The other car door opened and Julien slid in.
“Good evening,” Julien said with an easy smile. The door shut and Luis watched him tilt his head as if scenting the air. “How’re you feeling?”
“Good,” Luis said quickly. “Much better, thank you.”
Julien clicked on his seatbelt. “I’m glad to hear it. I wanted to text you this week to check-in, but thought you might need some space.”
Luis hated the stupid flutter in the bottom of his belly at hearing that. The way he desperately wanted to know what Julien would’ve said. Luis had tucked every one of his sweet words from last weekend into long-term memory, despite the guilt that had dogged him about it. The voice that had told him those didn’t belong to him, not really. Julien was justbeing nice.
“Oh, um. Well, I’m all good now,” Luis said.
“Good,” Julien said with a soft smile. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. We’ve been thinking about you all week.”
Oh.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Luis said. “And I’m uh, sorry for worrying you. And for last week–”
Karim made a sound of derision, “Please stop apologizing.”
“Karim,”Julien said, as Luis felt his cheeks flare with heat.
“No, I just–I mean thank you,” Luis fumbled out. “For all of that. I know I wasn’t… at my best.”
“We were glad to help,” Julien said. “Glad you weren’t alone. And if you want to file–”
“I already asked,” Karim cut in quickly, “he doesn’t.”
Luis was stupidly grateful not to have to explain it again.
“Ah,” Julien sounded apologetic, “right.”
There was a beat of awkward silence.
“Actually,” Luis said, desperate to move forward. “I was wondering if we could go somewhere new tonight? There’s a bar not too far from here that I thought you both might like? But, um, they don’t serve fresh blood, only bottled.”
He wasn’t fooling anyone with his suggestion of a new bar, but not even Karim made a pointed comment on it.
“Somewhere new?” Julien said with interest. “I think that could be fun. And bottled blood is fine.”
“Speak for yourself,” Karim grumbled.
“Ignore him,” Julien said immediately. “Bottled isfine, and we’d love a new place, wouldn’t we?”
Julien was too polite to ever physically elbow someone, but Luis could hear the nudge in his tone.
“Yeah, would be nice to go somewhere new,” Karim said. “Julien is such a creature of habit.”
Julien hummed. “Guilty. But that’s what you two are for, pushing me out of my comfort zone. Alright Luis, take us somewhere new.”
Some of the tightness in Luis’s chest eased. “Okay. Okay, great.”
Luis had been to Tamer Shrew half a dozen times, so he didn’t need to map it. He started the car.
In the rearview mirror he caught movement, and looked up to see Karim pulling out his phone. As he shifted into reverse, Luis felt his phone in his pocket buzz. He had to tamp down on the smile that tried to curl across his lips.
So maybe not everything had been irrevocably changed between them.
Luis could work with that.
