We still sell her clothes regularly here at the shop. Both kinds.
Nikolo, though, Nikolo will never be able to weave revenge into another item. That magic is lost to him forever as a vampire.
Gods tits, I will not survive tonight if I keep this shit up. I let myself look for one more minute, admiring a video I’ve watched half a dozen times already of him dancing around on the bar in a tiny little plaid skirt and high-top sneakers with a skintight leather cropped singlet on, tattoos on full display.
On anyone else, it would be a bit much. On Nikolo, it somehow seems just right. It perfectly highlights his muscular build in a way that almost makes him look curvy. He’s crawling along the bar top, a haughty yet seductive smile on his face, staring down whoever’s taking the video like he’s going to bite them with those gleaming fangs. Or fuck them. Or both. When he’s close enough that he’s all that’s in the frame, he sits back on his heels and grinds his hips in circles, rubbing his hands all over his body and throwing in a couple of hair flips of his long, blonde curls for good measure.
It’s outlandish and completely over the top, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Though I’m pretty sure he could sneeze snot trails out his nose and I’d think it was hot. And that’s how I know that I’m done. I close the app without looking at the comments—they’ll only make me mad and I’m already worked up enough.
There’s still hours to sit and stew in my own bullshit before we head out, and I’d kind of rather do that at home rather thandown here in the shop. At least I can rub one out and relieve some tension.
Checking the time to make sure I’m in the clear, I send a breeze to the sign on the door to flip it to ‘closed’ and flick the locks. Another wave of my hand leaves a little tingle in my sternum and sets the wards for the night. They aren’t really necessary. At this point the shop is just as much a part of the family as I am, probably more so, considering it’s indispensable to our existence and I’m just the latest in the long line of employees serving it. It’s certainly got enough juice to keep itself, and us, safe. Fuck knows it keeps expanding on itself whenever it feels like we need some new stock.
Hauling my ass up three flights of stairs to the fourth floor where I live is a pain in the ass, but it gives me a chance to make sure the place is all set up for the morning. I’ve got the day off and I have no interest in Egbert interrupting my day of freedom to ride my ass about the state of the store.
The library on the second floor is dark, and still neat and tidy, but the classrooms on the third floor take a solid hour to clean up. Why the fuck is candle wax so hard to get out of the timber? And why the fuck can’t the newbies learn to put their candles on a tray like a civilised fucking being? After disposing of something gelatinous—that really should never have been born into existence—I finally make my way up the final set of stairs.
The top floor was divided into two living spaces when my great uncle came to work here with my great-great aunt. Apparently they were from different branches of the family tree and didn’t get along. It was messy, but at least I’m not twenty-eight and living with my uncle in the family home. We’re just neighbours, and that’s much less pathetic.
With hours to go until I’m due to head to Lusce's and then to Bloody Temptations, I’m amped. I can’t sit still. I fidget with my pony tail until I shake the braids loose and I have to redo them.I fret about which nearly identical black oqic—a high-necked, knee-length coat favoured by my clan—I’m going to wear. I pick up my phone and unlock it before throwing it back down twenty times before I race downstairs to the classrooms to get the dumb plastic phone cage we use to shame students who can’t stop checking their phones in class.
By the time I have to leave for Lusce’s, I’m a sweaty, anxious, excited wreck. Thirteen years. Thirteen fucking years since I’ve seen the guy I thought was my destiny.
Good or bad, tonight is going to be epic.
Well. That fucking sucked.
Stumbling to the taxi, I’m barely being propped up between Jax and Lusce, who are both talking drunken shit about Jax’s recent ex. I almost send us all toppling to the pavement when I look back over my shoulder at the club. Was it always that wonky looking? Probably.
Jax, the loveable hunk of man meat orc, saves us from eating concrete, but that’s because Lusce is basically plastered to me and Jax would rather flay himself alive than see his best friend get even a paper cut. It takes two of us to pour him into the backseat of the taxi, while he tries his best to slither away from us to get back in the club.
“No! Don’t wanna leave! Wanna dance!” Lusce laughs, reaching a long pale arm towards the doors.
“I know, bud. I know.” Jax sighs, gritting his teeth apologetically at the taxi driver who looks horrified at the prospect of getting us all home.
“I’m a good dancer!” Lusce tries to summon some sort of defence but honestly, he is just making it worse for himself. EvenI can see that, and I’m getting seasick on level pavement over here.
“I know, I know.” Sweetly agreeing with his friend, Jax uses his considerable bulk to shove Lusce along the seat and get him all buckled in, before getting himself settled into the middle. Leaving me squished next to them.
Great. As if this night couldn’t get better.
I started fine. Great actually. We had some pre-drinks and picked up Finn, Bedeer’s work friend from his place. Finn’s adorable, and everything was great. I waspumped. The moment I’d been waiting for wasright fucking there, and I choked.
I choked so fucking hard.
From the moment we walked into the stupid bar, nerves hit me, which was the beginning of the end of my grand plans. It took me ages to spot him, and when I did I just fucking froze. Looking back now it all feels kind of hazy. I can’t remember if the spiral or the drinking came first, or if it happened all at once. But once it started it just kept getting worse.
I realised I had no fucking idea what I was in for. It’s been thirteen years. I have no idea who Nikolo evenisnow. And what if seeing me—at hisworkno less—was traumatic for him? He didn’t exactly leave the clan on a high, and who knows what happened to him after.Not me, that’s for certain. Do his parents even know that he’s a vamp now? Or that he dances on bars in those shorts?
Oh, fuck me.Those shorts. The memory of the slutty little shorts in his ‘athletics’ get up tonight has me shifting uncomfortably and trying not to get hard squished against my friend in a taxi. I swear I could see his dick print from all the way over at the other side of the bar.
And then I missed his dance on the bar. It’s their signature song, too, the song that started it all—Believe I am Your Lover. How do I know that’s their signature song? Because I am assdeep in their lore now, that’s how. And I fuckingmissedit. All because I needed to piss and have a minor freakout in the bathroom. What a dickhead.
Sure it’ll be online by the time I get into bed. And sure I’ll watch it and jerk off to it—only after mooning after him for a solid twenty minutes, because I’m respectable like that—but it’s not the same.
After missing such an integral moment—the song—I took it as a sign from the Gods that I was making a mistake being there. Or at least, that’s the excuse I used to be a total chicken shit, avoiding the front bar like the vamps behind it were gonna drain me for sport, and throwing myself into partying with my friends like my life depended on it. Because it kinda felt like it did. That could’ve been the shots, though.
Closing my eyes against the way the lights of the city are blurrily rushing by and the way Jax is trying to coax Lusce into closing his eyes and having a rest and stop drawing dick and balls on the condensation on the taxi windows, I try to shove down my regret over wasting the million opportunities I wasted tonight.
