Foxx continued to cry out in terror even as Alastair pulled him back into his arms. Not even his friend’s comfort was enough to drive his fears away.
* * *
Alastair presseda kiss to Foxx’s forehead. “It’s going to all work out, I promise.”
Foxx nodded, not looking up. The vampire’s poor nose was red and raw from the number of tissues he’d gone through in the last thirty minutes.
“Go get some sleep, okay?” he said softly.
The vampire nodded again, gave him a tight hug before spinning and toddling out through the door and down the hall.
Alastair pulled his phone from his pocket, stopped the recording, and after a brief moment of hesitation…sent it to Harlow. Likely by the time the vampire had made it back to his apartment, after he no doubt roamed randomly around the building to avoid going back, Harlow would have had time to listen to it all...if the fucker was awake, that was…
Harlow sat at the dining table, staring blankly at the expansive living room space…waiting. It’d been thirty minutes and Foxx still hadn’t come back.
He jumped when his phone dinged. Frowning, he snagged it off the table and flipped it open. His frown only deepened on seeing that he had a text from Alastair. He was slightly surprised that Foxx had never mentioned to the vampire that he didn’t text.
Opening it up, his brow rose on finding a video. It took a good minute for him to figure out how to play it.
His eyes widened at the first words he heard. “Foxx…” he rasped.
The longer Harlow listened, the less shocked and the more tense he became, to the point his stomach was churning with the emotion.
When Foxx began to wail in fear, he barely stopped himself from crushing his phone.
His gaze snapped to the hallway at the sound of the front door opening.
As Foxx slowly slunk down the hall, the vampire eyed him warily. Mouth opening, the man went to say something but froze, eyes widening as someone spoke on the recording.
Harlow leapt from his chair towards Foxx, managing to snag his hand just as the vampire tried to bolt.
“Wait!” Harlow gasped.
Foxx half-heartedly tried to tug from his hold. Or maybe it was less half-hearted and more that the vampire was too tired to put in any real effort.
“Please...” Harlow swallowed. “Just listen to what I have to say.”
Tears flooding his eyes, Foxx shook his head and continued to pull.
“Foxx… I do care!” he swore. “I do. I feel something for you.”
The vampire stopped trying to break his hold. And with tears dripping down his face, Foxx stared up at him, his eyes unbelievably wide now.
“I…I don’t understand it completely myself. Which I place on me being not all there. But I do care. W-when—” He swallowed. “When you got hurt…in that explosion…I was worried. I…I think I was scared. My body reacted in ways I’ve never experienced. And then after…”
“After…?” Foxx asked in a small voice.
“I started having nightmares. Which shocked the shit out of me,” he said with a hesitant and very awkward laugh. “In each and every one of them, I’d get there…and I’d be too late. I didn’t find you still alive. In most of them, you were already turning to ash.
“And then the priest thing happened. I felt like I was losing my mind, and the nightmares didn’t get any better. Do you realize, Foxx, that you gave this old man his first nightmare? Never in my, well, forty-five still at that point, years had I even had a dream, let alone something I’d classify as a nightmare. And you want to know the most ridiculous part?”
Sniffling, Foxx nodded.
“At one point, I woke up so out of it that I thought I was having a heart attack. I ran my ass to Tony, asking him what was wrong, thinking I was dying.”
Foxx blinked, before a snort slipped out followed by a giggle. “You didn’t?!”
“I did. I don’t know who was more shocked, him or me. This was after we’d gotten you back. The day you came home from the hospital.”
