After a few seconds, Ian opened the door wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans ripped at the knees. A slice of cheese pizza dangled limply in his hand. He caught the way my eyes lingered longer than necessary on his chest before flicking back to his eyes and preened like a peacock.
“Like anything you see?” he said, bracing one arm against the door and barring me from entering.
My cheeks burned, but I refused to let on that he had embarrassed me. “Are you going to make me stand out here all night, or are you going to invite me in?”
“In a minute.” He bent his head toward mine, so close that I thought he meant to kiss me. His lips grazed my ear, and the skin on my neck tingled as his breath tickled my jaw line. I held my own breath in an attempt to slow my heart rate.
“If I were a vampire,” he whispered, “would I do this?” He stood back then and deliberately opened his mouth wide. Then he took a mouthful of pizza, devouring half the slice in one bite. He wiped away a stray drip of oil from his chin using the back of his hand. “Mmmmmm. Extra cheese. My favorite.”
“I can’t believe he told you,” I said, pushing past Ian as he broke out in laughter behind me. My heart had yet to slow down.
“Don’t be angry!” he called out as he followed. “I’m flattered, really. Vampires are the epitome of good looks and sexual prowess, aye? You’ve paid me a great compliment.”
I reached the living room and spun to face him. “Where’s John?”
Ian sighed and pointed with his pizza crust across the room to a swinging door. “In the kitchen.”
I found John plating slices of pizza at the kitchen table. He looked up at the sound of my entrance. “Good. You’re here.”
“I can’t believe you told him.” I dropped my purse on the table and unscrewed the lid of a two-liter soda bottle. Then I poured generous shots into three plastic cups already filled with ice, all the while refusing to meet his eyes. I was going for mad, but instead I just felt stupid.
“Look at me,” John said. I looked up. John grinned, and my entire body flushed with heat. “Ian thinks you’re cute, and he doesn’t care that you dreamed he was some hideous monster. He only cares that you actually dreamed of him. Honestly, I should have kept quiet. That’s all he’s been talking about.”
I laughed through my nose, feeling somewhat better. “And he’s supposed to be the older, more mature one?”
“Age is just a state of mind,” Ian said, coming up from behind me to snag one of the plates of pizza. He raised a cup of soda to me in salute and drained the entire thing at once. He slammed it down with a grimace.
“If that’s the case,” John said. “You haven’t aged a day past adolescence.”
“Lighten up, brother. Where’s the fun in life if you’re so serious all the time?” Ian raised a brow at John and then pushed his way through the door.
“How long did you say he’s in town for?” I whispered, not wanting my voice to carry.
John shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Ian shouted from the next room, “I’m going to start the movie without you if you two don’t stop sucking face and get in here in the next one minute exactly!”
With a shared smile, we quickly loaded our arms with plates, cups, and napkins, and then we made our way into the living room.
“The Lost Boys?” I said, my eyes landing on an open DVD case. “Is that, like, some spoof on Peter Pan, or something?”
“Or something,” Ian said from the floor where he sat with his back against the couch. He tilted his head to look up at me. “It’s only one of the greatest films ever made within the vampire genre.”
“Ah. I get it,” I said, more than a hint of sarcasm in my voice. “You’ve got quite the sense of humor, Ian.”
I sat next to John on the couch, snuggling close to him so that the lengths of our thighs touched. I was no fan of horror flicks—romantic comedies were definitely more my speed—but I snatched the DVD case from the table and read the synopsis on the back. The only vampires I could stomach looked more like Robert Pattinson than the actors on the cover, whoever the heck they were.
“Have ye seriously never seen it?” Ian said.
“Nope.”
“Well, get ready. You’re in for a real treat. We’re talking about quality acting.”
“All right. But if this gives me nightmares,” I said to Ian, “I’m holding you personally responsible. I’ll hunt you down with a wooden spike and a vial of holy water.”
He bared his teeth and hissed. “I’d like to see ye try. Ye’re nothing more than a wee mortal lass,” he said, deliberately broadening his Scots accent.
“You think you scare me?” I said, nudging the back of his head with my toe.
“All right,” John said. “Cool it with the vampire crap and start the movie already. Let’s see how vicious these bloodsuckers really are.”
I suppose at one time the movie had been gruesome and maybe even terrifying, but special effects had evolved drastically over the last few decades. I was only scared a little.
“See? No bat feet here.” Ian yanked off his sock and wiggled his toes to prove he had five perfectly formed phalanges. “And I don’t hang from the rafters when I sleep.”
“That’s because you sleep in a coffin,” I said.
“Of course I don’t!” Ian looked thoroughly horrified at the idea. “I sleep in a bed, same as you. I can show you if ye like.” He waggled his brows suggestively.
“No, thank you,” I said, my cheeks bursting with warmth. Ian was charming and handsome, a fact I was certain he knew and used to his full advantage.
“Are you hitting on my date?”
“Well someone has to, brother. And you just sitting there, cold and limp as a dead mackerel.”
Ian stood and vaulted the couch so that he was standing behind me. He stroked a finger down my cheek to where the pulse thumped in my neck. “I think I’d like—”
John smacked Ian upside the head with a throw pillow. “Shut up, will you? And get your hands off her.”
