Falling Dark

by Christine Pope

“But nothing.” He’d moved away from me, but that didn’t prevent me from shifting so we were now sitting very close to one another, our legs almost touching. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been mooning over you like some high school girl crushing on the quarterback.”

  Although I would have said he had the kind of warm-toned skin that didn’t flush easily, I couldn’t help noting the flare of color on his high cheekbones. “You have not.”

  “Yes, I have. And I will not allow you to beat yourself up about this.”

  Just a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, hardly enough to be called a smile. “Oh, you won’t?”

  “No.” To prove to him I meant it, I leaned over and kissed him again. I wasn’t given the chance to deepen the kiss, however, because a second or two later I heard the crunch of gravel, and pulled away from Silas, startled.

  A couple maybe around my parents’ age stood a few paces away, looking decidedly embarrassed. “So sorry,” said the woman, and they quickly turned around and headed off in the opposite direction.

  The spell was broken. Silas reached out to touch my hair briefly, then stood. “I should get you home.”

  I didn’t want to go home. I wanted…what did I want? To stay out with him, to let this day continue so we could spend it together. But I knew I shouldn’t protest. While I didn’t see anything wrong about sharing that kiss — or taking things further — I could tell that Silas needed some time to process the change in our relationship. It was better to allow him that time rather than forcing things.

  So I got up from the bench, and followed him out to the main path. As we walked along, not speaking, his hand stole its way into mine, the pressure of his fingers warm, reassuring.

  Right then, vampires were the furthest thing from my mind.

  Chapter Twelve

  As much as I wanted to ask Silas to come inside the condo, to sit down and have a glass of wine, I restrained myself, and only offered a quick kiss on his cheek as he said goodbye. I watched him walk away, then shut the door and leaned up against it.

  I never would have said I was the overly romantic type. It wasn’t that I hadn’t cared for the men I’d been with — even when they didn’t deserve it, thank you, Travis — but I’d also never really understood all that swoony sunset-and-roses stuff, either. Then again, I’d never met anyone like Silas before. Just remembering the kiss we’d shared made me go hot, then cold with shivers, followed by a rush of desire so unexpected and overpowering that I actually had to stop and take a breath.

  That was so not me.

  Even with Silas returned to his loft in Little Tokyo — or wherever he’d headed after we made our goodbyes — I thought that a glass of wine sounded like a damn good idea. I headed to the fridge and got out a partially drunk bottle of chardonnay, then pulled out the little rubber stopper and poured myself some. Not a lot, but just enough to take the edge off. Because clearly kissing Silas had given me a hell of an edge.

  It was Friday night. I wished I could have thought of the right words to convince him that we should keep the party going, so to speak. But he needed his space. I understood that…on an intellectual level at least. Physically…well, right then I was hornier than a fifteen-year-old who’d just been banned from making out with her boyfriend on the couch.

  Instead, I took my wine to the living room and turned on the TV. I still had one episode of Gilmore Girls to get through. What I’d do after that, I wasn’t sure. Find something else to watch, I supposed. Nothing remotely romantic, though. That would only make things worse.

  My phone pinged, and I quickly set down the glass of wine I held and hurried back to the kitchen, where I’d left my purse. I pulled out my phone, heart pounding, hoping that the alert was from Silas trying to reach me.

  No, it was a FaceTime request from Candace. I’d answered her email, so she knew I was still alive, but apparently she wanted visual confirmation. I pushed the button, and her face appeared on the screen, looking tired. Behind her, I saw bookcases filled with volume after volume of case law, and so I knew she must still be at work, even though by then it was past six o’clock.

  “Exciting Friday night, huh?” I asked as I took the phone back with me to the living room.

  “Almost as exciting as yours, looks like,” she said. “No hot date with your bodyguard?”

  “Actually, that was earlier,” I replied, trying to sound casual but — I assumed — failing miserably.

  “Do tell. I have to live vicariously through you right now…which is even more tragic than it sounds.”

  Candace did have to work insane hours much of the time. Despite that, she’d managed to keep her relationship going with a full-time boyfriend, right up until the time she discovered the Tinder profile on his phone and ongoing text chats with at least three other women. Clearly, he’d been taking advantage of all those long nights she spent at the office.

  “Silas came over to talk,” I said. “And we went out for lunch.”

  “Sounds relatively harmless.”

  “It was. But then we went to the Huntington afterward so I could get some fresh air. I was starting to feel pretty fried and just needed to get out for a while.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Still sounds pretty harmless.”

  “It was…right up until the moment he kissed me.”

  Her eyes widened, and she settled against the back of her chair, as if she needed its support to help her process what I’d just said. “Hold on. Did he kiss you…or did you kiss him?”

  Good question. I thought back to that moment, recalled how he’d bent toward me, initiating the embrace. Yes, he’d definitely been the one who had started things. I wouldn’t have had the guts.

  “He kissed me,” I admitted. “But I definitely wanted him to.”

  “Oh.”

  Her response was so noncommittal that I knew it had to include a ton of subtext. “What is ‘oh’ supposed to mean?”

