Picky Eater

Ch 3: Can vampires have aneurysms?

"But she doesn't know how to heal you. Also, she's too young to drink your blood, so that's not great. It's too powerful. You need to go to the hospital."

"But my shoes, Nino! And the house—! It isn't locked!" Ben whipped around and what felt like ice water spilled down his back. Ben's vision blackened around the edges, and consciousness was slapped right out of his hands.

When he woke up, he was lying on his back in his living room, blinking at his ceiling. There was a rustling, and Ben's body was jostled. Bending his neck, he watched Evie attempting to shove his shoes onto his feet with Nino in the background, shouting into a phone.

"Bianca Ventura, if you don't come back here this instance, I'm going to call your husband myself—"

"Too tight?" Evie asked, as she finished tying his shoes.

"No," Ben croaked. After a beat, he asked, "You're a good kid, aren't you?"

She shrugged.

It seemed like ages before they made it to the hospital. Nino was too busy fuming and yelling at his sister that wasn't around, and Evie was too much like a creepy statue to let Ben know what was going on. She sat completely still in the back of the car, eyes forward, and hands folded in her lap.

When it became clear Bianca would never answer her phone, Nino called his older brother, Dante.

Still slick with a cold sweat, Ben sat up on his hospital bed, trying not to cry like a baby. One of the nurses, Karla, was patiently giving Ben maybe a billion stitches. The nurse raised her brow. "Bad day?"

"Maybe the worst."

They lied to the check-in and said a dog bit his hand, which earned Ben an unnecessary rabies shot on top of everything else. Nearly made him pass out again. He couldn't watch the nurse work, so Ben's eyes were glued to the ceiling. He could hear Evie in the back ground wrapping and unwrapping herself in the blue curtain separating Ben from the other patients.

"Dante!" Nino shouted, but whoever was on the other line spoke first and Nino's brows raised. His jaw dropped. "No! No! Don't. This is not a good idea."

Ben leaned over, trying to hear what they were saying. The nurse moved with him, giving him a little wink. Nino's back was to them and thankfully, the phone was that much closer. Ben could just hear Dante say, "It is a good idea. Bianca needs the help and you have never taken the time to bond with Evelyn."

"I don't want to get involved. Plus, I'm busy with work and runway and—"

"This isn't a negotiation. Bianca already said you could do it and I'm signing my approval."

"She said I could watch her?"

"Of course, Bianca did. Who else would watch her? Oh, do you have some sort of side fling again? Nino, find it in yourself to grow up this summer. Family comes first. It has to come first."

"I can't do it. I've never watched anyone in my life."

"That's not true. You used to babysit Mathew."

"Mathew's different and—" Nino's shoulders raised. All his edges tightened. A frost covered him and poured so much tension into the room, Ben could hardly breathe. It had gotten so quiet. "And I wasn't very good at watching him, anyway. You know that." Ben didn't like the sound of that.

"You're older, Nino." The more Dante spoke, the more even Ben felt swayed by him. His voice smooth as velvet and deeper than wishing well, Dante could convince Ben to stand in the middle of oncoming traffic and make him think it was a good idea. "It's time to stop playing around and be serious. This will be good for you. You need to give up the flings and the modeling anyway and come back to work with me. I'm also close on closing a deal with the Lavigne family and besides, you'll be married by this time next year—"