Free American Vampire by Jennifer Armintrout Page A

back when he cools off.”
    “That’s bullshit, June!” Derek shouted, his eyelids fluttering closed as he wiped blood off his chin. “You should ban him!”
    “You should mind your own business, Derek, before I throw you out of here with my own two hands. I don’t want to see you beating on any women, I don’t care who they are.” June didn’t sound angry. She didn’t have to. Her word was obviously meantto be obeyed as law, like she had no reason to expect otherwise.
    “June, I’ve gotta find a place for him to stay,” Jessa protested, and that was all she needed to say to get every hillbilly in the place to look away from Graf and into their drinks.
    The kindly barkeep would not be swayed, it seemed. She pointed to the door wordlessly.
    “Let’s get out of here,” Jessa grumbled, grabbing Graf by the elbow.
    The fact that she was put out by this turn of events touched him on a profoundly personal level. The joy that radiated through his whole being was only slightly displaced by the fact that her misery came at his expense, too, because now he was stuck with her.
    “Hey, I don’t have a place to stay yet,” he reminded her as he followed her into the deserted parking lot, wanting to prolong the magic.
    “You think anyone back there is going to take you in, after what you just did?” She shook her head and kept walking. “You’ll be lucky if they don’t come over with a noose and run you out of town the only way possible.”

Five
    T he tall grass whipped against Jessa’s legs as she cut across the ditch and up the lawn. Graf followed, still silent. It was good that he knew when to keep his mouth shut, because one more wrong word would have set her off in a big way, and it seemed like none of the right words came out when he opened his trap.
    It wasn’t that she had wanted Derek to hit her. In fact, the thought that he was perfectly willing to stung her to her core. He’d never raised a hand to her before. He’d been angry and stormed off, and he’d punched a wall once or twice—once in her kitchen, and her father had repaired it while lecturing her on what was and was not appropriate behavior from a boyfriend. She wondered if there had been times before when Derek had wanted to hit her, and if he’d hit Becky. Was it a normal thing at their house?
    No, he’d been drunk. Drunk people did things they wouldn’t normally do when they were sober. She knew that from experience.
    Still, it wasn’t right of Graf to step in the way he had. It would have been one thing if one of Derek’s friends had, or someone else at the bar. But not Graf. Not when he was staying with her, and everyone knew it. They would start to think things about her, things they already probably thought, but it would give them a sort of confirmation. By the time the people who’d seen it happen had sobered up enough in the morning, the guys wouldn’t be fighting about one of them hitting Jessa, they would be fighting over Jessa. Then rumors would spread all over town that Jessa the slut was screwing around on her married boyfriend. People would love that bit of gossip.
    Not that ridiculous, maybe. She’d slept with Derek before, more recently than she would like to remember, and there was something attractive about Graf, even though he acted like a complete jackass.
    That must have been the common element in them that had sprung her gears.
    She charged up the steps to the porch, then stopped, catching sight of the car from the corner of her eye. “You wanna move that thing before you attract too much more attention? Anyone who walks by here is going to see it!”
    “Do a lot of people walk by?” he asked. For a guy who’d just gotten punched in the jaw, he spokeremarkably clearly. He should have at least a tooth knocked loose, or a puffy lip.
    She shook her head in annoyance. “If I’m stuck with you, you’re going to do what I say, when I say it. You got it?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he responded, accompanied by a