Page 9 of Visions of You
"I give up," Ceska said, biting into the hot dog Jaron had gotten her. "I think the fireworks are about to start."
Jaron took that as his cue to make his way back to Keegan. Nothing as romantic as watching fireworks together, right?
Not that he had anything as innocent asromanceon his mind.
The seer was looking at the sky when Jaron joined him.
"Excited for the show?" Jaron asked.
Keegan glanced at him, plainly not surprised to be graced with Jaron's presence again. "No, I was wondering where I'd heard your name before."
"Wondering about me?" Jaron grinned.
"Tymera," Keegan said thoughtfully. "Your family owns some sort of big business, don't they?"
Jaron suppressed a sigh. "They make jewelry," he said. "You know, all that fancy stuff. Phones you can transform into earrings, bracelets that turn into keys… all the shit vain dragons need so they can run around in loincloths that don't have pockets."
"You don't like jewelry?"
"I like pockets."
Keegan looked at Jaron's baggy pants. "Evidently."
"This thing has six pockets." Jaron gestured. "I can carry everything I need and a couple things I don't."
"Like what?"
Jaron pulled a ball of deep blue yarn out of one of his pockets.
"You carry yarn?"
"It's very soft," Jaron said as if this explained why he carried yarn. In truth, he didn't want to admit that hehoardedyarn. Every dragon had a hoard. Every dragon felt that compulsion to collect certain things. For Jaron, that was fabrics, and this ball of yarn was extra special. He held it up. "It's magical," he explained. "It changes color to match the aura of its wearer." He unraveled a string and wrapped it around Keegan's finger before the vampire could protest.
The string turned a shade somewhere between red and orange.
The color of a sunrise.
Keegan stared down at his finger as if he didn't know how to react. "What does that mean?" he asked after a moment.
"I don't know," Jaron admitted. "But it's pretty."
Keegan took the yarn off his finger and eyed it a little more closely.
Following an impulse, Jaron took a small pair of scissors out of another pocket and cut a piece off the yarn. "Here." He placed the string in Keegan's hand. "Keep it."
Keegan looked at the strange gift he'd been given, almost as if he wanted to refuse it, but before he could, the sky above them erupted into a myriad of colors.
None as beautiful as the yarn in Keegan's hand, however.
There was no comparison.
While everyone else watched the fireworks Jaron watched the vampire by his side, trying to puzzle out what it was about this man that drew him in and refused to let go. He was no stranger to crushes, but this felt different.
More consuming.
He'd just cut up a piece of his hoard for this man and he didn't even feel bad about it.
His hoard would be safe with Keegan because Keegan… Keegan was meant to be part of his hoard.
