Karim:When are you going?
Luis:going where?
He sent it just to be irritating.
Karim:to the Renaissance Festival
Karim:to the bar, idiot.
Luis:Wednesday, why?
He didn't have an appointment, but he didn’t want to say that. Didn’t want to seem like he hadn’t committed yet.
Karim:What time?
Luis:WHY?
Karim:just tell me.
Luis scowled at the phone. What was he up to? His phone pinged before he could send another reply, but the text was from Julien.
Julien:I’ve taken his phone. Thank you for notifying us of the change in plans. I hope you have a lovely week, and we will see you on Friday.
Right. Okay. So that was settled then. Luis’s fingers tapped the edge of his phone. He felt… strangely disappointed by the outcome of the conversation.
What had he wanted out of this, Karim to tell him no? To demand to have his blood?
Luis:Thanks, have a good week. See you Friday.
Well, he’d made the choice. It was time to commit.
Luis opened the browser that had the application, and started filling it out.
Chapter Ten
At half past nine on Wednesday, Luis got dressed, locked up, and went down to his car.
He’d done his best to ignore the building jitteriness all day, but now he had to confront it.
You can do this,he said to himself, jamming the key into the ignition and turning the car on.It’ll be fine. Lots of people do this.
Lots of people weren’t him, though. Lots of people didn’t have his mother’s voice in his head, telling him about everything that could go wrong.
Luis had been to The Last Drop a lot, but it was different to walk in without vampires in tow. Instead of their usual table, he went to the back where Jo was hosting at the entrance to the back room. She recognized him, and there was surprise on her face when he offered his phone with the appointment date and confirmation.
“No companions tonight?” She looked in the direction of their usual table, empty.
“Nope, just me.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else, but didn’t. Luis was grateful, because he wasn’t sure he could field questions about his life choices just then.
Jo verified that all his information was up to date and that the paperwork was complete. “Okay, great,” she said when she’d gone through it all. “Go on through. Ronan is the nurse on staff today, and he’ll get you all set up.”
She gestured at the curtain, to the door behind it, and Luis went in.
He was surprised first about how well-lit and spacious it was in comparison to the bar. The room gave off a vibe similar to the tattoo parlor Cassie had dragged him to a few years prior–a sterile environment, but with some effort toward making it look cozy and inviting.
Luis had worried the room might look too much like a clinic, that it might remind him of all the hospital rooms he’d ever been in. It was certainly closer to that than the front end of the bar, but it didn’t have the same barren utilitarianism.
