Page 62 of Bloody Temptations

“What? Fuck that! Give it back—”

He’s saved by the doorbell. Patting my leg again, he winks and gets up, ignoring my outrage to get the door.

Maddy looks different outside work hours. The tight fitting black and teetering heels are traded for light blue jeans and a white tee shirt. Living as long as she has, I guess she’s learnt not to commit too hard to any aesthetic choices.

I should probably be embarrassed to let my boss see me in my pathetic state, even if she is my maker. But I’ve long accepted my faults and I accept the pitying cluck of her tongue and the way she bundles me up on the couch so she can wrap me up in a hug.

“What happened, my darling?” She asks quietly, brushing a kiss into my hair.

Nikolo settles in by my feet, patting my calf affectionately and, despite the way he completely destroyed me last night, I can’t help but worry about Finn and who is comforting him this evening.

“Finn.” It’s hard to form the words. I look to Nikolo for help, but he just smiles tightly. I have to do this myself, apparently. Fuck. “Last night, we went to Hearts Gate. A group of us. I thought everything was fine. Then he went to the bar and these guys started dancing with me and when he came back… he bolted. And then I followed him and he said—he said—”

I can’t actually say it. My throat closes over painfully and I can’t even swallow. It feels like I’m choking.

“Shhh.” Maddy strokes my arm, resting her cheek on my head. “I understand. Just take a moment.”

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t—” I can’t finish the sentence. Because saying, “I can’t live without him” feels dramatic, considering what our relationship has been.

But it’s also true.

“Sometimes I forget how young you lot are,” Maddy says eventually. “There is still so much for you to learn. I don’t know your Finn well, Kai, but you need to have a little faith in him. From what you’ve spoken about, he has not had an easy time of it since his transition.”

“And now he’s all alone,” I mumble against her shoulder, earning myself a painful squeeze on the ankle from Nikolo.

“Is he though? Is he truly? Are you truly so foolish to let one small argument take him away from you forever? Maybe you should have a little more faith inyourself, Kai.”

“But he said—” I sound like a child arguing with her, but I can’t help it. Ifeellike a child.

“Kai, do you or do you not work at a bar?” Maddy snaps, not unkindly. It’s the first crack in Maddy’s cool, calm demeanour. I ignore Nikki and his snickering at the other end of the couch.

“Uh, yeah, Maddy. What are you getting at?”

“Great Gods of Old and New, save me from these vampire children.Noneof you would have survived the first frosts back in my day.” Maddy groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. A sharp look in Nikki’s direction cuts off his snickers. He almost looks contrite. “And in all your many hours at Bloody Temptations, how many drunken outbursts have you witnessed? Gods, Kai, how many drunken outbursts have youcaused? Being a vampire doesn’t somehow make him immune to being a drunken fool.”

“So, you’re saying he was just drunk? That he wasn’t breaking up with me?” Dangerous rays of hope poke through my despair.

“No.” Oh. Well, fuck. “What I’m saying is perhapstalkto him before you go throwing yourself off the nearest tower in your bridal gown.”

“Well, considering they haven’t evenhadthe relationship talk, you don’t want him getting ahead of himself, Maddy.”

“What do you mean?” Maddy’s voice is deadly as she looks at my traitorous best friend. I swear to the fucking Gods, I thought my days of my siblings dobbing me in to mum were behind me. But here is Nikki, reminding me of the good old days.

“They’ve never talked about it. At all. Finn is obviously too scared to dare bring up the topic, not to mention he’s as apparently as insecure as Kai is vain, and Kai’s too obliviously caught up in his own feels to have thought about it.”

Wow. The betrayals rundeep.

I gape at Nikki, catching the hint of his smirk before it’s hidden behind his mug.

“Be careful of throwing stones in glass houses, Nikolo, lest you break something.”

Oh, well, hello there. I may feel like my heart has been ripped out and shredded to bits, but only death—the real and permanent type—would be able to kill my interest in whatever Maddy’s hinting at right now.

I sit up from Maddy’s shoulder, trying to blend into the background so they continue. Nikki looks deeply concerned that she will. What the fuck has my supposed best friend been hiding from me? First he threw me under the bus, now he’s keeping secrets. What even is this friendship anyway?

Maddy stares him down in that completely still way that she has—it’s disturbing as shit—until Nikki holds his hands up in defeat.

“Yep, sorry. I’ll shut my mouth.”

---