Ian’s grin widened. “I think someone’s in love. Johnny and Blake, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s ooph!”
John thwacked Ian with the pillow again, so hard that the seam burst. Bits of fluff spilled out, and for a moment no one spoke. I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from giggling.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Ian said to John.
At that, a fight ensued in which there was a lot of rolling around on the ground and jabbing with fists and elbows, not to mention a fair amount of swearing and male grunting. I tucked my knees under myself on the couch to keep out of the way, and rescued John’s full cup of soda from spilling over.
Ian finally emerged from under John, laughing. “At least make yourself useful and bring me a glass of wine,” he said. “I’m that parched now.”
My ears perked up at that. “Wine, huh?” I said, inserting verbal quotes around the word “wine.”
Ian collapsed into a chair and turned a critical eye on me. “It’s not what you’re thinking, lass,” he said, his accented voice muted, yet seductive.
“Oh? And what am I thinking?”
John had left but came back momentarily with a glass of what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be nothing more than red wine. He handed the glass to Ian, who held it up to the light, turning it to and fro as if to inspect the purity of color.
“You’re thinking this is not wine at all.” He stilled me with the sudden ferocity of his gaze. “You’re thinking this could be the blood of that young girl from the restaurant, or maybe the fair-headed lad I met at the club last night and brought home to share my bed.”
He brought the wine glass to his nose and inhaled deeply, the resulting look that crossed his face sending shivers up my spine.
My pulse throbbed in my fingertips and I squeezed my hands into fists. “And if it’s just wine?”
“And if it’s just wine,” he echoed.
“Then you’ll not object to pouring me a glass
.”
The room grew silent as Ian sat back in his chair and stared at me. He’d yet to take even one sip of the wine, but continued to hold it in front of him.
At last John laid a hand on my knee and said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Blake.”
I scoffed. “Why? Because I’ll supposedly become a vampire if I drink blood?”
Both John and Ian glanced at each other. “No,” John said slowly, turning back to me and speaking as if to a child who didn’t quite understand. “Because you drove yourself here, and your parents would have my head on a platter if you arrived home hammered.”
“Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” Ian said in a severe, mocking tone. “Haven’t you ever heard that one before?”
“Just one sip. What can one sip hurt?” I needed to prove to myself that what was in that glass was not blood, though I couldn’t believe I actually doubted it was wine.
John picked up my empty plastic cup and gave it a shake, rattling the ice cubes at the bottom. “How about some more soda instead?”
I shook my head and pointed a finger at Ian’s glass of wine. “I want that. It’s the only way to prove to me that it’s not blood, and that Ian’s not a vampire,” I said, a triumphant smirk on my face.
John shrugged and snatched the glass of wine from Ian’s hand before he could say anything. He passed it to me. “Fine, but it’s an old vintage and has a very distinct odor. You’ll think it’s the most disgusting thing ever.”
I grasped the stem of the wine glass and peered into the bowl at the dark red liquid. The fumes shot up my nose at once. John was right; the wine smelled overpoweringly sweet and I repressed a gag.
Holding my breath against the odor, I brought the glass to my lips. But at the very last moment my stomach gave a great lurch and I shoved the wine back in John’s direction. I covered my mouth with my hand and shot to my feet, making frantic gestures with my hand.
“The bathroom’s that way,” Ian said with a grin, pointing down the opposite hall. I took off running with him calling from behind, “First door on your right!”
I returned a few minutes later feeling better, and yet completely mortified. “Ugh. I’m really sorry.” I wrapped my arms around my waist. “I cannot understand why people like drinking that stuff.”
“You mean wine?” Ian said, the corner of his mouth turning up.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I mean wine. I don’t really think you’re a vampire. I was only goofing around.”
“Good,” he said. “Because if ye ever discovered our secret, I’d have to kill you.”
Olivia squealed when I told her what had happened. “I can’t believe you puked,” she said, struggling to catch her breath in between fits of hysteria. “God, I would have been so freaking embarrassed.”
“It was awful,” I said, wishing for the hundredth time that I could rewind the last few hours for a do-over. “I swear I wanted to die, Libby. I wouldn’t even let John kiss me goodnight because I was afraid I had puke breath. What a way to make an impression, huh?”
“Oh, you definitely made an impression. And all because you couldn’t handle a little sip of alcohol. I guess we know who’ll be the designated driver once we hit college,” she said, which set her off on another round of giggles.
“I can’t help it. Alcohol smells like a horse’s anus.”
Olivia laughed even harder. “And how . . . do you know . . . what a horse’s . . .” I could hear her strangled breathing on the other end of the phone as she tried to get the word out. “What a h-horse’s,” she tried again, “ANUS smells like?”
“What I lack in personal experience, I make up for in imagination.”
“So then it really was wine and not blood,” Olivia said, sounding genuinely disappointed. “Do you mean to tell me there are no vampires walking among the living?”
“I think it’s safe to assume that whatever awful-smelling concoction was in that cup was not blood.”
