Free Eye Candy by R.L. Stine Page B

could spend the rest of the goddamn night talking about her fucking stocks.
    Okay, okay. I get a little tense when women go on and on about things I’m not into. And did she really want me—a total stranger—to tell her what she should do about her stocks?
    Maybe she was just making conversation. That’s what I told myself and it helped calm me down. After all, she was really sexy. I watched her sliding those french fries between her lips, and I started to feel something.
    The night had a lot of promise. I like to think that every time. I know I don’t sound it, but I’m a real optimist.
    â€œSo answer the question.” She grinned at me. “What do you do?”
    â€œPromotions,” I said, thinking quickly. “I’m promotion director for a PR firm.” Did that make any sense? I hoped so. It sounded good to me.
    She tossed back her head, as if I’d said something funny.
    I stared at her long, smooth neck. I wanted to sink my teeth into her throat. Like a vampire. Like a fucking vampire.
    Vampires exist, you know. And maybe I’m one of them. Maybe that’s what I need. To bite deep into Chloe’s soft, white throat and drink. Maybe that’s what I need to satisfy myself.
    Nothing else works. I admit that.
    Maybe that’s why . . . maybe that’s why . . . maybe that’s why . . . what?
    I can’t even think straight. My brain isn’t working. The cogs are jammed or something. Thinking about her throat, about drinking her blood.
    Am I crazy?
    Am I fucking crazy?
    â€œWhat do you promote?” Chloe sips her coffee.
    â€œWell . . . right now . . . shoes.”
    â€œShoes?”
    â€œYeah. We have this shoe client. Very hot right now. Merrell. I’m doing some things with Merrell shoes.”
    What made me think of that? I guess because I bought a pair of Merrell shoes yesterday. They’re very hip. At least, I bought them in a hip shoe store, one of those little dumpy places in SoHo where the store is about as big as a shoe box, and the sales guy, tattooed and pierced like some kind of primitive species, said they were a good choice.
    â€œI know their shoes,” Chloe says. “I’ve tried them on.”
    Like, hot shit, babe. Could we talk about stocks some more?
    I pay the check. She pulls a couple of twenties from her wallet and offers to pay her half. No way. I push her hand away. She seems so grateful.
    And what do
you
do, Chloe?
    Did I forget to ask? Or did she tell me in that cute, whispery voice and I just forgot to listen?
    We’re out of the restaurant and facing Union Square Park. A steamy, damp night, a hot wind blowing newspapers and other trash around on the sidewalk. No moon or stars. They’re covered by thick, low clouds.
    I hold Chloe back as a bicycle delivery boy, tall bags of Chinese food in his basket, roars past. You’ve got to watch out for these delivery guys. They don’t care if they knock you down and injure you for life. I mean, what do they care as long as they get the Chinese food where it’s going, nice and hot?
    â€œYou saved my life,” she jokes. She holds on to my arm.
    That means this date is going to end in her apartment.
    Chloe points uptown, toward the top of Union Square Park at Seventeenth Street. “Can we stop at the Barnes & Noble up there? I want to get my sister a book before her audition.”
    â€œYeah, sure. No problem.”
    We cross the street into the park. Union Square has trees and walks with benches along them, but not much grass. It’s mostly concrete. It used to be filled with junkies and drug dealers day and night. But they’ve been chased downtown and replaced by a big farmer’s market where you can buy fresh-baked bread and apple cider and farm produce. Very wholesome. At night, even warm nights, the park is pretty empty.
    We start to follow the path that leads uptown. Suddenly, Chloe stops and turns to me. “I’m a very