Jericho sighs, his face falling like he wants to say more.
“What?”
He hesitates. “I may have offered the sex in a bad situation, but Iwantedit, Evan. It’s why I was there, why I was talking to him. I chosehim that night just as much as he chose me. Iwantedhim—yes, a guy—to make me feel good.” Jericho’s voice is heavy, full of something I can’t quite understand. “I just didn’t realize he was a vampire, and by the time I did… I don’t know. I guess I was too intrigued. There was some part of me that still wanted him. I just didn’t want him to bite me. So that was our agreement.”
I hear what he’s saying, but am too distracted by the faint blush coloring his cheeks to really process it. It makes this whole thing even more surreal. I can’t remember a time when Jerichoeverblushed, but here, now… as a vampire? Talking about wanting a guy?
And how did I not know Jer was attracted to men?
He picks at something on his shirt. “I should've known I'd fuck it up, though.”
“What do you mean?”
He gives a heartless laugh and walks away. “It doesn't matter. The point is, I fucked up. And from then on, I had no chance of walking out of there as a human.”
I want him to explain, but Jericho is quickly bringing this conversation to a close. I can hear it in his tone. The finality. He used to do that before too, when he wanted to change subjects. I can only hope that if we spend some time together, he’ll trust me again to tell me the truth. Because I don’t justwantto know what happened to him. Ineedto. How did he go from leaving for a job interview, to cutting a deal with a vampire and walking away as a non-human? It makes no sense.
“I don't care, you know,” I say.
He looks over his shoulder, avoiding my eyes. “About what?”
“You said you wanted to sleep with a guy, like it should've been some big thing. But it's not. I don't care if you fuck guys. I just don’t want you to do it in bad situations.”
“Guy,” Jericho clarifies, keeping his back to me. “He's the only one I've been with. But yeah, I'm gay. It was the one secret I kept from you. Well, until this.”
I still don’t see what the big deal is. “Okay.”
He finally turns around, brows knit in a hard line.“Okay?”
I nod. “I don't get why you think it matters that you’re gay. Last I checked, you're still my best friend. My best friend who disappeared in a puff of smoke, but my best friend nonetheless.”
He scoffs, so I raise my brows at him. “I mean it. I don't care if you’re gay, Jericho. And I wouldn’t have cared if you’d told me back then, either.”
He slumps into the kitchen chair like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. For a long moment, he just stares at me. The cold emerald hue almost makes me shiver.
I want so desperately to feel our old connection, but it’s like there’s a wall between us now. There’s too much left unsaid. Too many questions. It hurts that he’s shutting me out. Doesn’t he miss me?
After a minute, he shakes his head and gives a half-hearted laugh. “Do you have any idea how many times I've imagined this conversation, and not one of them were you simply saying 'okay?’ Do you even care that I was changed?”
“Of course I care!”
“You sure aren't acting like it! You're more concerned about where my dick has been than what I've been drinking the last ten months!”
I roll my eyes. “I already told you, I've known you were turned for a while, so I've had time to get used to it. I just don’t knowhowit happened, and you still haven’t given me the full story.” He doesn’t deny it. “Besides, it’s not like you’re the first vampire I've met.”
“Are you referring to Ralph and his girlfriend? What's her name, Petunia or something?”
“Pansy, and yeah.” Ralph Edwards was in our biology class in college, we hung out a few times. He was the first person I called after hearing about what happened to Jericho. Both he and his girlfriend helped me come to terms with it. But I haven’t talked to them in a couple of months. I’ve been too focused on finding Jericho.
Jericho laughs coldly. “Yeah, let me tell you, vampires are nothing like Ralph. Nothing. And if you think I'm going to be as bubbly and hyper as he—”
“I think you'll beyou,” I say quickly. “For the most part, anyway. You're obviously different, but—”
In the blink of an eye, Jericho appears in front of me, his hair lifting in the breeze. “Yeah, I am. I'm very different, Evan, and that's something you need to think long and hard about. Because I won't ever be the person you knew before.”
I’m too distracted by his fangs to really focus on what he’s saying. They’d appeared faster than I could process, two long white daggers behind his upper lip. How in the fuck do they disappear and reappear so easily? He’s incredible.
Only then do I realize how close we are. How his scent overwhelms me and makes my heart skip a beat. Is that a vampire thing? Because I never noticed it when he was human. But all the other things, all his tiny mannerisms—the twitch of the vein above his brow, or the slight frown on his lips when he’s annoyed—are exactly how I remember. So much about him is stillhim, and that gives me hope. It’s the proof I’ve needed that Jericho is still the same guy I spent every day with for four years. He is still my best friend.
