I shook my head. What I felt for John, the person I had shared a few fabulous weeks with, didn’t matter anymore. By omitting the minor detail of who he and Ian really are, he’d put me in incredible danger. And now . . .
I looked down at my hands, so pale and frail-looking, the nails dry and peeling, and the skin around them cracked and weathered with the lack of adequate nutrition. I ran my tongue along the length of my gums and prodded the molar that had come loose in the back, tasting the faint metallic tang of blood.
I had dreams at night of losing all my teeth. They’d crumble in my mouth, and I’d wake up gasping for breath, frantic that it was actually true. My hair had begun to fall out, too. The curls hung limp and lifeless down my back and clung to my face with static electricity. None of my clothes fit properly anymore, much to Olivia’s annoyance. She kept insisting we go shopping, but I didn’t see the point in spending money for expensive new clothes when I’d most likely be dead before the end of the year.
I was deep in my own pity-party when I saw him round the corner at the end of the square. I rose to my feet at the sight of him, my heart leaping in my throat as the shock that he’d actually showed up hit me like a tidal wave. There was only one problem now: How did I approach someone I only suspected was a vampire?
I kept an eye on him from a distance, just to see what he might do or where he would go. When he’d come within fifty feet he paused and raised his nose to the air. His head swiveled about, searching for something, and at last his eyes came to rest on me. I had completely lost my nerve and planned to simply walk away without talking to him, but if there was any question before about whether or not Josiah Butler was a vampire, there was no doubt about it now.
August 3
Mom barged in to my room pushing a pair of pearl earrings through her lobes. She took one look at me and said, “You’re wearing that to the party?”
“The Hoffstetters’ barbeque,” I said, slapping the palm of my hand against my forehead. “I completely forgot.” Which was entirely the truth.
Mom put her hands on her hips and shook her head, her dark hair grazing the neckline of her white, eyelet blouse. “What is with you and dinner parties lately, Blake? You’re not usually so forgetful.”
I fell back against my bed and gave an exasperated sigh. I dug the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. “You’re not going to make me go are you? It’s just going to be Daddy’s stuffy accounting friends and their pretentious wives—” I glanced at my mom, “present company excluded, of course—standing around cracking a bunch of lame jokes. I’m always the oldest kid there, and I won’t have anyone to talk to. I’ll be bored out of my mind.”
I injected a fair amount of sarcasm into the word “kid,” given that I hardly considered myself a kid at all when compared to the usual crew of ten-and-unders that showed up at those horrible shindigs. At the last party, I’d had to put up with a very persistent tween who was intent on making me his girlfriend by the end of the evening. Everyone thought it was cute. I seemed to be the only one who found it even remotely creepy.
“Oh they’re not that bad,” Mom said. “The wives or the kids. There’s no accounting for the lame jokes, though.” She laughed, belatedly realizing she’d cracked a lame joke of her very own. She smoothed her hands down her slacks. “You’ll have fun. You can hang out with the grown-ups if you want to.”
“I’ll get stuck babysitting. I always do.”
“No you won’t, Blake. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yes I will. I’m not going.”
Mom crossed her arms in front of her and fixed me with her version of the evil eye, though she was hardly intimidating at a petite five-two. “You’re going. End of discussion.”
I scooted to the edge of my bed, ready to take her on. “What if I promise to talk to Zach if you let me stay home tonight?”
Mom’s slender shoulders slumped. I knew I had found her weak spot. She couldn’t resist the temptation of me getting back together with the boy she considered her future son-in-law. And yet she narrowed her eyes, obviously not allowing herself to get her hopes up until we’d brokered a deal.
“You’re telling me that you would rather voluntarily talk to the boy you just broke up with than go to your father’s company barbeque for a few hours?”
My heart pounded in my chest, and I could hardly breathe. I had her in the palm of my hand. I just had to close my fingers very slowly around her so as not to scare her away. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
She pursed her lips as she considered the proposition, the line of her jaw clenching and unclenching as she mulled it over. “Why does this not seem right?” she muttered to herself. To me she said, “And will you promise to work things out with Zach and tell him that you made a very bad mistake, that it was all just some big misunderstanding?”
I swallowed hard and stuck my hand behind my back. I crossed my fingers, hoping that small gesture might protect me from whatever bad karma I surely had coming my way. I was a very wicked person.
“I promise.”
Thirty minutes after my parents left, John and Ian showed up. I didn’t know what I was expecting Ian to look like—I suppose I hadn’t really given it much thought, if any—but the guy holding open the car door for me wasn’t it.
Ian was in his early twenties and GQ beautiful. He wore his dark hair shaggy, yet carefully arranged, and subtle stubble ran along the hard line of his jaw and upper lip. His thin, neat eyebrows sat over hooded brown eyes, giving him a look of bored arrogance. Until he smiled. And then his face morphed into this I’m-the-most-gorgeous-guy-on-the-planet-and-I-know-it expression.
I knew at once he was bad news.
“Blake, I’d like you to meet Ian,” said John, “my best friend and closest relation, for all intents and purposes.”
