Touché.
Ignoring her quip, I lean back in the chair and grin lazily. “Ask me anything.”
Joanna rolls her eyes. “Of course, you wantmeto ask all the questions. Isn’t the point for all of you to compete formyattention?”
“I’m not here for your attention, so why would I do that?”
For a split second, shock flashes across her sharp features, as if I’ve hurt her feelings. I debate whether or not I should pass it off as a joke, but I don’t think it would make much of a difference. Just because I agreed to participate in this ridiculous event for Raegan’s sake, doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it.
Once I realized Joanna was the only woman here, my annoyance multiplied. But I didn’t mean to take it out on her directly.
“Good to know,” she says with a scoff. “Now I don’t have to waste my time.” She gets up from her chair and walks away.
I should stop her—that would be the gentlemanly thing to do. Though my statement was honest, I didn’t mean it to come across so harshly. She probably thinks I don’t find her attractive, which I do.
How could I not? Despite her annoying habit of showing up at the most inconvenient times, she’s a beautiful woman. Her long, chestnut brown hair is silky and straight, her skin a warm ivory, and her lean frame showcases strong muscles from physical labor. I would bet her thighs could crack me like a walnut, and my traitorous hormones send a pulse to my cock.
I imagine her hovering above me, knees on either side of my head, smothering me with her?—
Jesus Christ.Maybe I am here for her attention.
I most definitely find her attractive. It’s the relationship that would never work. I’ve been alive for one hundred and four years, and there’s no telling how many more. I gave up on the idea of companionship many decades ago, after accepting the fact that, as much as they might think so, no human woman would be happy growing old next to a vampire who physically ages at the speed of a sloth.
Then there’s the emotional baggage.
No onewants over a century’s worth of my trauma offloaded onto them.
Instead of going after Joanna, I stay sitting like the asshole I am. I never got the hang of proper inflection when trying to convey my true feelings. It’s just how I was raised, in a different time, when there was less nuance and more intention. All I wantto do is state things as they are, but sometimes that bluntness can come across as rude—so I’ve been told.
One would think having sixty-five years of stasis to work on this would make a difference, but alas, I am an old dog with no tricks.
I’m not the type of man to chase after a woman—I wasn’t in my first life, and I’m certainly not now. What would I say to her if I did? Apologize? Tell her I find her perfectly appealing, but we could never date, because she’ll die and I’ll have only just started getting gray in my hair?
Vampires aren’t immortal. We don’t live forever, stuck in the body of whatever age we died. Once we turn, time slows tremendously for us. I age one year in approximately a decade of human life. Technically, my body has been approaching its forties for sixty years.
I watch as Joanna joins Raegan and Jamie at the table that’s been set up as a hub for this disastrous event. Jamie narrows his eyes in my direction as Joanna animatedly tells Raegan just how much of a dick I am, and I know I’ll hear an earful about it tomorrow when I grab my morning latte.
Great. Now I’ve upset Jamie as well—the one friend I’ve made in the last decade, and the only one who knows how to make a decent matcha in this town.
I decide that it’s a problem for another time.
I stand up, sliding my chair under the table, then make my way outside, feeling the eyes of everyone on my back. I slip out the door, ignoring the obnoxiousdingfrom the bell. I take my time walking back to my apartment, allowing the crisp early-spring night to clear my head and help me forget all about how terribly this evening has gone. Every few feet, I’m illuminated by the streetlamps like a spotlight, and when I make it to the halfway point, the sky opens and a downpour drenches Main Street.
I curse the weather for further dampening my mood, but I don’t mind getting wet. I’m only three streets away from dry clothes and a quiet evening. I think I’ve surpassed the worst of it, but then I hear someone screeching like a cat caught in a rainstorm.
A blur of motion whooshes past me, and I see Joanna running like a madwoman with her purse above her head as she tries to block the rain. Mind you, the thing is as big as my hand, so it’s not doing a great job.
I rush to catch up with her, but it only takes a few strides. “What the hell are you doing?” I ask loudly to be heard above the sound of pouring rain.
“What does it look like?” she yells back. “I’m running to my car. I had to park a mile away, remember?”
“It’s less than a mile,” I correct her, and silently scold myself for, yet again, always having to state the facts.
But she doesn’t even register it this time. She’s desperately trying to make it to the movie theater, and she’s doing it in a skin-tight dress and heels with hair plastered to the sides of her neck.
I jog alongside her until we make it to her car, and she fumbles through her tiny bag for her keys. She searches for what feels like minutes, meanwhile we’re both getting drenched. I might not have minded getting wet before, but now it’s starting to annoy me.
She turns her face to me with a defeated frown. “I can’t find my keys.”
