Exton

The next day was busy.

While Nick slept, the rest of us went shopping. We bought furniture and appliances mostly - a couple of microwaves, one for the kitchen and another for Nick's daytime hidey-hole so he could bring his blood up to temp. "Truman Capote aside," he'd told me once, "cold blood tastes terrible."

Vampire humor, ark-ark.

We also got him a dorm fridge in case he had to hole up there for some extended time. We got a full-size fridge for the basement, as well as a chest freezer and yet another microwave. The basement was huge, spacious and comfortable enough to wait out a nuclear winter. The walls and floor were finished concrete and it had its own gas-powered generator.

Where we really went nuts, though, was furnishing the bedrooms. We bought two king-size beds and a ton of bedding, a pair of cedar chests and a dresser and bureau apiece. None of us have a lot of personal possessions, but we have room for them now if that changes.

We found a room that used to be a banquet room and we have plans to turn it into a playroom, for those times when a king-size bed is too small. The plan calls for us to put down wrestling mats on the floor and build a "corral" of sorts around them, then fill the corral with pillows. I suspect the design derives largely from the Hollywood concept of a seraglio, but if it works, who cares?

In the days to come we'll talk to Tori about what we need for a computer setup. Currently we plan to share one machine and add another later if we find it needful or desirable.

We'll get a TV and DVD player and stereo setup somewhere down the road. It won't be The Manse when we're done, but it'll be fine for just the four of us (and Raina's "pets").

And they all lived happily ever after....

We hope.