Much to my surprise, Ian took my hand and raised it to his mouth, lightly brushing the back of it with his lips. My stomach flipped as a slow burn crept up my neck.
“I’m verra pleased to meet you,” he said in a deceivingly soft voice, tinged with an accent from somewhere abroad.
“Scotland?” I asked.
One side of his mouth curved up, but it stopped short of a full-blown smile. “Isle of Skye. But I haven’t called Scotland home for many years. Shall we?” He gestured for me to take the seat up front.
I hesitated. “I’m fine in the back if you’d rather sit next to John.”
This time Ian did smile. “Tempting, and I thank you. But I’m trying my best to be gentlemen. In ye go.”
John and I glanced at each other, and I laughed under my breath when he rolled his eyes. He smacked the hood of the car with the flat of his hand. “I guess the front seat’s yours, Blake. Get in.”
I sat down at once, crossing my right leg over my left and tucking the hem of my dress discreetly under my thigh so it wouldn’t ride up. “I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to wear,” I said to John. “If it’s not right . . .”
His eyes traveled the length of my body. “Are you kidding? You look wonderful.”
“Oh. Thanks. I mean, it’s just that—”
“I think what the wee thing is trying to say,” said Ian from the back seat, “is that your obvious disregard for fashion is perhaps sending her mixed signals.”
“Thank you, Ian,” said John in a flat voice.
I’d noticed Ian’s creased trousers, rolled up at the hems, paired with a white linen button-down and pin-stripe vest. I turned around in my seat as much as I could as John backed out of the driveway.
“And what about you?” I said, waving my finger at him. “What do you call that get-up?”
“He fancies himself an actor,” John said, imitating the lilt of Ian’s accent. “Apparently that’s how all creative types dress.”
“A creative type, huh? Actor, writer, or artist?”
“More like a sampler. New York is such a flavorful city, it’s so hard to decide.” He smiled, showing all his teeth.
The night wa
s clear and warm. A lot of people had turned out for the concert, but it wasn’t yet too crowded to find a seat. We picked a free spot on the lawn in front of the pavilion and Ian spread a plaid flannel for us to sit on. He’d brought a wicker picnic basket, too, and from the inside pulled out three glasses and a bottle of red wine.
“Um, I’m underage,” I whispered to him as I cast a nervous look around to see if anyone else had noticed. I’d had the occasional sip of wine before, but that was at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Quite frankly, I thought the stuff tasted nasty. Olivia said I was weird.
Ian handed John the glass he’d just filled and glanced at me through a pair of thickly lashed eyes, half-closed with amusement. “Which is why I brought you a bottle of sparkling cider.”
“Well what about him?” I nodded my head at John, suddenly indignant. “He’s underage, too. What if we get caught? If I can’t drink, neither should he.”
“I’m underage?” John said with mock surprise in his voice. He and Ian looked at each other and shared a laugh. I joined in, though somewhat uncertainly.
John downed his wine in two large gulps before handing the glass back to Ian. “Oh fine,” he said with a smirk, his teeth stained a faint red. He licked his lips and winked.
“Had enough, aye?” Ian said to him with a seriousness that undermined the humor in John’s voice.
John looked at me, his eyes focusing intently on mine. But when he spoke, it was to Ian. “Just worry about yourself, will you?”
As the concert stretched into the second hour, the light began to fade into that dusky, in-between time of day and night. A tinge of purple and rose lit the clouds from behind, making everything seem just a bit surreal and full of magic and expectation.
Fireflies glittered to life in nearby trees and bushes, flashing their tails against the dark in an earnest effort to attract a mate. I had grown acutely aware of John’s presence next to me, so close that our arms rubbed against each other every so often.
And as my awareness of him intensified, I realized I had been deluding myself all along. In the strange way that only darkness coaxes one to lower her guard, I acknowledged the attraction I had always felt for John was more than a crush.
Turning my gaze surreptitiously in his direction, I traced the long lines of his left arm with my eyes, starting at the round hump of shoulder and running over the small rise of his biceps, into the crease of his freckled elbow and down to the underlying bones of wrist and hand. I remembered the warm touch of his fingers interlaced with mine, and how his thumb had made lazy circles against the meaty flesh of my palm.
I could just make out the shape of his torso through his shirt and recalled that day at the lake—the broad expanse of muscle of back and chest as he held me against him in the water. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, a small fire burning in my secret space. I was a virgin, but I had a very good imagination.
In my mind it was just John and me, and I could do whatever I wanted without consequence. I imagined the solid weight of his body pressing me down into the ground, the cool grass against my back. I felt the tickle of his lips on my neck and the graze of teeth against my earlobe. I closed my eyes tighter, building the image in my head as the music swelled in the background, sailing me away on waves of bodily pleasure that I could only dream about and imagine. The desire was so acute it was almost painful, and I realized with an intense conviction that I wanted John with a hunger I’d never known before.
I felt his lips on mine then, and my eyes flew open.
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself,” John whispered against my mouth.
