Jimmy Black and Ty Small have been best friends since they were little kids. Okay, Ty has this issue where he can’t bear to be touched, but all friends can be a bit ... odd, can’t they? Not that it matters to Jimmy -- friends are friends. That’s why he worried when Ty became involved with Adam Dasani, someone he’s sure is an alcoholic. After all, every time Jimmy sees the guy, he always seems to have a glass of wine in his hand. In order to save Ty, Jimmy is going to find him another boyfriend, even if it means setting him up with a matchmaking agency.
What Jimmy doesn’t know -- what no one knows -- is that those glasses contain not wine but blood. Ty is a sabor, and his purpose in life is to feed vampyres like Adam Dasani.
Ty is very happy with his life. He has a vampyre who means the world to him, his pup, Mina, who’s the world’s best doggie, and his friend Jimmy. He just wishes he and Adam could go on a real date. So he’s especially pleased when Jimmy invites him to the Halloween party at the local country club. Ty is even more pleased when he asks Adam to join him, and Adam agrees.
The problem is another man has responded to Jimmy’s ad, and he’s waiting at the Halloween party to meet his blind date. How is Ty going to react to a stranger trying to touch him, and will he be able to forgive his best friend for possibly ruining the first date he and Adam have ever been on?
Jimmy sat in a coffee shop in Knoxville, just down the street from Everything You Need, and he drummed his fingers restlessly against the tabletop.
Where the hell is this guy? It shouldn’t take him this long to see what Ty was planning to buy for his Halloween costume. Then Jimmy could tell the date he’d selected for his friend, and they’d have the perfect meet cute when they both arrived at Ken and Chrissie’s party wearing similar costumes.
He'd originally seen Owen Ryder back in high school. The guy was your typical nerd, hanging on the outskirts of all the popular cliques. Jimmy considered Owen more an acquaintance than a friend. That was why, when he’d run into Owen after more than four years, he’d thought it would be a good idea to ask Owen to do him this favor. For Pete’s sake, he couldn’t ask any of his and Ty’s mutual friends to do this for him. They’d met Adam Dasani, and they freaking liked him!
Jimmy gritted his teeth. How could they not see the truth about him? The man was a lush who’d turn Ty into a drunk.
Just then, the bell above the door jingled as someone entered the coffee shop, and he looked up hopefully. The patron entering the shop wasn’t Owen. He felt himself turn pale.
“Um ... hi, Trish.”
She stood before him, her arms akimbo. “Don’t you hi, Trish me,” she snapped.
“Huh?”
“Who is she?”
“Who is who?”
“The bimbo you’re waiting here for.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me.”
It dawned on him his girlfriend was jealous. He couldn’t help preening, although the last thing he wanted was to upset her. “You think I’m waiting for another girl? Babe, why would I do that when I have you?”
She seemed to calm down a bit. “Then what are you doing here?”
He sighed. “Well --” The bell above the door jingled again, and this time Owen Ryder did walk in. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
Ryder stalked over to him. “This party better be worth it, Black.” He leaned down and rubbed his leg.
“Never mind about that,” Jimmy said in an undertone, “You’ll have a great time.” He’d had to promise Ryder an invitation to the Halloween party, something it wasn’t likely he’d ever get otherwise. “What about Ty’s costume?”
“He’s gonna wear some faggy outfit --”
“What did you call my friend?” Jimmy knew Ty was gay, but he wouldn’t let anyone call him a fag.
“With lace, short pants and white silk stockings, and high-heeled shoes.”
“What did you say?”
“Huh? Are you deaf? I said the outfit is faggy as -- ow! Dammit, why’d you hit me?”
“Just because Ty is gay doesn’t mean you get to call him a fag.”
“Jesus, were you always such a pain in the ass? I didn’t call him that, even though the guy is as gay as a --”
Trish rested her hand on Ryder’s shoulder, and Jimmy didn’t like that one little bit. “Trish ...”
“Hush” She turned to Ryder. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?” she asked him
Ryder huffed an impatient breath.
Oh sure, like he’d been so put out. Why the hell did I think asking him for help was a good idea?
“Black, here, begged me to go into that half-assed shop,” the rotten snitch snitched.
Trish narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“He wanted to find out what that weird friend of his was going to wear for Halloween.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said mildly as she patted his chest. “I haven’t finished talking to you.”
Ryder is in such trouble. Jimmy could have danced with joy.
Until his girlfriend turned to him. “What, exactly, are you up to, James?”
Shit. She was using his full name. “Um ...” Think fast, Black. He couldn’t let her know he was setting Ty up on a date. “I just wanted to make sure Ty wasn’t going to wear something off the wall. Remember when he went as a bunch of grapes -- covered in purple balloons? And what about the time he dressed as a mad scientist, in a lab coat with fake body parts and lab rats spilling out of his pockets?”
“Says the man who wore my prom dress last Halloween. Come on, Jimmy. Tell me the truth?”
He sighed. At least she’d gone back to calling him Jimmy. “I wanted to make sure he had a date for the Halloween party.”
“What about Adam?”
He didn’t want to shatter Trish’s opinion of him, so he scrambled for a logical excuse. Fortunately, he remembered what Ty had said. “Adam’s got work.”
“All right.”
Ryder took a couple of steps toward the door.
“Just one second, mister. Where do you think you’re going?”
