Harlow took a deep breath. “If I know I have to stake someplace out, or I'm about to go into a fight, I avoid drinking too much before I have to leave. And yes, we will have to stop a few times.”
With a sly smirk, he nonchalantly added, “I imagine at your age, the frequency you have to go has naturally increased anyway.”
Harlow growled. “I am not that old!”
“You are nearing, what? Middle age?”
“You are literally older than me.”
Foxx laughed. “Right, but I’m a vampire, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not even aging like fine wine. I’m just full-on preserved. Unlike you, old man.” He sent a wink at the human.
Harlow rolled his eyes. Foxx giggled.
Ah, Harlow was fun to tease. Foxx stared out the window, watching the highway and other cars pass by silently for a few moments, before turning back to the man and asking, “Anyway. Do you have like a health kick going on?”
Yes, he knew Harlow would have preferred quiet…but that just wasn’t Foxx. Not when the ‘relationship’ was so new. New meant there were too many unknowns. New things meant many questions.
He’d done the whole ‘slowly get to know people’ thing before, and usually, it ended up with a stake, or some sort of pointy weapon, aimed his way. Well, that and Foxx really had a hard time holding back his excitement with new people he was trying to start a friendship with—not to mention have sex with. So that excitement, mixed with the need to learn as much as he could, as fast as he could, made for a very talkative him.
The human took another deep breath and slowly asked, “You are going to keep talking, no matter what I say or do, aren’t you?”
Foxx blinked and responded. “Yes,” he said with absolutely zero shame or regret.
Harlow muttered, “Fuck… I had to get paired with a chatterbox.” Shaking his head, he asked, “What makes you even ask?”
“The granola bars, the protein bars, and the gross, disgusting health drinks were major clues.”
He knew gross and disgusting meant the same thing, but he had to emphasize. Because Foxx knew how horrible those drinks were. He’d tried a few. During one of those moments of thinking, surely humans didn’t drink them just for their health? As how could taste not be a factor? Boy, had he been wrong.
Harlow eyed him out of the corner of his eye. There was a definite feeling of irritation radiating from that gaze—oh well.
“You are the one who keeps mentioning my age. It’s a no-brainer that to keep in shape, I need to take care of myself. Even more so considering my job. Also, brief health kicks don’t work. Lifestyles do. Best way to feel like garbage is to eat it.”
Foxx wrinkled his nose. “Sounds responsible…and unfun.”
“Yes, well, unlike you, I’m not ‘preserved’.”
“Yeah, being a vampire, I don’t really have to worry about what I eat, or the horrible pains of aging. It’s pretty amazing, to be honest,” he said with a smirk, before a thought occurred to him. “You smoke.”
“And?”
“That is not healthy. Not even a little bit. Smoking is actually the opposite of healthy. Just all around bad for you. Like, it would be the perfect example of putting garbage into your body, except what you are really putting into it is poison.”
Harlow rolled his eyes. “I usually only do it to stop myself from wanting to drink.”
“I know we talked about the smell and all during the first case. So, ignoring the smell being noticeable to paranormals… How does drinking water come out in your mind as worse than smoking a cigarette? I need an explanation of such logic.”
Because it was not making sense in his mind one bit.
“Smoking is not worse than pissing your pants during a fight because your bladder just can’t hold it any longer.”
Foxx blinked, lips trembling as he tried to stop his laughter. But ultimately, he failed, and burst into fits of giggles. “From a certain perspective, ha, that would be worse.”
He really wanted to ask if it had happened before, but figured that could end in death, so he opted for some less danger-inducing questions. He did not want to live up to his friend’s ‘dumb bitch’ label.
“Let’s change the subject. So, about you staying with me… Is it because you have no family or friends nearby? Though I know you have told me before that you don’t have friends…but I still find that unlikely. Everyone has at least one friend. Anyway, I’m assuming no one is nearby. As if you had someone nearby, you’d be staying with them instead of me. Though I suppose you might stay away due to the dangers that may come with you. Which would be understandable.”
“Foxx, do you want me to answer the question, or just continue to let you have a conversation with yourself?” Harlow asked with a sarcastic drawl.
