Page 52 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

I’ll wear a disguise

I laughed, again. There was no way Theo could go anywhere without being recognized.

There’s a place I know, doesn’t matter who you are, we’d be safe

Safe. I wanted that. Needed it.

Yeah

I’ll swing by at 8. Be ready.

I will

U gonna be okay till then?

I lifted my gaze off the screen and looked around my beige apartment. The fact he was asking if I was okay had my heart doing all sorts of weird things that had nothing to do with being stalked and everything to do with wondering if someone might actually care about me. Someone who wasn’t going to use me or throw me under a bus when it suited them.

Yeah, I’m good

I sent back. Then added a quick,

ty

I was going out with Theo.

Definitely a mistake. Yeah but you need it, my little internal voice said. The one who got me into trouble. You’re a free man. It’s about time you lived like it.

I was free. I was out. I’d done my time. Davis couldn’t hurt me anymore. I deserved to have some fun.

Wanted it.

Craved it.

What the heck was I going to wear?

CHAPTER 13

Theo picked me up at eight. Or more accurately, his driver Jorge pulled up, and I climbed into the back with Theo. He talked about Fleur, and how she was settling in. She still didn’t remember much, just little snippets. The thing about salt was weird. She kept coming back to it, as though salt had somehow caused her to end up in Theo’s pool. She also seemed to think she knew Theo, but couldn’t place how or why, and he was sure he’d never met her before. For now, she seemed content in the pool house, watching TV and eating random food Theo prepared for her. Fries and ice cream were her favorite, mostly because Theo liked it too. Then he talked about Bentley doing typical Bentley things, like tossing a hair drier into Theo’s bath while he was in it. Theo said it casually, likely because attempted murder was a daily occurrence in his house.

I let him talk, enjoying his breathless download of information. Once Theo relaxed, he talked endlessly, hardly stopping for breath. I liked it. It meant I didn’t have to come up with small talk that would bore both of us.

Sweet, Davis’s man, had unsettled me in ways I didn’t want to bring into the evening. Tonight was about having fun, living a little, getting my smile back. Theo’s good humor and casual flirting were combining to put me at ease.

His car pulled up outside a club off the main downtown strip. All kinds of beautiful people came and went from the front door.

My heart swooped and nerves kicked in. I wasn’t sure I belonged here.

Theo took my hand, and my head and heart got all light and wobbly.

The place didn’t have a sign—buildings that have to tell you their name are trying to get you in, but this one didn’t care what I did. It just had a long stretch of black frontage, smoked glass you couldn’t see through, and a single brass door handle worn gold from better hands than mine. A velvet rope blocked the carpeted entrance, more suggestion than barrier, where a doorman built like a polite mountain stood and looked at me, then Theo, and nodded us forward. Light leaked out warm and low every time the door swung. Music and laughter tinkled from inside. Outside, it was all expensive cars and heels on hot sidewalk and people who’d clearly never once stood outside a place wondering if they belonged inside.

I was wondering exactly that myself.

“You good?” Theo asked, opening the door.

“Yeah, yeah.” I smiled but it fell off my face a bit too fast.

He leaned in, lips brushing my cheek. “Nobody cares who we are here.”