Page 24 of Tell Me Why
“Because…?” Tina asked.
“Because it gives her an opportunity to threaten me to my face to go home again,” he said. “And I can pass Keon’s message on to her, discharging my responsibilities without putting her into a position where she has to kill us for it.”
“That sounds ideal,” Tina said.
“Indeed,” he answered.
“Oscar, huh?” she asked, and he nodded.
“You do not feed at open clubs,” he said. “Some do. The rules are very… nuanced and intuited, and you don’t have the skill. You shouldn’t feed at the rental house, either, though giving the impression that youdois going to be important, because if they get the impression that you’reabstaining, you become the wrong kind of interesting, as well. If someone pressures you to feed at the club, just act bored and come find me. Aloof is always a good card to play.”
Tina nodded.
“I’m not trying to win them, they’re trying to win me,” she said, and he nodded.
“It should work reasonably well on the locals,” he said. “Anyone else from out-of-town is going to be… harder to catch, but the locals will think that you are… theyounglocals will think that you are exotic and interesting just for existing with me.”
“How old am I?” Tina asked, and he nodded. A good question.
“No more than five years,” he said. “It will excuse you from knowing a lot of history and etiquette, and some of them willlikely be able to tell, just… being around you. You do not talk about who turned you. It’s considered deeply private. Nor do you talk about how we met or why we are together. They may ask you questions about that.Aloof. If you look at all of the women there as potential rivals, it’s not the wrong posture. You aren’t there to make friends in the way that you understand them. You’re there to make social connections with people who would like to be included in your circle while we are here. Hurting their feelings isn’t going to change that they want to be around us. Be exclusive. Be choosy and snobbish, as far as…” He snorted. “As far as you knowhowto do that.”
“I’m really not going to be good at this,” Tina said, and he shook his head.
“I am,” he said. “If you can just avoid giving us away, it will be plenty.”
“So don’t be eager, always call you Oscar, and don’t feed in the club,” Tina said. “And don’t chase you around with my mouth open.”
“Uhgh,” he said, his shoulders convulsing forward in a faux-gag. “Let’s not even think about that, shall we?”
Tina laughed.
“I ought to be offended,” she said. “After what you bring home every night?”
He looked over at her, then grinned and looked back at the road again, balancing his temple against his fingertip as his elbow sat in the window.
“I might rather kissHunter,” he said. “I like him less.”
Tina grinned at this, closing her eyes.
“I could let you go on your own,” she said. “Go find something else to entertain myself. I feel like deadweight at the best case and a liability at the worst.”
He nodded.
“I need you there,” he said. “For the same reason that Hunter always makes me go out with him on his first night back in town. It’s not foolproof, but an individual vampire has much higher anti-social tendencies than one with a companion. An individual vampire has no social proof that they can get asingleother person to get along with them for more than the space of a conversation over a drink, and… a very wealthy man comes into a bar by himself, and he’s going to be met by an exuberant, positive group of young women who want his attention. Vampires know better than to trust a man on his own - or a woman - and fountains may know even better than that. A poorly adapted vampire will come into a place like this and attempt to prey on the bottom of the social ladder, and they’ll take the risk that he’s sadistic or… vacant, in hopes of buying themselves opportunities further up the chain, but thegoodones are going to want to see that you arethere, and that you are not… addled.”
“Not addled,” Tina said. “Never thought that that would come up at the top of my resume.”
He smiled.
“It’s not unlike, I suspect, going to the parties in London, except that there you reallydidn’tcare what they thought of you, and weren’t concerned for Hunter’s reputation with them.”
“Ginger was there for too much of it for me to be sure what you mean,” Tina said. “But I think I understand.”
He nodded again, the lights of the city coming into view, now, the grand towers and the thickly speckled lights of modern civilization.
“It’s different, here,” she said, and he nodded.
“It is. Don’t try to blend in. You are beautiful and powerful and interesting, and they ought to supplicate to you if they want your attention.”
