“I've met other vampires,” Jesse said. “But you're the only one who's more than an acquaintance or a one-time encounter.” That was what he meant. If he wasn't so tired, he probably wouldn't have clarified because he wouldn't have made the comment at all. It made him sound stupid. The other vampires intimidated Jesse or they scared him. He tried to avoid them. Elise was the only vampire Jesse wanted to be around. She felt like a peer. Which was kind of twisted, since Jesse had made her into one.
He needed to get over his thing with the other vampires. Jesse couldn't avoid them forever, and it wasn't fair to project his feelings about the vampire who turned him onto all of them. Levi and Fredericka seemed okay. Maybe one day, Jesse would try harder. But for now, he just wasn't the best person to ask vampire questions. “I'm just saying, you know a lot more than I do.”
It did make him wonder about the vampire zombies, though. He was really glad he hadn't gotten bitten. But their blood hadn't been very appealing to him either, so maybe it went both ways. Jesse nodded. “I'll try,” he said. “Maybe it's like how vampires can't drink blood from each other. Undead things have to have human brains.” Jesse wondered what would even happen to a vampire who's brain was eaten by a zombie. Technically they weren't decapitated? Would the brain just grow back? Or was removing the brain the important part of the decapitation?
“Never been in love,” Jesse said. “We were both dumped by the same girl the summer before he went into seventh grade. She dated me end of May, dumped me before July. Started dating him the last week of July and dumped him early September.” He clarified the time frame, because Jesse didn't want Elise to think that he'd dated a girl at the same time as Gabe. That would be really bad.
If Elise hadn't mentioned Jesse at all, maybe it was okay. But after what Elise said next, Jesse wasn't relieved anymore. “She's really perceptive,” Jesse said. “Like Sherlock Holmes. If there's anything to pick up on and investigate further, Shanna does. She'd make a good detective.” It didn't take fanging or sunshine sizzling for Shanna to pick up on things. If that was the parameter Elise was setting....
He paused. “Why didn't you like her? Was she mean to you? How was she with Jake?” It sounded like it must have gone bad, if Elise didn't like her. Usually, Shanna didn't show her claws until you really got to know her better. If she was interviewing Jake for a job, she probably would have been acting sweet the whole time, while her inner peanut gallery threw tomatoes and rotten eggs at the appropriate points in her head.