Not a Zombie
Not a Zombie
Jake & Boo – Book 3
Madeline Kirby
Not a Zombie by Madeline Kirby
Copyright © 2018 by Madeline Kirby
Cover Design: Madeline Kirby
EBooks are not transferable. All Rights are reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Any places, organizations, or locales have been used fictionally and are not to be construed as representative or factual. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events, is entirely coincidental.
Madeline.Kirby.Author@gmail.com
www.evilgeniusatwork.com
E-book ISBN: 978-0-9961958-4-3
Dedication
This one’s for Tiffany and Jay.
For the encouragement and the nagging.
Table of Contents
The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
Jake Is Confused by Zombies
The Hillebrands Descend
Unexpected Guests
Kind-of a Zombie
Vicki is Such a Sweet Girl
Doesn’t Anyone Call First Anymore?
The Things You Don’t Know about the People You Know
There’s No Good Way to Break Bad News
Where Babies Come From
Luis Trejo, FBI
Lunch with Friends
And How Was Your Day?
Parenting Is Hard
Talking to Girls
A Boy and His Cat
Trejo’s a Dick
Scared Speechless
Li Se Fou
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
What Went Wrong
Rosemary Hillebrand, Free Spirit
Finding the Edges
Something Stupid
Rum and Speculation
About the Location
About the Author
The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
“Have you got everything?”
I turned to give my best friend, Don, the evilest eye I could manage, and he smirked. My evil eye skills suck.
“You’re not my mom, dude.”
“I didn’t say I was, but you’re stressing out and when you stress out you forget stuff.”
“I’m not... Okay, fine. Maybe I’m a little stressed out.” I slung my backpack off my shoulder and onto Don’s sofa. Bridger, Don’s three-legged cat, hopped over to stick his nose in when I unzipped it. Bridger was in his gangly adolescent phase and his long skinny legs reminded me of his owner.
I looked through the main compartment. Books, notebooks, snack, all there. My laptop was in its padded compartment. I opened the front compartment to find pens, pencils, my laptop cord and phone. My wallet was in my pocket and my keys were in my hand.
“I made a checklist,” I admitted, wincing at the defensive tone in my voice.
“Of course you did.”
I zipped my bag closed and gave Bridger a scratch around the ears.
“Nervous?”
Don knows me too well.
“A little. Don’t know why, though. School’s never made me nervous before.”
“It’s the real deal this time.”
That was it, I guess. After seven years of putzing around – as my advisor put it – I had finally declared a major and had a degree plan. I think my advisor was secretly relieved that my new major meant I’d be someone else’s problem from now on, but he was too polite to say so. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”
“I’ll be at work when you finish – come by and tell me how your day went.”
I nodded, grabbed my bag, and headed out.
* * *
I managed to find a parking spot that I knew would be shady by the time I left that afternoon. After seven years on campus, I knew most of its nooks and crannies and all the best parking spots. Of course, a shady spot meant a longer walk and I was out of breath by the time I got to class and slumped into a seat halfway back in the room. I was still working out with Dani, my friend, neighbor, and personal trainer, but the August humidity in Houston would take it out of anybody. But I didn’t have time to think about that now, because the instructor was passing out the syllabus and my first semester as a psych major had well and truly begun.
“Jake?”
Class was over and I was stuffing my notebook into my backpack. I looked up to see Tom Wilton standing at the end of the row.
“Tom, hey!” I stood to shake his hand. “How have you been?”
“Good. You?”
“Yeah, me too. I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch over the summer. It’s no excuse, but I had classes and...” I shrugged. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool. I wasn’t around anyway. My mom and I took a trip. Hey, you have a class now? Want to get some coffee?”
“Sure. I’ve got time.”
We headed towards the campus Starbucks, moving slowly in the late August heat.
“So, a trip with your mom? Where’d y’all go?”
“We did one of those European river cruises. My mom gets the catalogs in the mail all the time, but my dad never... Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“But?”
He laughed. “It was nice spending time with my mom, don’t get me wrong, but I was the youngest person on board. It was weird. My mom had a blast, though, so it was worth it.”
“That’s good, then.” Tom’s mom deserved to have a blast. Her husband – Tom’s dad – had been murdered in March, which was how Tom and I had met. I had found Clarence Wilton’s body, and his dog, in the bayou park near my apartment.
“How is Murphy?” I asked, referring to the Westie who was Tom’s dog now.
“He’s fine. Still a little escape artist, but he seems happier than he was.”
“And you?” I knew Tom and his father had been on the outs, Clarence being unwilling to accept that his son was gay.
“Better. You?”
“Me? I’m fine.”
“Yeah? I know you were pretty freaked out by finding, well, finding my dad like that.”
