Behind the hand, Julien said something too muffled to understand. Karim glared in Luis's direction in asay anything about what you just learned and I’ll kill youkind of way. Luis mimed his mouth being zipped shut on the topic.
Karim cleared his throat. “Some things are private,” he said, as if to remind Julien. “And some things you’ve sworn me topatienceon, remember?” He leaned on the last word.
Julien must have done something then, because Karim ripped his hand away with a yelp.
“We’re in public,” Karim said with scandalized surprise. He was holding his hand to his chest protectively, but Luis couldn’t see why. It was hard to imagine what would scandalize Karim.
A beat went by, then two. They were almost to the car and Luis had just nonverbally promised he wouldn’t say anything, but Karim hadn’t taken a single shot at him tonight and Luiswanted that back. He didn’t want playing-nice Karim, he wanted the real one.
“So, was this like a Romeo and Juliet scenario?” Luis asked.
Julien guffawed and Karim whipped around to look at him.
“Karim and I, star-crossed lovers,” Julien sighed wistfully and turned his head to kiss Karim off-center on his cheek. “Yes, it was something like that,” he said softly, “Karim’s father… no wait, I’m shutting up,” Julien said, as if he’d just realize he was about to go too far.
“I knew I should’ve stopped you at three bottles,” Karim said.
“Sorry, sorry,” Julien said, “goodness I just get so chatty. Ignore me Luis, I’ve overstepped.”
“It’s okay,” Luis said. As much as he’d like to know something about Karim’s history, it was best to get it from Karim himself, and not when they’d been drinking.
At the car, both vampires collapsed in the backseat as Luis got in the front. Julien started talking about one of the songs he’d liked, and Karim agreed that he’d make a playlist for Julien, but only if he wore his headphones to listen to it.
A drunken argument about headphones and the sanctity of silence followed.
Luis drove them home, partially listening, partially letting his mind wander. Tonight had been nice, better than nice. It had contained all the magic of the nights out with Cassie, but with something different and new too. For some reason instead of sticking to the small-talk topics they usually did, the conversation had, for brief moments, dipped down into something deeper.
Luis didn’t know what to make of it, but he wanted more. Wanted to hear more about Tangier and how they’d fallen inlove. Wanted to tell them about his music, about Cassie, about how lonely he’d been since she’d been gone.
He wanted more than what he’d signed up for with this job.
“A wonderful choice,” Julien said when Luis parked at their house. “Thank you for tonight, Luis.”
“More affordable too than your fancy bars, all those drinks and the bill was still less,” Karim slurred beside him in approval. He tipped his head at Luis, giving a sloppy salute. “Thanks. Night.”
“Goodnight Luis,” Julien said as they began stumbling up and out of the car.
“Night,” Luis said, turning off the engine to get out and return to his car. He waited until the front door closed behind them before turning the engine on.
On the drive home, his mind sifted through the evening, landing on the last bit from Karim.More affordable too than your fancy bars.
Luis had never seen a bill on their nights out, but he suddenly wondered about the cost. How much was a bottle of blood? How much was fresh blood?
They sold bottles in every grocery store, but Luis couldn’t remember ever looking in that section. His mother had always steered them far away from the vampire areas.
Not knowing something so basic bugged Luis the whole drive home. He’d been going out with them for over a year now, he should at least know the cost of blood.
When he home, he went straight to his laptop.
They weren’t likely to go back to Bite Back for a while, so he looked up the menu at The Last Drop, a bar he thought Julien might make their new primary.
His mouth fell open in shock when it loaded.
A 30ml ‘drink’ of blood from a human donor was priced at one hundred dollars.
One hundred dollars?
Quickly, Luis pulled up the menus of a few other bars they’d gone to. Everywhere the prices for donor blood were about the same.
