Quin began to sweat. “Uh, okay, I’m sorry to spring up on you, but I suppose I wanted to come and introduce myself. I mean, we already met, of course. But I figured since you’d petted me, you might want to learn my name. Seems the polite thing.”
The vampire’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
“What was that?” Quin asked.
The vampire bolted forward, stopping mere feet from Quin. “I did notpetyou.”
“You kinda did, though,” Quin pointed out, demonstrating in the air what the vampire had done to his head the other night.
The vampire eyed Quin’s fingers. “But you weren’t…you.”
Quin see-sawed one hand and bobbed his head in unison. “It was me, and it wasn’t me.”
The vampire—Quin needed to get his name—furrowed his brow. It made him look adorable, his delicate features screwing up. He looked like one of those images of someone’s pet cat they’d Photoshopped with angry eyebrows. Quin had to bite his tongue to stop himself from smiling. As much as the vampire appeared harmless, Quin hadn’t forgotten the sight of his fangs or talons.
“Quin Rheon,” he said, trying once again for a handshake.
The vampire pursed his perfectly pink bow-like lips. “Kit.” Kit looked at Quin’s outstretched hand but didn’t shake it. “Why did you come to find me? What do you want?”
Quin patted a hand over his hair, pretending that he’d always meant to tidy it up and that Kit hadn’t left him hanging. “To introduce myself, seeing as we’re neighbours.”
At this, Kit eyed the other houses on the street in alarm. “Neighbours?”
“Oh, not like those kinds of neighbours. I’m on the outskirts of Anstruther.”
Tension slipped off Kit’s shoulders. “Well, now that we know each other’s names, and where we both are, we can avoid one another from here on out. Should be easy.”
“Avoid one another?” Quin echoed. “Why would we want to do that?” And here he’d thought he might have found a friend.
Kit looked dumbfounded. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Uh, because it’d be nice to hang out?”
“I don’t ‘hang out’. You’re what, in your thirties? I’m not in your age bracket.”
“Thirty-four. I presumed vampires wouldn’t conform to expectations like that. I mean, you look like you’re in your twenties.” If Quin was being generous. He assumed, however, that telling an immortal creature they looked like a perpetual teenager wouldn’t endear them to him.
“You’re a child compared to me,” Kit said haughtily.
Quin wondered if he should take offence. Most people saw his height, width, beard and general appearance and guessed he was older than he was. He’d been able to buy cider from off-licences since he was thirteen. He’d not looked like a child in a long time. But he found it funny that Kit—who in reality appeared well over a decade younger than him—considered him a child.
“All right,” Quin said. “Just thought we could go on a walk or something. Didn’t realise there was an age limit on that.”
“I—What?” Kit asked, incredulous. “You want me to take you on a walk? Like a literal dog?”
“Wait, no, not like that,” Quin said. “For a walktogether,” he stressed.
“All I’m hearing is that you’d like to go walkies.”
Quin burst out laughing, a big belly laugh that had him holding his stomach. He swore he saw the ghost of a smile pass Kit’s lips before they pressed into a firm, unamused line.
Before the debate continued, a door along the street opened. A bickering older couple left their house, arguing under their breaths, and the distraction was enough that Quin realised he and Kit were having a face-off in full view of anyone—no discretion whatsoever.
Quin nodded at the couple as they passed, whilst Kit acted like they didn’t exist. Quin jerked his head at Kit once thehumans had turned a corner. “We could wander down to the beach?”
Kit blinked. “What was it I said in the past five minutes that gave you the impression that I wanted to go anywhere with you?”
That retort hurt. Just a bit. “Right. Okay. Well.” Quin drummed his fingers on his legs as he tried to come up with a good reason to prolong their conversation. The only reason he wasn’t giving up was that Kit was still standing there. If Kit had wanted to leave, he could have sped off.