“It’s not the same, though.”
“You still dating that dishy detective?”
“Don’t call him dishy,” I grumbled.
Tom laughed. “That’s a yes, then.”
I was a little uncomfortable with the topic, since at one point Tom had been on the verge of making a pass at me, and if Petreski hadn’t been in the picture I probably wouldn’t have rejected him. Petreski and I had had words about that, I can tell you.
Tom was still laughing when we took our positions at the end of the coffee line.
“What about you, then? Seeing anyone?”
“Please. I spent most of the summer on a boat full of middle-aged couples. Besides,” he shrugged, “I don’t think that’s what I need in my life right now. So, I didn’t know you were a psychology major.”
“Just declared at the end of the spring semester. You?”
“Yeah. I pretty much knew from the time I started college, though.”
“What are you planning to do? After you graduate, I mean?”
“Grad school is the plan. I want to be a counselor and work with kids. You know, kids who don’t get the support they need at home, for whatever reason.”
“Got it. That’s cool.”
“What about you, though? I would have thought you’d go somewhere to major in criminal justice or something like that.”
“Oh, hell no! No, I’ll leave that to Petreski. No... after everything that happened last spring, I realized I needed to get my act together. I chose psychology because... it’s hard to put into words.”
We had reached the front of the line and I gave the lady behind the counter my order before stepping to the side to wait for my drink. I grabbed a couple of napkins and wiped off one of the small tables before sitting down to wait for Tom.
“So, try,” he said, sitting across from me.
“Try what?”
“Try to put it into words. Why psych?”
“A lot of stuff started happening last spring. Some of it... weird...” I wasn’t about to tell him I had found his father’s body because I had seen the murder in a dream. “Some of it, some of the people I met... there was a lot of anger and blame and grief swirling around and I realized that what I really wanted was to help them deal with it. Not necessarily figure out who committed the crime, but how to help the people it affected.”
I hadn’t thought about what kind of reaction I’d get to my explanation, but I hadn’t expected Tom to look pissed off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What did I say?”
“So, was I a project? Were you acting like my friend because you felt sorry for me and wanted to help me?”
“What? No. I do think of you as a friend. Geez, man. This was all stuff that I thought about later, after everything was over. It didn’t have anything to do with you or anything like that. Most of it had to do with some stuff I was dealing with. I told you I was having trouble explaining it.”
He took a sip of his drink, and then nodded.
“Okay. Cool. I think I get it.”
“
We’re good?”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
* * *
“You did what with who?” Don asked in a measured voice as he set a beer on the bar in front of me.
“You heard me. I had coffee with Tom Wilton.”
Don pursed his lips and wiped the bar with a rag.
“What?”
“Petreski’s going to be pissed.”
“What? No he won’t.” I knew that was a lie. Petreski had a jealous blind spot when it came to Tom Wilton, but I’d be damned if I was going to let him tell me who I could be friends with. “Anyway, it turns out we’re both psych majors, so it’s not like I could avoid him if I wanted to now. What about you? What’d you do today?”
“Petreski called me this morning.”
“See? Double standard! I can’t be friends with Tom, but it’s okay for my boyfriend to call you up?”
“He didn’t call me up to chat. And even if he did, wouldn’t you want us to be friends?”
He had me there. “Oh, fine. So what did he want?”
“It was about training to be an analyst.”
“What? Seriously?” I had asked Petreski to look into this weeks ago. It was obvious that Don would make a great analyst, but he needed to get the training and education, and that was a problem because he didn’t have the money to go to school full time. “What did he say?”
“You put him up to this, didn’t you?”
“No. I asked him to look into whether there were any, like, financial aid or work study opportunities or something like that, but I didn’t ‘put him up to’ anything.”
Don squinted at me, hands on his hips.
“I swear.”
“Yeah, he told me.”
“Ass. Both of you. So what did he say?”
“There’s a lot of details and conditions, but bottom line, I can go to classes part time, work entry level at the department part time, and they’ll give me tuition reimbursement if I agree to work for them a minimum of five years after I’m certified.”
“That sounds great. You’re going to do it, right?”
Don shrugged.
“What? Seriously? This would be perfect.”
“I’d need to take out a loan to start, though. You know how I feel about that.”
Yeah, I knew. Don’s mother had raised him on her own after his dad took off, and it had taken her years to pay off the loans and debts he left her with. Don swore he’d never get himself into that situation.
“It’s not the same, though. This would be a low interest student loan, and you’d be able to pay it off when they start reimbursing you. Don’t pass up a great opportunity if you can make it work.”
He was torn, I could tell. “I have to think about it. I need to let him know by the end of the week, though, so I can sign up for classes if I say yes.”