“But you didn’t actually drink any, so you can’t be one-hundred-percent sure.”
I snorted. “I wouldn’t even know what blood is supposed to taste like! But c’mon. You know this is all just one big joke.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Olivia said. “Gabe said that vampires are totally real and that he’s even seen one walking around downtown. There’s this guy that dresses in a black—”
“Trench coat and cowboy hat,” I finished. “Yeah, I know exactly the guy he’s talking about. Long blondish hair and really weird, but sort of good-looking in a scary way. I actually ran into him a few months back. Like, literally ran into him as I was coming out of a shop. But that hardly . . . Wait,” I said suddenly. “You told Gabe?”
There was a slight pause. “He’s my boyfriend,” Olivia said finally, as if that justified her big mouth.
“Oh that’s just fan-freaking-tastic! He’s going to tell Zach, and no telling who Zach will go yammering to. If this gets out once school starts that I think my new boyfriend and his best friend are vampires, I’m going to be a laughing stock. Thanks a lot, Olivia.”
“Relax. We have another month of summer vacation. This will all blow over by then. And who knows if you and John will still be together come September?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
There was another pause. “Well, John is obviously your rebound guy.”
“I’m the one who broke up with Zach, remember?”
“So?”
“So, I’m hardly broken-hearted about it. I mean, yeah there are some things about Zach that I miss, but I’m having a lot of fun with John. I can really see this going somewhere.”
“Oh,” Olivia said, teasingly drawing out the “o” sound of the word. “Like what sort of fun are we talking about here?”
“Not that sort of fun.”
There was a sudden crash on Olivia’s end and then the immediate sound of crying children. “Fudge it all to heck,” she muttered. “Gotta go. Mom and Dad are still out on their monthly date, and I’m supposed to be getting the little hellions down for the night. It is way past their bedtime. I thought if I left them alone in front of the TV, they’d just pass out. No such luck.”
She hung up with no further explanation or goodbye, and I was left staring at the dead phone in my hand. I set it on my nightstand and perched on the edge of my bed. Now what?
I’d come home from John’s to find that my own parents had already tucked themselves in. They were watching Victor Victoria, one of their many Blake Edwards DVDs, in their bedroom when I poked my head in to say goodnight. But now I was too keyed up to go to bed just yet, so I grabbed my robe and pj’s and plodded off down the hall to the bathroom. A bubble bath was exactly what I needed to help me relax.
I sank down in the Jacuzzi tub, letting the warm water and lavender-scented bubbles rise over me like a slow-rising flood, until nothing but my nose was visible. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander, trying not to dwell on what an idiot I’d made of myself in front of John and Ian. I wasn’t doing a very good job of it, though.
I replayed the entire evening in my head like the reel of a very bad movie. We’d been having fun watching TV and eating pizza. But then I had to go and ruin everything by insisting on taking a sip of Ian’s wine. And then when I’d finally had it in my hand, I’d chickened out and barely made it to the bathroom in time before totally puking up my pizza.
I cringed as I imagined what John and Ian must think of me. They were probably sitting in their home right this very minute laughing at what an immature little girl I was. Ian was almost certainly telling John what a real winner he’d brought home this time, wink wink. And all that vampire stuff . . . They probably thought I was the biggest dork ever. I wished I had never told John about my dream or let Olivia put ideas into my head.
I was sitting cross-legged on my bed a little while later, combing the tangles from my hair, when my phone rang. “Hey John,” I said, recognizing the number that popped up on the screen.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Nope,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to call and make sure you’re okay.”
I flopped back onto my pillow and closed my eyes, stifling an embarrassed groan. “I’m fine. Apparently I’m just incredibly intolerant of even the smell of alcohol.” I laughed at myself. What else could I do?
“I owe you an apology.”
I opened my eyes and sat up on my elbows, cradling the phone against my ear and shoulder. “An apology for what?”
“I should have told Ian to get lost. He was being a jerk.”
“No, I’m the one who got carried away with the whole vampire thing. Really, if anyone should apologize, it’s me for ruining a perfectly good evening.”
“You didn’t ruin it. I’m glad you came over. And once Ian leaves, I hope we’ll be able to spend a lot more time together.”
My stomach flipped. “Are you free tomorrow night?”
There was a slight hesitation. “I’ve actually, uh, I’ve got to work. I took some time off when Ian came to town, but my boss said I need to start pulling my weight again. Or else.”
“Yikes. Well, okay. What time will you be home?”
“Probably not until late.”
“Okay. Well what about the next night?”
“I can swing that.”
We hung up after finalizing our plans. Then I crawled under the covers and fell at once into a deep, and blessedly dreamless, sleep.
October 27
“No one told me who and what you are,” I said to Josiah, which was the truth. “I’ve seen you before. Before the night we met at The Marauder’s Cove, I mean. I sort of figured it out on my own.”
He reached inside his coat pocket for a worn leather wallet and placed a five-dollar bill on the table, presumably as a tip for the girl behind the counter, even though she’d done nothing but steal glances our way. No doubt she thought I looked like some strung-out meth addict and wondered what Josiah could possibly want with a girl like me.
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