Free Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

goals, but Claude was family, and I had precious little family left. “All right,” I said, opening a kitchen drawer where I stowed odds and ends. “Here’s a key. We’ll see how this pans out. I have to go to work this afternoon, by the way. And we have to have a talk. You know that I’ve got a boyfriend, right?” I was already feeling kind of embarrassed.
    “Who are you seeing?” Claude asked, with a sort of professional interest.
    “Ah, well . . . Eric Northman.”
    Claude whistled. He looked both admiring and cautious. “Does Eric spend the night? I need to know if he’s going to jump me.” Claude looked as though that wouldn’t be totally unwelcome. But the pertinent issue was that fairies are really intoxicating to vampires, like catnip to cats. Eric would have a hard time restraining himself from biting if Claude was close to him.
    “That would probably end badly for you,” I said. “But I think, with a little care, we can get around it.” Eric seldom spent the night at my house because he liked to be back in Shreveport before dawn. He had so much work to get through every night that he’d found it was better for him to wake up in Shreveport. I do have a hidden place where a vampire can stay in relative safety, but it’s not exactly deluxe, not like Eric’s house.
    I was a little more concerned about the possibility of Claude bringing strange men back to my house. I didn’t want to encounter someone I didn’t know when I was on my way to the kitchen in my nightie. Amelia had had a couple of overnight guests, but they’d been people I knew. I took a deep breath, hoping what I was about to say wouldn’t come out homophobic. “Claude, it’s not that I don’t want you to have a good time,” I said, wishing this conversation were over and done with. I admired Claude’s unblushing acceptance of the fact that I had a sex life, and I only wished I could match that nonchalance.
    “If I want to have sex with someone you don’t know, I’ll take him to my house in Monroe,” Claude said, with a wicked little smile. He could be perceptive when he chose, I noted. “Or I’ll let you know ahead of time. That okay?”
    “Sure,” I said, surprised at Claude’s easy compliance. But he’d said all the right words. I relaxed some as I showed Claude where strategic kitchen stuff was, gave him some tips on the washer and the dryer, and told him the hall bathroom was all his. Then I led him upstairs. Amelia had worked hard on making one of the little bedrooms pretty, and she’d decorated the other one as a sitting room. She’d taken her laptop with her, but the TV was still there. I checked to make sure that the bed was made up with clean linens and the closet was mostly clear of Amelia’s clothing. I pointed out the door to the walk-in attic, in case he needed to store anything. Claude pulled it open and took a step inside. He looked around at the shadowy, crowded space. Generations of Stackhouses had stored things they thought they might need someday, and I admit it was a little on the cluttered and chaotic side.
    “You need to go through this,” he said. “Do you even know what’s up here?”
    “Family debris,” I said, looking in with some dismay. I’d just never worked up the heart to tackle it since Gran died.
    “I’ll help you,” Claude declared. “That will be my payment to you for my room.”
    I opened my mouth to point out that Amelia had given me cash, but then I reflected, again, that he was family. “That would be great,” I said. “Though I don’t know if I’m up to it yet.” My wrists had been aching this morning, though they were definitely better than they’d been. “And there are some other jobs around the house that are beyond me, if you wouldn’t mind giving a hand.”
    He bowed. “I would be delighted,” he said.
    This was a different side of Claude from the one I’d come to know and disparage.
    Grief and loneliness seemed to have woken something in the