  She didn’t answer me right away. I saw her pick up a pen and tap it against something just outside the FaceTime camera’s field of view. Maybe the desktop, or maybe a pad of paper. She still liked to take notes longhand, said it helped her retain details better. “It’s just…how long have you known this guy?”

  I had to stop and think. So much had happened — especially in contrast to the monotony of my usual life — that it felt as if I’d met Silas weeks ago. In reality, though, he’d only stopped that semivive attack on Monday. “Five days,” I replied, my tone cautious. Even though she’d only asked that one question, I didn’t know if I liked where our conversation was going.

  “And how much do you know about him?”

  “Is this going to be a cross-examination?” I snapped. Way to take the bloom off a moment that had been the highlight of the past few months.

  Actually, if I wanted to be perfectly honest with myself, that kiss was more like the highlight of the last year.

  She tucked a strand of loose blonde hair behind one ear and let out what sounded like an exasperated breath. “Listen, Serena…I want to be happy for you. I really do. But you need to be careful. I mean, how do you know for sure he didn’t stage that attack on you, just so he could get close?”

  Of course I knew for sure, because I’d had the misfortune of meeting Lucius Montfort. I knew vampires were real.

  Only…did I? Did I know for absolutely sure? I hadn’t seen Lucius drinking anyone’s blood, after all. Yes, he’d disappeared apparently into thin air, but that could have been just another trick. I lived in the land of illusion, after all. What if this had all been an elaborate setup?

  “He didn’t stage the attack,” I said, but my voice didn’t sound terribly convincing even to me.

  “Look.” Candace paused there, as if she was carefully choosing her words so they would have the most impact and cause the least offense. “I certainly don’t want to dissuade you from seeing someone if you really think you might have a chance…but you have to admit that the circumstances of your meeting this Silas per
son were pretty strange. And you know you have to be on the radar of some unscrupulous people.”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. I lived a very quiet existence, but that didn’t mean someone who was sufficiently determined couldn’t track me down. Growing up, I’d been in a safe little cocoon in San Marino, a place where most of the people I went to school with and associated with were very wealthy, if not quite on the same level as my family. I’d gone to a private elementary school, but public schools for the rest of my pre-college career. It didn’t matter, because the playing field there was pretty level. All the same, my parents — my mother especially — had always told me to be careful of who I dated, to make sure they weren’t interested simply because of my family’s background. They’d liked Travis because Travis was safe. His family traveled in the same circles as ours.

  But now…with a little careful investigative work, anyone could figure out that the Serena Quinn on Cordova Street in Pasadena was the same Serena Quinn whose father had inherited the Quinn fortune, whose brother might very well be the next President of the United States. Yes, I had an excellent security system at the condo, the kind that would summon an armed guard if necessary, but it wasn’t as if I had a private security detail who followed me everywhere.

  Unless you counted Silas, of course.

  I remembered then how my father had told me about the way his parents were so unnerved by the Patty Hearst kidnapping back in the 1970s, of how they’d made sure he went everywhere with a bodyguard for about the span of a year and a half. They’d relented finally, but still. And even though my family couldn’t really compare with the Hearsts when it came to sheer wealth, I still might provide a tempting enough target.

  “Silas isn’t like that,” I said, after a long pause. “I know that makes me sound like every misguided woman on Maury Povich or something who’s trying to defend her asshole boyfriend, but in this case it’s true. He’s a good person. If he really wanted to kidnap me and hold me for ransom or something, he would have had ample opportunity before now.”

  “Kidnapping is a little splashy,” Candace replied. “I wasn’t really thinking of anything that drastic. More like…getting close so he could have access to your money. It’s not as if that sort of thing hasn’t been tried many times before, whether it’s a guy going after an heiress, or a gold-digger trying to get her claws into a rich man.”

  I couldn’t argue with her about that. It was a natural impulse to think someone was after you simply because of your money. Lord knows I’d entertained that thought enough times myself. I hadn’t worried about it so much with Travis because he didn’t need my money. But every time I’d gathered enough strength to try and see other men after Travis and I broke up, the thought had crossed my mind. Between those concerns, and managing my damn visions, I hadn’t dated very much. It was easier to simply stay alone, rather than question someone’s motives every time I began to be even a little bit interested.

  “I know it’s been tried — and been successful. I just don’t get that vibe from Silas, though. He seems pretty…self-sufficient.”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know.” I shifted my phone to my other hand and wished Candace had initiated the FaceTime call when I was on my laptop. It would have been easier to manage. “That is, I don’t get that sense of neediness about him. He drives an expensive truck, but it doesn’t really seem as if he has a job.” Other than watching me, I added mentally, but I really didn’t want to get into that aspect of the relationship with Candace. “He has a place somewhere near Little Tokyo. That couldn’t have been cheap, what with the way they’ve been gentrifying downtown lately. I get the feeling that he must have an alternative income source.”

  “Hmm.”

  Which could have meant anything. While I appreciated my friend’s need to watch out for me, I thought her concern was misplaced. She might have planted a seed of doubt there, just for a minute, but the more I thought about Silas, about my interactions with him, the more I knew his motives were pure. Candace hadn’t met him, and so she didn’t have any way of knowing that my trust in him wasn’t merely wishful thinking.