“That’s because I am,” I said, my voice breathless even to my ears.
He kissed me again, just a butterfly’s touch, and pulled back to look at me. “Tell me what you were thinking about just now, right before I kissed you.”
“You. I was thinking of you.”
“Really?” John’s eyes lit up and his mouth curved into a slow, sensual smile. I nodded my head. He opened up his arms to me then, and I crawled into the space between his propped knees. “I’m glad,” he said against my hair.
As I leaned further into his chest, I caught Ian watching us, the space between his brows creased with a frown. But then the look cleared and he tipped an imaginary hat to me and said, “And may you always have eternity together.”
John and Ian insisted on feeding me before taking me home, and so we stopped off at this little Indian restaurant where the lighting was dark and the booths small and cramped. There was barely enough space for John and me to sit next to each other without me practically sitting in his lap, but I doubted he minded much.
Under some unspoken agreement, the dynamic of our relationship had changed from casual flirting to something a little more . . . I don’t know. But we were definitely more than just friends now.
It was as if that kiss under the rose-colored sky, with the fireflies twinkling all around us, had been our silent acknowledgment of the fact that there was something definite between us, whatever that something was.
Ian couldn’t stop flirting with our waitress, this pretty Indian girl about my age with coffee-and-cream skin and a diamond stud in her nose. He had her blushing and giggling so fiercely that I thought the poor girl might hyperventilate or trip over her own feet if he didn’t stop.
Her fingers shook as she set his plate before him, and he grabbed her hand in both his and said, “There’s nothing to be nervous about now, aye? I won’t bite . . . unless you want me to.”
John kept fidgeting next to me and saying things like “That’s enough, Ian,” and “Give it a rest, Ian,” and “People are watching, Ian.” I wasn’t sure why Ian’s messing with the girl made John so uncomfortable, especially since she was obviously enjoying it, but it did. Only when John pounded his fist against the table hard enough to rattle the water glasses did Ian finally stop.
“You really know how to suck all the fun out of a night,” said Ian to John.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked them a few minutes later, if only to lessen the sudden tension in the air. Both of them were pushing their food around their plates and refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
“I’ve lost my appetite,” Ian said, his words clipped as though in a pout.
It hadn’t escaped my attention that John was very much on edge, and I wondered if this was the norm for their relationship. They seemed pretty close, but I’d begun to sense this underlying strain, conveyed in silent glares and a subtle narrowing of the eyes, which seemed to communicate more than words.
I caught the waitress’s attention, no difficult task considering she’d been staring at our table the entire time, and motioned for the check. I meant to pay for it myself—the boys had eaten nothing, after all—but John snagged it before I could and stuck a wad of cash in the girl’s hand without even counting it.
“Keep the change,” he said, and slid out of the booth.
For a split second I thought he was going to storm out of the restaurant without a backward glance at Ian or me, but he reached his hand for mine. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
When John pulled up in the drive, I saw my mother standing at the front window looking out. It was dark outside, and the glow from the lights behind her set her small form in relief. She held her arms crossed over her chest, her posture ram-rod straight. I wondered how long she’d been standing there.
I had made no contingency plans for what I would do when my mother caught me in this extraordinary lie. It wasn’t a question of if, but definitely of when; she and Zach’s mom Helen were best friends and talked to each other about everything. I had no doubt my mom had called Helen after she and I struck our deal, and I was positive Helen had then told Zach to expect my call. Of course, that call had never happened.
“Crud,” I said under my breath.
“Are you home too late?” John asked, misunderstanding the reason for my anxiety.
I looked at my watch. I still had more than an
hour before curfew, so my mother had no right to argue on that account. “No. It’s just that I didn’t exactly tell her I was going out tonight. I mean, I left a note and all, but I didn’t tell her who I was with.”
“And she thought you were with Zach,” said John, reading between the lines.
Ian leaned forward, all pretense of anger having disappeared as his curiosity got the better of him. “And who is Zach?”
“My ex-boyfriend,” I said, my eyes still trained on my mother at the window. She hadn’t budged an inch.
“Oh,” Ian said, exaggerating the long vowel of the word. “John didn’t tell me there was an ex. Is he very handsome? Maybe you could introduce me.”
I turned around and stared at Ian in frank astonishment. “What about that waitress you were flirting with not more than twenty minutes ago?”
Ian raised a brow. His teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. “I’m none too finicky. As long as they’re warm.”
“That’s enough,” John said, the warning evident in his voice. He touched my hand. “Let me walk you to the door. Introduce me to your mother.”
Introducing him to my mother when she was in an obvious huff was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn’t find the words to tell him so. Instead, I nodded like it was the sanest idea in the world, even though my insides twisted and spasmed like I was on my way to the gallows and about to be gutted with a spoon. “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Good luck with that, brother,” said Ian to John. “Though somehow I think you’ll not need it.” I glanced back at Ian in question. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “John has a knack for—”
“Come on,” John said to me, cutting him off.
“Don’t be a stranger!” Ian called, his laughter trailing after us.
Blood Type Page 9
