“Nope. Blood red.”
“I should’ve known.”I playfully rolled my eyes at his mischievous smile. Blood red was so fitting. And it was the only color he owned besides black.“What’s your favorite movie?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Favorite show?”I tried again.
“Don’t have one.”
“Favorite song?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, I know. What’s your favorite book? You have to have one of those. You’re always reading.”
“My favorite book?”Hepaused to think.“I guess I’d have to say Dracula and Salem’s Lot.I like mysteries and thrillers, mostly.”
“You’re so predictable for someone who laughs at me for believing vampire stereotypes. I mean look at this,” I flung an arm out,“we’re sitting in the coffin you sleep in, in the middle of a pitch black room while you burn things with a blood red lighter. And look at that, for fuck’s sake.”I pointed to something I had just noticed: a miniature cemetery, complete with collectibletombstones, laid out neatly across the top of his bookshelf. Which was, of course, filled with horror novels.“Do you have a favorite anything besides blood red and vampire books?”
“Yeah. You’re my favorite bind.”
“You only get one, dummy,”I reminded him.“That’s a given.”
“You only ever get one you can choose,”he corrected.“And chances are, you probably won’t find one you want. Lucky for me, I did.”
“Same thing.”I tried to make my voice indifferent. I was also trying to suppress my smile and the faint blush creeping up before he noticed. He was making me so happy tonight.“Where’d you go to college?”I asked. It was the next thing that came to mind. He answered and my mouth dropped in disbelief.“Isn’t that an Ivy League?”
“Ivy Plus,” he said. “Not quite, but it’s close.”
“Still!Isn’t that like, a school for genius people with 4.5 GPAs and shit?”I straightened up when he somewhat nodded. He didn’t seem to care, but I was in awe. I had no idea he was actually prestigious or whatever.“What’d you major in?”
“I double majored in Forensic Science, and Psychologywith a specialization in Abnormal Psychology. Plus a minor in Criminology.”
“Are you serious?” I began piecing things together when he nodded.“This explains so much. No wonder you’re so fascinated by death and murders.And that explains how you never get caught killing people. You studied how to find evidence so of course you know how to not leave any.”I kept staring, at a loss for words. And then I found more and kept going.“And you studied abnormal psychology! That’s the study of mental illnesses, right?”
“Among other things.”
I was thinking back to the way he’d reacted when I first mentioned havingbipolardisorder. He’d gotten so serious,like he was processing it and rethinking specific things instead of being generally awkward or freaked out like most people. The way he’d asked about my specific triggers, if I had type one or two, and so many other comments he’d made or questions he’d asked that most people would never think of.
“Holy shit,Dennis. You must be super smart. I never noticed.”
“You don’t notice a lot of things,” he said.
“Well now I feel stupid. Are Sean and Mateo super smart, too?”
“We went to the same college, if that’s what you mean. Sean was a Business major and Mateo majored in Kinesiology. Weall met in a night PoliSci class freshman year.”
“Ugh. This means I’m the only one who’s not basically genius level in this house.” I pouted before deciding I didn’t actually care. “When’s your birthday?”
“Why do you wanna know?”
“So we can celebrate it. Duh.”My focus dwindled when he stood from the coffin. He pulled off his dark shirt, then tossed it aside and began sifting through drawers for another. I couldn’t help but admire his tattoos. And his back. Literally everything.“I’m gonna make you a cake and everything,”I said,fighting through my straying thoughts.“I’ll even bring you a human, if you want.”
“Oh, yeah?”He changed to a black shirt and stripped down to boxers.
“Yeah. What do you want?”
“For what?”
