“Enjoy, ladies,” Bel enos had told us in his deep voice. “We’ve had this table reserved for you.” He’d given me a particular smile as he turned to go back to the entrance.

We were seated right by the stage. A hand-lettered sign in the middle of the tablecloth read, “Bon Temps Party.”

“I hope I get to thank Claude real personal y,” Kennedy said, with a sultry leer. She was definitely fighting with Danny; I could tel . Michele giggled and poked Tara’s shoulder.

Final y, knowing Claude was a perk.

“That redhead who showed us to the table thought you were cute, Sookie,” Tara said uneasily. I could tel she was thinking of my ful -time boyfriend and vampire husband, Eric Northman. She figured he wouldn’t be too happy about a stranger ogling me.

“He was just being polite because I’m Claude’s cousin,” I said.

“Like hel ! He was looking at you like you were chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream,” she said. “He wanted to eat you up.”

I was pretty sure she was right, but maybe not in the sense she meant; not that I could read Bel enos’s mind, any more than that of any other supernatural creature …but elves are what you’d cal unrestricted in their diet. I hoped Claude was keeping a close watch on the mixed bag of fae he’d accumulated here at Hooligans.

Meanwhile, Tara was complaining that her hair had lost al its body during her pregnancy, and Kennedy said, “Have a conditioning session at Death by Fashion in Shreveport. Immanuel’s the best.”

“He cut my hair once,” I said, and they al looked at me in astonishment. “You remember? When my hair got singed?”

“When the bar was bombed,” Kennedy said. “That was Immanuel? Wow, Sookie, I didn’t know you knew him.”

“A little,” I said. “I thought about getting some highlights, but he left town. The shop’s stil open.” I shrugged.