That was also something he worked on not reading anything into. He was pretty sure that Karim was just messing with him.
Ten minutes later, Minnie returned to the table.
“Got someone for you, Jay,” she said to Julien, checking the device in her hand.
“Thank you, Minnie,” Julien said politely. He then carefully pried off Karim’s hands. “Mon cœur, it’s my turn. I'll be back shortly.” His hands squeezed Karim’s, and then placed them gently on the table.
Julien turned his gaze to Luis. “If you need me,” he said simply as he did every time.
Luis sat up straighter. He always felt the need to when Julien left him in charge of Karim. Vampires could very well defend themselves, but part of his job was being an extra set of eyes when they were drinking. Blood intoxication was a very real point of weakness for vampires, and Luis took that seriously. Nothing was likely to happen in a nice place like this with plenty of heavyweight security on premises, but there were always risks. There were plenty of humans out there that hated vampires, that would take a weakness and exploit it.
Vampires were hard to kill in a lot of ways, but also terrifyingly easy with the right materials and timing.
Sometimes, if Luis thought too much about it, he felt guilty that he’d ended up with this job and not someone with more defense skills. Julien had asked him, way back in the initial interview, if he’d any fighting experience. Luis had expected to be disqualified from the running by his answer. He hadn’t known when he’d replied to the ad initially that he’d need such a thing. Back then he hadn’t known a lot about vampires, and hadn't considered them to be vulnerable.
He knew better now.
There were probably dozens of more qualified people to do what he did. People who could actually protect these two if anything were to happen. But Julien had picked him for some unknowable reason, and Luis couldn’t make himself quit.
Julien disappeared behind the black curtains with Minnie, and Karim’s phone reappeared on the tabletop. Karim gazed at him, eyes sharper than they’d been a minute ago.
“Ready for a lightning round?” Karim asked, taunting.
Luis huffed and pulled out his phone. “If you’re ready to lose.”
Karim scoffed. “I’ve won the last two rounds.”
“Cuck is not a dictionary word, and you know it,” Luis said with feeling.
“The app said it was.”
“Just because–” Luis started, but was cut off.
“Are you going to sit there and whine all night, or actually play me?” Karim had one brow raised, a half-smile on his lips. He looked more alive than he had earlier, some of his spirit returning.
Luis would never, ever tell him what that smirk did to his insides.
“Fine,” Luis said and opened the Words with Friends app.
The notification in the car and earlier had been Karim putting down HEEL on the board, collecting 16 points, and then sending him a reminder buzz just for the hell of it.
Asshole.
Luis began to move his letters into a space. He played HAZEL intersecting with Karim’s H for 36 points, scoring double on the Z.
“Take that,” he grinned.
“Oh look, he knows a five-letter word, wow.” Karim muttered with heavy sarcasm before he put his head down. His next word, NOOK, pushed him once again into the lead. “But you’ll need more than that to beat me.”
“I’ve beat you plenty of times,” Luis reminded him.
“Hmm,” Karim mused, “should we check the official record?”
“Shut up,” Luis said as he poked around at his tiles, trying to find the next best word.
Karim laughed in obvious glee, and Luis didn’t allow it to pull his attention. Julien had the sort of pretty you couldn’t help but stare at, but Karim’s smile was electrically magnetic. Luis had already been caught too many times in its trap.
The pressure of the time ticking by grew as Luis tried words on the board. Eventually Karim started to drum his fingers on the table in an irritatingly irregular fashion. Luisfinally dropped RIMS, and scored 30 points for three created words.
