Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris Page B

mouse to click on it.
    A knock at the back door made me jump like a frog.
    I pushed back my chair. After a second’s hesitation, I got the shotgun from the closet in the front room. Then I went to the back door and peeked through the new peephole. “Speak of the devil,” I muttered.
    This day was just full of surprises, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock.
    I put down the shotgun and opened the door. “Claude,” I said. “Come in. You want a drink? I’ve got Coke and coffee and orange juice.”
    I noticed that Claude had the strap of a big tote bag slung over his shoulder. From its solid appearance, the bag was jammed with clothes. I didn’t remember inviting him to a slumber party.
    He came in, looking serious and somehow unhappy. Claude had been in the house before, but not often, and he looked around at my kitchen. The kitchen happened to be new because the old kitchen had burned down, so I had shiny appliances and everything still looked squared away and level.
    “Sookie, I can’t stay in our house by myself any longer. Can I bunk with you for a while, Cousin?”
    I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor before he noticed how shocked I was—first, that Claude had confessed he needed help; second, that he confessed it to me; and third, that Claude would stay in the same house with me when he normally thought of me as about on the same level as a beetle. I’m a human and I’m a woman, so I’ve got two strikes against me as far as Claude’s concerned. Plus, of course, there was the whole issue of Claudine dying in my defense.
    “Claude,” I said, trying to sound only sympathetic, “have a seat. What’s wrong?” I glanced at the shotgun, unaccountably glad it was within reach.
    Claude gave it only a casual glance. After a moment, he put down his bag and simply stood there, as if he couldn’t figure out what to do next.
    It seemed surreal to be in my kitchen alone with my fairy cousin. Though he had apparently made the choice to continue living among humans, he was far from warm and fuzzy about them. Claude, albeit physically beautiful, was an indiscriminate jerk, as far as I’d observed. But he’d gotten his ears surgically altered to look human, so he wouldn’t have to expend his energy perpetuating a human appearance. And as far as I knew, Claude’s sexual connections had always been with human males.
    “You’re still living in the house you shared with your sisters?” It was a prosaic three-bedroom ranch in Monroe.
    “Yes.”
    Okay. I was looking for a little expansion on the theme here. “The bars aren’t keeping you occupied?” Between owning and operating two strip clubs—Hooligans and a new place he’d just taken over—and performing at Hooligans at least once a week, I’d imagined Claude to be both busy and well-to-do. Since he was handsome to the nth degree, he made a lot of money in tips, and the occasional modeling job boosted his income. Claude could make even the most staid grandmother drool. Being in the same room with someone so gorgeous gave women a contact high . . . until he opened his mouth. Plus, he no longer had to share the club income with his sister.
    “I’m busy. And I don’t lack for money. But without the company of my own kind . . . I feel I’m starving.”
    “Are you serious ?” I said without thinking, and then I could have kicked myself. But Claude needing me (or anyone, for that matter) seemed so unlikely. His request to stay with me was wholly unexpected and unwelcome.
    But my gran chided me mentally. I was looking at a member of my family, one of the few still living and/or accessible to me. My relationship with my great-grandfather Niall had ended when he’d retreated into Faery and pulled the door shut behind him. Though Jason and I had mended our fences, my brother very much led his own life. My mom, my dad, and my grandmother were dead, my aunt Linda and my cousin Hadley were dead, and I rarely saw Hadley’s little son.
    I had depressed the hell