“You think Roger doesn’t see the whole package?” Blake asked.
“I didn’t say that. Roger gets me, most of the time. Or at least he tries to. It’s not like I’m just a booty call.” Zack sighed and drank his coffee. “Forget I said anything. Did you know Josefina offered to turn Reed?”
“No shit?” Blake’s gaze drifted up to the nearest planter. After a second, she scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Nope. Don’t see it happening.”
“He seemed to be seriously considering it.”
“Yeah, but it’s Reed. He’s too nice to be a vampire.”
“Vampires can be nice,” Zack replied. He was pretty sure his parents had felt a sudden chill, but he was sticking to it.
“Somevampires.” Blake shrugged one shoulder when Zack narrowed his eyes. “I’ve been paying attention to supernatural social media. Vampires have an edge to them, and it’s different than us shifters. We’re like … like tap dancers or Irish dancing. Loud and exhilarating and just rawr! In your face. Vampires are like competitive prima ballerinas. Grace and curves and totally willing to plot your murder if you take their solo.”
“More like figure skaters who get pissed if you copy their routines,” Zack said.
“Oooh, that is better. Because of the sharp blades and the cold ice. I’m upgrading my analogy.” Blake leaned in. “Now, Reed’s been near vampires for like ever, but he’s like the guy wearing a heavy coat on the sidelines of a hockey game and selling hot chocolate to other cold people in order to keep the ice rink open. He loves to watch, but do you really think he can withstand the freezing rink?”
Her analogy was ridiculous, but …she has a point.Reed genuinely cared about others. That didn’t have to go away by becoming a vampire, but he would change. He’d have to feed on people, and newbie vampires tended to have accidents, which resulted in deaths. And Reed had wanted Zack to give him an outsider perspective, someone who would say no instead of an immediate yes.
“Where do I fit into your massive metaphor?” Zack asked.
Blake hummed a note, then leaned back. “You’re the kid planning his big debut in a professional competition.”
Zack choked on his coffee, sputtering and barely keeping stray droplets from landing on his present. When he could speak, he croaked out, “What?”
“You okay there?”
“No.” Zack leaned in over the table and lowered his voice. “Because if I’m following you, it means you think I’m getting ready to become a freaking vampire.”
“Aren’t you at least considering it?”
“No!”
“Why not?” Blake started listing on her fingers. “Hot forever. Never gain weight. Heal crazy fast. Impossibly strong. And then there’s the living for eternity. Imagine what you could do with it. And you’d be able to spend it with Roger.”
“Roger and I have only known each other three months,” Zack countered. “And I still have to figure out why all his past relationships failed.”
“Look, I get that you’re taught to stand at the edge rather than take a leap of faith,” Blake said. “But I don’t get why you’re so upset at the mere suggestion that you might want to become an immortal badass someday.”
Because my family would never take me back. Zack bit his tongue from saying the words. Blake had been there for him when he’d cried about being disowned. They’d shared coffees and brownies and pizzas and had their own book club where they reread all of HT Moss’sFrom the Graveseries. They were closer than he’d felt with any of his cousins in a long time, almost as close as he felt to his sister Amber.
And upon seeing the scars on her face, Cal had figured out she was a werewolf and wanted to kill her just for that.
And Cal wouldn’t be the only one who felt that way in his family.
But becoming a vampire? That wouldn’t just shut the door; that would make the people he still loved come after him. They’dwant to hunthim. He couldn’t slice the thin rope of hope that he had that maybe, someday, somehow, he could get them to care about him again.
“You read too many books,” Zack said somberly. He put his hand on the novel she’d given him and was about to slide it toward her when the café door opened.
Striding in like he owned the place, Vincent Talmadge was surrounded by three other vampire pets. One of them took pics while Vincent primped and grinned for the camera. He and his companions were fully dressed for a change, and they wore attire that was slick and made each of them look devastatingly good.
The murmur of conversations in the shop had been pleasant but shifted to have a note of anxiety. The pixies hid among the leaves of their plants, soft tinkling their version of hurried conversations.
“Not him,” Blake groaned.
“You know him?”
“He’s an insufferable brute.”