“Okay, but –” I was cut off by my phone jingling out my mom’s ring tone. “Saved by the bell, dude.”
I slid off the barstool and stepped out onto the patio to take the call.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Jake, your father and I are coming to Houston.”
“Fine, thanks. And you?”
“What?”
“Wait. Why are you coming to Houston?”
“Jake, we haven’t seen you in weeks. Now I know you’re seeing someone new and that takes up a lot of your time. I was young once, too, you know.”
“I know no such thing. Can we talk about something else? How are your art classes going?”
“We don’t want to intrude.” Lies. Lies! “We’ll stay with Nancy – she has a guestroom – but I do want to meet this Ruben I’ve heard so much about.”
“Um...”
“What is it dear? Trouble in paradise?”
“No!”
“Oh, good. Well, we’ll probably drive down on Thursday. How does that work for you?”
“I don’t know. I –”
“Well, we’ll stay for a few days, so we should be able to work something out. See you soon! Bye!”
“What the... she can’t be serious.”
“What’s up?” Don asked when I dragged myself back onto the barstool.
“My parents. They’re driving up on Thursday. They want to meet Petreski.”
“Oh...”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I don’t know if Petreski’s ready for that. And my mom... you know my mom... she’ll probably start talking about weddings and things will all go horribly, horribly wrong and I’ll die alone.”
“Why are you going to die alone?” said a deep voice behind me right before two strong hands came down on my shoulders. I tilted my head back to see Petreski looking down at me.
“My parents are coming to town.”
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
“My mom wants to meet you.”
He leaned down to press a quick kiss against my forehead. “Okay, so I’ll meet your mom. How bad can it be?”
I groaned and Don snorted before turning away to pour Petreski a beer.
“It’ll be fine,” he said, sitting on the stool next to me. “Moms love me.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“I’d think that would be a good thing.”
“Yeah, you’d think.”
“Okay, what am I missing here?”
“You’re all going to sit down to dinner,” Don said, putting the beer in front of Petreski, “and she’ll have the wedding planned, the house bought, and the children – plural, by the way – named by the time you get to dessert.”
Petreski turned to me, his face a little pale. I nodded.
“She’s diabolical,” I whispered. “She’s my mom, and I love her, but she’s... intense.”
“Maybe I’ll catch a case.” Petreski’s voice wavered.
“That might be for the best. I won’t think you’re a coward if you run.”
Jake Is Confused by Zombies
“I’m really not afraid to meet your mother,” Petreski told me later that night as we were curled up on my sofa watching The Walking Dead on my laptop.
“You should be. I’m terrified that she’ll scare you off.”
He sighed and hugged me tighter. “She won’t scare me off. I’ve faced worse than... than... what is your mom’s name again, anyway?”
“Monica.”
“Monica Hillebrand. How scary can a Monica be?”
I snorted.
“You haven’t met my parents, either.”
“Do you,” I swallowed, “do you want me to meet your parents?” We hadn’t talked about this before. Meeting the parents was something I hadn’t even thought about yet, which was ridiculous because I couldn’t see myself with anyone but Boo, ever.
“Yeah. You know, on a special occasion. Like, our tenth anniversary or something like that.”
I laughed and tilted my head back to meet his eyes. “That bad?”
“We could have a contest.”
“Would it bother your parents that I’m not... you know... like you?”
“A cop?”
“Jerk. You know what I mean. Not Cat.”
“Let me guess. In all those paranormal romances you read, shifter families get bent out of shape if their shifter son brings home a human mate?”
“Fine. Yes. But it’s a serious question. There are lots of people who don’t want their children to bring home someone of a different religion or culture or whatever.”
“You have a point, sorry. But no, that won’t bother them. My mother will think you’re adorable.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. And I am kind of adorable.”
“You’re a brat, is what you are. Look, bottom line, I’m up for meeting your parents if you’re up for meeting mine.”
“If you think we’re ready. I mean, if you are, I am. Yeah, okay.”
* * *
“I guess I just don’t get this,” I said, lowering my e-reader.
“Don’t get what?” Petreski asked, cracking open one green eye and looking up at me.
“Sorry, were you asleep?”
“Not yet. Just cat-napping.” He grinned like he thought he was hilarious. He really isn’t. “What don’t you get?”
“Zombie romance.”
“That’s a thing now?”
“Yeah. I don’t get it.”
“I wonder, if you have sex with a zombie, does it eat your brain afterwards, like a praying mantis?”
“Ew. No. These aren’t that kind of zombie.”
“There’s different kinds of zombies now, too?”
“Yeah. But the thing is, if you’re dead – or undead – there’s no heartbeat, so no blood flow, so how does – you know – stuff work?”