At her words, the exchange between Ryker and Mackey stalled. Logan had been describing his newly innovated appetizers to Leslie, but their voices paused too. The whole room tuned in to Tai.
“Y’all—” Claire began.
She broke off when Tai set a hand on her knee. He said, “It’s fair to ask. It’s also complicated.”
“How about the abridged version then?” Nova said.
“Nova, enough,” Claire snapped.
Nova shrugged. “Sorry, Tai, I’m not trying to be mean. I just care a lot about Claire, and I’m a little baffled by this whole one-eighty that’s happened between y’all.”
They were willing to give him a chance. To accept him. Nova wasn’t prying; she was asking the sort of question any friend of Claire’s would ask. Probably every last one of them had asked Claire in private.
Beside him, Claire was rigid. Her eyes had gone full metallic, glaring sparks at Nova until the other woman looked away. Tai shook his head, and Claire didn’t even look in his direction.
He addressed all of them, not only Nova. “It’s personal, that’s all. I’d rather not get into it tonight.”
From her chair, Philippa reached out and dropped one hand to Tai’s shoulder, and he caught a silent breath at the connection that poured into him. Peter had said one of the threads of Tai’s soul was compassion. If that were true, then Philippa’s soul must contain a dozen of those threads.
“Works for me,” she said quietly.
Most of the group nodded and resumed their conversations. Nova gave Tai a last, searching look, a furrow digging in between her eyes. He didn’t look away until she did.
The topics over the next half hour were casual and comfortable, showing how often this group kept up with one another. No one had big life news to share; they’d all seen one another within a week or two. Logan told a hilarious kitchen mishap story. Philippa was asked if she’d decided yet on whether to get a kitten, and she shrugged and said it was still a “maybe” but went on to describe multiple felines at the shelter she’d visited.
Mackey spoke rarely and smiled…never? Yet the group treated him with the same easy warmth they held for everyone else. His dark-blue eyes were vigilant as he turned to Tai.
“Tell me about your work,” Mackey said. “You work for a non-profit, right?”
Tai nodded. “The Josie Strong Foundation. We’re in the medical research space, specifically human genetic disorders. We’ve contributed to a few big breakthroughs in the last couple years.”
“And what’s your position with them?”
“Director of Fundraising.”
Mackey’s lips parted as he gave a slow nod. “So you don’t just work for them. You sort ofarethem.”
Tai laughed. “I’m the primary front-facing role. It’s a lot of networking and messaginganda lot of report generation. My boss is the CEO.”
“It’s noble work, man,” Mackey said. “When you look at some of the conditions people live with and how little we know about them… I’m glad there are organizations like yours.”
“I don’t know whatyoudo,” Tai said, “but you sound like you’ve got some medical experience.”
“I’m a trauma nurse, ER for almost five years now.”
The steady background music that lived in Tai’s head tumbled to a discordant halt. No vampire could work in an emergency room. It had to be impossible. Even normal vampires would be tempted by that kind of environment…wouldn’t they?
He was afraid to ask and unable not to. “How do you…?”
“Self-awareness and coping skills.” Mackey’s mouth twitched. That might be a smile.
A normal vampire just needed self-awareness? To work with life-threatening injuries, hands-on with humans…bleeding. Like the accident site where he and Claire had assisted, except not like that at all. Those humans hadn’t been dying. Hadn’t been bleeding out.
He’d thought he’d known how far the chasm stretched between his life and the lives of other vampires, but he’d had no real concept of his own defectiveness.
“To be fair, I had to work on it,” Mackey said. “The sensory overwhelm is real, sometimes even now, but rarely these days.”
Overwhelm. Not temptation. Needles prickled along the back of Tai’s neck, down his arms, and then… Cold. He was ice-bath cold as his imagination painted in full color the things Mackey must see at work every single day.
