Page 36 of Surface Scratch
Chapter Eleven
“Wow, Pinky, this place is depressing as fuck,” Ophelia said as she thumbed through the stack of junk mail and newspapers on the hutch near the door. “I can’t believe Marcus shelled out twelve grand for this. Just burn it down and start over.”
He blushed. He hadn’t realized she knew about that.I don’t think I ever said thank you to him for that. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with me? I should take better care of this place.
Caleb surveyed his apartment. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he came back, but it looked exactly as he left it. His mess of pillows and blankets still sat stacked against the back of the old couch, a few empty soda cans and boxed dinners with petrified food still sticking to the black containers scattered around. Thankfully, the cold weather had prevented any bugs from taking up residence in his mess. The fruit flies in the summer were the worst, and it was the only time he ever seemed to be motivated to pick up right away.
“Yeah, single living isn’t very good for me.” Caleb kicked off his shoes. His black-and-white sneakers were disturbingly clean, having been washed several times by Ophelia to get the bloodstains out of them. “Thanks for walking me home. I think I got it from here.”
Ophelia reached into her boot and withdrew a long, thin piece of metal. She clicked a button on the side, smirking at Caleb as he jumped at the blade that popped out of the handle. “Keep this on you. In case the Sunshine Brigade shows up again,” she said, sliding the blade back into its sheath.
“I don’t think I’ll need that.” Caleb held up both his hands. He had never handled that kind of knife and he could foresee himself making a mess of his hand if he tried.
“Okay,” she said. She placed the knife on top of the stack of junk mail near the door. “I’ll see you tonight. Don’t mention the past few days to anyone, especially Andrew. I don’t trust him.”
Caleb frowned. “Why not? He’s nice.”
Ophelia shook her head. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling,” she said as she opened the door. “If you need to use the knife, just remember the pointy end goes away from your body.”
Caleb fell face first into his couch after she left, the familiar feeling of his nearly flat pillow somewhat comforting against his sore face. He could, just for a moment, relax into it and let his mind go blank. It was like his safe space. The one area of the apartment he could always retreat to and pretend everything was okay, just by burying his face in the questionable material that had long ago lost its comfortable embrace. He should have bought a new one, but he was stubborn and sentimental like that.
He’d desperately wanted to stay at Marcus’s apartment. The two nights he had spent there while conscious had been tense, but in a pleasant way. Lying in Marcus’s bed with sheets that felt like they had an insane thread count had been amazing, and there was something vaguely exciting about the not knowing what could happen. Both nights he’d found himself drifting off to sleep wishing that Marcus would crawl into the bed with him instead of sleeping out on the couch during the day, but that thought both terrified and excited him.
Somewhere in the depths of his mind, he knew he should be scared. He was privy to a supremely fucked-up secret that people had died over. Had Ophelia not donated her own blood to him, he probably would have gone into shock and died, or at best, been left in a coma. That should have been the only thing on his mind, but he kept telling himself not to think about. Instead, the only place he allowed his mind to go was directly into the gutter. Or float about on a cloud of hearts. Both were pretty terrible looking from the outside in. He could imagine his mom, with all of her no-nonsense attitude, reaming him out for throwing away every bit of caution he had been raised with to pursue a man who was God knows how old and had killed people.
Caleb couldn’t help it. Just the thought of Marcus made him feel like his skeleton would burst out of his skin to do a happy dance. It was the dumbest thing he had ever felt. And yet, there he was, grinning into his flat pillow like an idiot. He was going to go back to work, play off his messed-up face, and try not to smile like an insane person anytime he saw Marcus or heard his name mentioned.
All consideration for what Marcuswashad faded. If anything, the near indestructibility was a perk. It meant that, barring any extreme circumstances, Marcus couldn’t be snatched away by some sort of tragic accident. Though it was weird for him to think about it like that. He shouldn’t already be thinking about Marcus and him as that kind of long-term item. He couldn’t even will himself to think about Marcus as hisboyfriend, and he didn’t know where Marcus saw the relationship.
He wasn’t even sure how to evaluate the relationship. It wasn’t exactly like he could search “What to do when your first boyfriend is a vampire?” and get legitimate results. But the times he wasn’t making himself painfully hard imagining Marcus in bed with him and what might happen in those moments, they had spent the better portion of those nights together, lazily cuddling on the couch and watching a movie. It turned out Marcus had a massive movie collection, and he lit up like a kid in a candy store when he found out Caleb hadn’t seen any of his favorites.
That was what couples did, right? Just spent time together? If that was all, then Caleb really enjoyed it, even if he did doze off on occasion from the terrible sleepiness brought on by recovering from the blood loss. Marcus didn’t seem to mind, though. Every time Caleb woke up, he was still there, smiling at him and stroking his hair, which did not help the overwhelming desire to sleep.
That bit of intimacy, just being together and enjoying something, that was what he wanted. He’d only had a few days of it, and he wanted more. It was terrifying to him. His whole life had seemed to revolve around moving from one tragedy to the next, so the thought nagged at him:what is going to happen to ruin this for me?
Maybe it was selfish, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to let anything get in his way. Not again. Not another bully, not another injury, not another group of masked assholes who were hell-bent on destroying the only person who seemed to give a damn about him.
He’d rather die than go back to feeling the way he had before.
* * *
Caleb waved at the doorman, Angel, as he stepped past the crowd waiting to enter the club, avoiding eye contact with a mixed group of men and women shivering in the cold, dry air, who had clearly pre-gamed a bottle of something cinnamon-y before heading out.
He had fallen asleep while daydreaming on his couch, only awoken by his phone vibrating on the ground as the alarm went off, drool dripping down his face. He’d forgotten to set a proper alarm on the new device, but apparently Ophelia had programmed a last-minute reminder in the phone and labeled it with a stunning amount of profanity that eventually pulled him from his dreamless sleep. He hadn’t had time to evaluate whatever chaotic state his face and hair were in before he threw on his clothes and ran out the door, finger combing his hair as he walked the four blocks to the club.
“Tariq wants to talk to you later tonight,” Angel said after the door shut behind Caleb.
He paused, looking Angel over. They hadn’t really interacted outside of the drink-and-bitch night on payday, so Caleb had never noticed anything off or strange about him. Now that he looked at him, he couldn’t help but wonder if Angel was one of them as well. Would it be weird to just come out and ask?
He mumbled a quick thank you, deciding that question was best left for another day, and moved into the dance hall, taking a moment for his eyes to adjust the mixture of neon lights and darkness. Brittany was distracted by her phone behind the bar on the right side of the club, looking like she was chomping on gum as Andrew set up her bar. Ophelia was still in a large hoodie behind her bar as she counted cash for the night.
He’d definitely missed this. The mundane normalness of the routine. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight. It felt more like home than his own home. He would need to find a way to thank Ophelia without pissing her off one of these days. If not for her, he would have never found a place he actually liked working with people who were nice to him—even if some of those people were technically blood-drinking monsters who couldn’t go out during the day.
“Holy shit!” Andrew’s voice seemed to echo through the room. He came bounding over and threw his arms around Caleb, somehow squeezing him in every sore spot on his torso. “Dude, I thought you were going to die of the flu or something!”
“Missed you too,” Caleb groaned, trying to hide the pain he was in. He smoothed his shirt as Andrew took a step back. “Who told you?”
“Ophelia did. She said you were going to be out for a while because you got the stomach flu and were shitting your intestines out,” Andrew said with an amused wince. “She even said you passed out and fucked up your face, which yeah, it looks pretty beat.”
