Blood Ties (Book 3 of The Blood Bond Series)

32. Surprise

The roller rink Adam had rented out for the evening of Quinn's birthday was as old school as they came. The joint played music anywhere from the 1950s to contemporary, depending upon time of the day. Though this was a private event, Adam had insisted they continue with that tradition and even requested they play several oldies in particular at certain times of the evening. The song, I Will Survive was merely a nod to his immortality. Quinn's too, as soon as she changed.

Thankfully, October 1st landed on a Saturday, and Quinn was starting the day off with Viv, getting pampered by a massage therapist and enjoying a spa treatment for her birthday. She was probably going to be relaxed into a puddle until she came to the roller rink and then try to learn to do skate well enough. Adam was pretty certain she could master it since she was a dancer and had excellent balance and coordination.

They had a few friends from school coming to the party, her family from back east that had been flown in secretly by private jet the day before, and all of the vampires Eli, Cassie, and Adam knew—not to mention a surprise guest as well.

Quinn may have thought that her birthday present was her day primping and being rubbed into a liquid mess, but it wasn't just that. All the friends and family she could imagine would be there, with the exception of anyone too far away who couldn't take the time off to get ferried across The States in the Payne's jet. Thankfully, most would be attending, and the ones that couldn't had damn good reason not to.

"Where did you put the table for the presents? Near the door like I asked?" Adam's brows scrunched over his nose. There was a large lobby in the front of the building with a divider for people coming and going from the venue. The one on the right was for entry, the left being the exit. The exit was going to go mainly unused and would be locked from the inside unless an emergency occurred.

"Yeah, she'll never see it when she comes in," Cassie told him as she set down a chair next to a long folding table. It had a cake for Quinn's birthday in the middle and cupcakes surrounding it. Paper plates and forks wrapped in plastic ready to be opened, and the cake was covered to keep debris and dust off it.

Since vampires didn't actually need to eat, their slices would be small because not all of them enjoyed sweets as much as humans. Yes, they could enjoy a nice juicy, bloody steak, but sugar wasn't something any of them could say they had a craving for. It was only for the façade of being seen as normal by the humans attending, so they'd still bought a large cake in order to maintain the illusion that they were regular people and not the bloodsucking leeches of monster lore and myth.

"And when should she be here?" Adam glanced at his phone nervously, as he had the pervious five minutes and even ten minutes before that.

"Another half hour," his mother told him absentmindedly. "Relax, Adam. She has no idea where she's heading to. We have a plan."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." Adam didn't know if the plan would work, though he had to admit it was a stroke of genius. Since she was out at the spa with Viv, they were getting their massages done last, and those would last an hour. After that, Viv would complain of an emergency pitstop she needed to make to relieve her full bladder, so she would park in the roller rink's parking lot and convince Viv to come inside with her.

Plausible and even more than just believable. After being kneaded and rubbed until their muscles weren't tight, many masseuses gave the suggestion their clients stay close to a bathroom. Massage got the juices flowing, and they would head directly to the kidneys to be emptied out of the bladder. Many people had to pee immediately after a massage, so this was something that was not only possible, but commonplace.

"Adam, can you can you come here for a second?" Eli called out from across the room. This particular venue had, not only a roller rink, but a kitchen/dining area for some of the birthdays they hosted, which were pretty often. The place was one of a kind. Most of the roller rinks had died out with the use of rollerblades and other inline skates as well as those shoes with the built-in wheels. Those has gone out of fashion ages ago, but some people still wanted to roller skate, so the place was a popular destination, just like old 50s diners and drive-in movies.