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Tamer Shrew was less of a fancy vampire bar and more eclectic live music venue, but Luis hoped for one night that would be okay. It was both different enough and familiar enough to him that going didn’t rattle his nerves too badly.
“This looks fun,” Julien said as Luis pulled into the tiny parking lot adjacent to the bar. Tamer Shew was packed, a full crowd inside spilling out into the street beneath the glow of neon lights.
“They serve blood here?” Karim asked. There was doubt in his voice.
“I promise,” Luis said as he turned the car off and they all got out.
On the walk up they could hear guitar riffs and bass pouring out of the bar. The front was clogged with clusters of people smoking and sipping their drinks inside the corded area.
“It better not be Vitavamp,” Karim said as they got to the bouncer and Luis had to stop to pull out his ID.
“Vitavamp?” Luis asked when the bouncer nodded him through.
“A brand of bottled blood. Karim’s least favorite,” Julien explained.
Karim crossed his arms. “I swear they add something to it. It tastes wrong.”
Julien said something in return, but Luis couldn’t hear it as they headed inside and the crowd enveloped them. Luis led them toward the back of the bar. It was further from the live music, but there usually were a few tables free because a lot of people preferred to stand up front. They snagged a tiny one tucked into a corner.
“I haven’t been to a place with live music in a long time,” Julien said with obvious pleasure as he sat. The seats were so close together his arm brushed Luis’s. Luis’s skin goose bumped despite the warm air.
“It’s always pretty busy here, they book a lot of up-and-coming bands,” Luis said, turning to Julien. This close, Luis could see how the lights bounced off Julien’s pale eyelashes. His heart started to beat a little faster.
“Oh, you’ve been here before?” Julien asked.
“Yeah, me and my friend used to come a lot,” Luis said.
“Cassie, right?”
He startled at hearing her name out of Julien’s mouth. “Oh, uh, yeah.”
Julien nodded. “You’ve mentioned before you two went to shows together,” he explained. “She’s been trying to get you to get up on the stage.”
Luis blinked at him. He’d clearly mentioned that at some point, but had no memory of it. Now he felt embarrassed he’d given away something so intimate. He never talked about his music.
“Uh, yeah. She–yeah,” he said lamely. “But I haven’t been here in a while,” Luis said, “it’s not as fun by yourself.”
Julien nodded sagely. “She’s in graduate school, right?” Julien asked.
Where was all this coming from? Luis had worked hard in the last year not to really talk about himself to avoid getting attached to something that wasjust a job.
But clearly some things had slipped through the cracks.
And Julien had remembered every one of them.
“Yeah. She’s getting her PhD in pathobiology,” Luis said.
“What’s a pathobiologist do?” This came from Karim, who’d stopped scoping the bar with distaste and was now tuning into the conversation.
“They study human diseases,” Luis explained. “Cassie hasn’t picked a specialty yet since she just finished her first year, but she’s leaning toward hematopathology.”
He flushed, because it wasn’t hard to make the connection between her studying blood diseases and Luis. On his best days, Luis couldn’t think about it, let alone talk about it.
“Disease research,” Julien said approvingly, “we need smart people on it.”
“Yeah, she’s going to do great things,” Luis said, and meant it. “She’s amazing.”