  “Look, I get it,” I told her. “You want me to be careful. I am being careful — this isn’t my first rodeo. But I know that Silas isn’t another Travis. Not that Travis was a gold-digger. But still…someone I shouldn’t have trusted.”

  “A world-class jerk is what he was.” She set down her pen and shifted her weight in her chair slightly. “Okay, I’ll back off. If you think Silas is a paragon, then he must be.”

  “I don’t know about a ‘paragon.’ Just…someone who’s solid. I might have only known him for a few days, but he’s already proved that he’s there when I need him to be. That goes a long way for me.”

  “I know.” Her expression showed me she was still worried, though. There wasn’t much I could do about her concern, except hope with time she’d come around to trusting Silas the way I did. Then she sighed and said, “Well, I need to get back to these briefs. But maybe we can get together for lunch next week? Wednesday doesn’t look completely crazy.”

  “Sounds good. Lucky Baldwin’s again?”

  “Sure. And this time I can have a beer, because I don’t have to be in court that day.”

  “It’s a date.”

  We said our goodbyes, and she ended the FaceTime call. I set down my phone, wishing that I had the courage to reach out to Silas. I wanted to hear his voice. It would reassure me that any doubts I’d entertained were no more than fancies, momentary hesitations brought on by Candace’s line of questioning. I knew he was a good person. He was.

  I touched my fingers to my mouth, just for a moment. Just so I could remember how his lips had felt, touching that same sensitive skin. With any luck, I’d be able to experience one of those kisses again very soon.

  In the meantime, I needed to turn on the TV and turn off my brain for a while.

  * * *

  He did call the next day, but only to check to make sure everything was still all right, that I hadn’t had any visions or gotten any bad news from my sister. I wasn’t brave enough to ask him to come over, and so I told him I’d spent a quiet evening the night before, and didn’t have any plans to go out this weekend. My comment should have been enough of an opening for him to suggest that we see one another, but he didn’t say anything along those lines. All he did was tell me he’d call again the next day, wish me a good afternoon, and hang up.

  So where the hell was my tortured lover of the day before, the man who had kissed me because he simply didn’t have the willpower to prevent himself from doing so?

  Apparently, that man was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

  Scowling, I took on the one task I always resorted to when I was pissed off at the world — I cleaned the condo from top to bottom. No doubt my mother would have been horrified to see me scrubbing toilets, since she paid for a service to come in and do that every other week, but housework was a good way for me to focus on something outside myself. True, because of the aforementioned cleaning service, it wasn’t as if I had to scrub very hard, but it was the intention that mattered.

  By the time I was done, my left leg was complaining loudly, and the condo practically sparkled, it was so clean. I threw the last used paper towel in the trash and poured myself a glass of iced tea to celebrate. Actually, what I really wanted was a drink, but starting to drink at four in the afternoon felt like admitting defeat.

  I’d just sat down in the living room with my tea — making sure to use a coaster so I wouldn’t mar the freshly cleaned surface of the coffee table — when the doorbell rang. For a second, I contemplated not answering. After all, I wasn’t expecting anyone. But if it was either Brian or Lewis, the most likely suspects, they’d want to know why the hell I didn’t come to the door when I was clearly home. Anyway, the door had a peephole; I would check before I opened it. Since the sun was still up, if muted by thick clouds that promised rain, I knew I didn’t have to worry a
bout any vampires lurking out on the landing. And I doubted a semivive would knock.

  Fighting back a sigh, I got up from the couch and went to the door, then got on my toes and squinted so I could look through the peephole.

  That wasn’t Brian or Lewis out there. It was Silas.

  I didn’t quite gasp, but I did look down at myself in dismay. Because I hadn’t been planning to go anywhere, my hair was pulled back in a scrunchie, and I had on yoga pants and an old faded USC T-shirt. Not exactly glamour girl material.

  For just a second, I had the wild impulse not to open the door at all. I really didn’t want Silas to see me like this. But then I realized I was being cowardly, and if we were going to have any kind of a future together, sooner or later he’d end up seeing me in crap clothes and no makeup.

  So I punched the code into the alarm panel by the door, then undid the deadbolt and looked out, doing my best to smile. “Silas!”

  He didn’t smile in return. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I should have. But did you see this morning’s Los Angeles Times?”

  Of course I hadn’t. I subscribed to the digital version, since I hated to have physical papers stack up, but I hadn’t looked at it. Usually I did skim the top articles when I had a chance. Today, though, I’d been just a bit distracted. “Um, no, I hadn’t looked at it yet. Come in.”

  He entered the foyer, and I shut the door behind him, locking the deadbolt and rearming the alarm out of force of habit. I didn’t even know what I’d been expecting from him — a hug, a quick kiss on the cheek? — but he didn’t do either of those things. Instead, he moved past me and headed into the dining room, where he paused to unzip the leather jacket he wore before pulling a folded-up front-page section of the Times from somewhere within its recesses. The headlines were dominated by the usual internecine warfare going on at City Hall and an article about a five-car crash that blocked the eastbound I-10 right at rush hour the day before, but I couldn’t miss the story at the bottom right-hand corner of the page.