Page 27 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

It wasn’t long before we came to a section of old fence. The wire had been pulled back where it was supposed to join a post.

Theo pulled the loose wire wider and slipped through with ease, as though he’d done this a few times before. On the other side, he beckoned me to follow.

I hesitated, instincts trying hard to warn me.

“Nothing is going to happen,” Theo said, hand outstretched to take mine. “I just wanna get a closer look at the pool is all, and figure out why Jay was over here so much. See if there’s anything weird. We take a look, we come back.”

This is the part where you’re screaming at the TV for the main character to stop making bad decisions, turn around, go home, and live happily ever after. A boring, lonely ever after. I wasn’t going to turn around, I knew that much. Which meant I had to take Theo’s hand. The TSTL guy? Yeah, that was me.

I squeezed into the gap in the fence and took Theo’s hand halfway. He did a little pull, and I spilled out the other side. Theo steadied me again, one hand still on mine, and the other landed on my shoulder. His touch was warm, for a vampire. I’d expected it to be cold. Clearly, I really did need to take a vampire awareness course.

“I used to always come back here,” he said. His fingertips trailed from mine, as though not wanting to let go. Or maybe I was telling myself that because I’d liked how they’d felt, skin on skin.

I shoved my hands into my pockets. “What stopped you?”

He walked backwards as he spoke and rolled his eyes. “Mother. She said if I came back here again, I’d be stripped of the family name.”

“Oh wow.” I glanced at the gap in the fence behind us. “And you still want to come back here?”

“It’s a bluff I’m willing to challenge her on. If it was that easy to shake off the name, I’d have camped out here.”

“You don’t wanna be the heir, huh?” We fell into step, side by side, heading toward the distant twinkling lights of the box house.

“You’re getting that?” He laughed softly and tucked his hands into his pockets too. “Honestly . . .” He glanced side-on at me, his eyes catching Miami’s distant lights. “I wanna be a nobody, like you.”

“Like me?” Wow.

“Yeah, you know. You can walk down the street and nobody knows your name. I want that. I want to be anonymous.”

“No you don’t.” I laughed. He did not want a life living from paycheck to paycheck or staring at beige walls on a Friday night.

“Yeah, I do. Get a real job, have friends who care, not people who want something all the fucking time.”

I weirdly knew exactly what he meant. At least about the “friends who care” thing. He looked at me, his smile moving on his lips, and there was honesty on his face. Not curated, just . . . him. All the angles on his face had softened too. Even his eyes seemed kinder, less . . . critical. Could he talk as freely as this to anyone else? If not, then it was pretty sad that he had to talk to the pool boy to feel like someone cared.

The Briar box house came into view, and the soft moment between us faded under urgency. The blocky structure cut into the orange-hued skyline, like a monolith to modernism.

We crouched behind a shrub. The Briar grounds spread left and right, and each corner of the house had its own garden theme going on. I could see what looked like a maze to the front and right of the main house, then another area with topiaries shaped like animals and people. The pool and patio area was lit from below, and I assumed there’d be more themed gardens at the front, out of our line of sight. These massive grounds with their manicured layout probably took a small army to upkeep.

“Looks as though nobody’s around. We’ll cut to the right, follow that low wall, and come up on the pool from behind. There’s no camera there.”

“There are cameras?”

“I just said there aren’t.”

“But there are cameras on the grounds?”

“Maybe.” Theo grinned. “Just don’t walk in front of them.” And with that, he headed off, his black shirt and dark pants melting into the shadows.

I was not dressed for this. What was I even doing here? “Theo . . . wait.”

I scooted after him, acutely aware I’d chosen a light-colored shirt to go snooping around the neighbors’ yard in. This was definitely one of those situations that Bet had told me not to get involved in. “Stay out of trouble and you’ll do just fine.”

Except, trouble smiled and held out a hand, and here I was, right in the middle of it.

A clanging sound rang out over by the pool. I skidded to a stop next to Theo, behind a bush, my heart going hard. He grinned, clearly enjoying himself. What the heck had I expected? He was in his element. Vampires were natural night hunters. Apex predators. Top of the food chain. On that chain, I was down around something slow moving and cute, like a possum. Except possums weren’t all that cute.

Voices.