Club Dead

closet, I wondered how many nights I’d have to go to the club. More than two, and I’d have to do some shopping. But that was impossible, at the least imprudent, on my budget. A familiar worry settled hard on my shoulders.
    My grandmother hadn’t had much to leave me, God bless her, especially after her funeral expenses. The house had been a wonderful and unexpected gift.
    The money she’d used to raise Jason and me, money that had come from an oil well that had petered out, was long gone. The fee I’d gotten paid for moonlighting for the Dallas vampires had mostly gone to buy the two dresses, pay my property taxes, and have a tree cut down because the previous winter’s ice storm had loosened its roots and it had begun to lean too close to the house. A big branch had already fallen, damaging the tin roof a bit. Luckily, Jason and Hoyt Fortenberry had known enough about roofing to repair that for me.
    I recalled the roofing truck outside of Belle Rive.
    I sat on the bed abruptly. Where had that come from? Was I petty enough to be angry that my boyfriend had been thinking of a dozen different ways to be sure his descendants (the unfriendly and sometimes snooty Bellefleurs) prospered, while I, the love of his afterlife, worried herself to tears about her finances?
    You bet, I was petty enough.
    I should be ashamed of myself.
    But later. My mind was not through toting up grievances.
    As long as I was considering money (lack of), I wondered if it had even occurred to Eric when he dispatched me on this mission that since I’d be missing work, I wouldn’t get paid. Since I wouldn’t get paid, I couldn’t pay the electric company, or the cable, or the phone, or my car insurance . . . though I had a moral obligation to find Bill, no matter what had happened to our relationship, right?
    I flopped back on the bed and told myself that this would all work out. I knew, in the back of my mind, that all I had to do was sit down with Bill—assuming I ever got him back—and explain my situation to him, and he’d . . . he’d do something.
    But I couldn’t just take money from Bill. Of course, if we were married, it would be okay; husband and wife held all in common. But we couldn’t get married. It was illegal.
    And he hadn’t asked me.
    “Sookie?” a voice said from the doorway.
    I blinked and sat up. Alcide was lounging against the jamb, his arms crossed over his chest.
    “You okay?”
    I nodded uncertainly.
    “You missing him?”
    I was too ashamed to mention my money troubles, and they weren’t more important than Bill, of course. To simplify things, I nodded.
    He sat beside me and put his arm around me. He was so warm. He smelled like Tide detergent, and Irish Spring soap, and man. I closed my eyes and counted to ten again.
    “You miss him,” he said, confirming. He reached across his body to take my left hand, and his right arm tightened around me.
    You don’t know how I miss him, I thought.
    Apparently, once you got used to regular and spectacular sex, your body had a mind of its own (so to speak) when it was deprived of that recreation; to say nothing of missing the hugging and cuddling part. My body was begging me to knock Alcide Herveaux back onto the bed so it could have its way with him. Right now.
    “I do miss him, no matter what problems we have,” I said, and my voice came out tiny and shaky. I wouldn’t open my eyes, because if I did, I might see on his face a tiny impulse, some little inclination, and that would be all it would take.
    “What time do you think we should go to the club?” I asked, firmly steering in another direction.
    He was so warm .
    Other direction! “Would you like me to cook supper before we go?” Least I could do. I shot up off the bed like a bottle rocket; turned to face him with the most natural smile I could muster. Get out of close proximity, or jump his bones.
    “Oh, let’s go to the Mayflower Cafe. It looks like an old diner—it is an old diner—but you’ll enjoy it. Everyone goes there—senators and carpenters, all kinds of people. They just serve beer, that okay?” I shrugged and nodded. That was fine with me. “I don’t drink much,” I told him.
    “Me neither,” he said. “Maybe because, every so often, my dad tends to drink too much. Then he makes bad decisions.” Alcide seemed to regret having told me this. “After the Mayflower, we’ll go to the club,” Alcide said, much more briskly. “It gets dark real early these days, but the