenager things in maybe forty years. Things have probably changed since the sixties. “But enough about me, what do you do?” Reese laughs.

“Why change the subject? Reading sounds very exciting,” he says. I glare at him and he smiles.

“So, has my caliber of boring astonished you yet?” I ask. He’s silent for a moment as he thinks. I wait for an answer pathetically.

“I don’t think you’re boring,” he says. He’s sincere and I can tell because of his eyes. “But I do think you’re very bad at bowling.” I shake my head and laugh. “How about we try something different?” he asks.

I look at him, genuinely interested. “Something different? Like?” I ask.

“Like pool,” he says excitedly. “Or are you horrible at that, too?” I notice this as a challenge and stand up.

“I think you’re going to have to find that out for yourself.”

Reese stands up, amused, and motions to the back of the bowling alley where the pool tables are. “Shall we?” he asks.

“We shall,” I say walking past him.

Three games later, Reese is begging me to teach him my bank shot. I was never coordinated enough for bowling, but pool was a different story. I spent a lot of my time at pool halls in the 70s… actually all of my time. I couldn’t go to the same one for more than a couple of years, but they weren’t hard to find. I had always been good at it, but all that time practicing by myself made me very good. Reese was impressed.

“How are you this good, Celeste?” The boy was genuinely surprised and I didn’t blame him.

“My aunt owned a pool hall. She would babysit me and I just… picked it up.” I land another impossible shot and Reese nods, again accepting another one of my lies. After I win the fourth game, Reese and I agree that the bowling alley has lost its charm.

“Well, this was odd,” I say as we walk home.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Well, I’ve never been on a d—” The word catches in my throat before I let it escape. The whole time I had thought how strange it was that Reese had taken me on a date in the middle of the day. It never occurred to me until now that he might not even have been taking me on a date.

“Were you going to say date?” My eyes widen in surprise and a nervous grin spreads across my face.

“Um, well, yes…”

“You’ve never been on a date?” He looks confused.

“No! No, no, I have been on a date before just not… in the middle of the day.” I say the last part more to the ground. I just assumed he wanted to take me on a date. If ever there was a time to feel full of myself, it would be now.

“So… we’re on a date?” he asks. I look up and instead of looking more confused he has a smile plastered across his face.

“Yes, well, I thought you were taking me on a date, but—”

“You think I’d take you to the bowling alley for a date?” Reese sounds slightly offended, albeit still amused.

“Well, I didn’t know, I mean some people go on dates like this.”

“So, I took you on a date to a bowling alley. Am I getting this right?”

“Well, hearing you say it, I suppose that this wasn’t an actual d—”

“Oh, but you said we were on a date,” he says smiling. “There’s no taking something like that back.”

“I never said we were on a date, I just said that I assumed you were taking me on a date and I assumed wrong!”

“Would you like to go on a real date?” I’m ready to snap back with a retort but this question takes me by surprise.

“Reese Jacobs… are you asking me on a date?” Reese makes another thoughtful face before answering me.

“Yes, Celeste Hill, I believe I am.” He smiles that contagious smile. I smile, too.