Page 26 of Santa's Wish
Another Monday night,another date with Boz.
This time, I was going to do it right. Instead of dragging him on my idea of the perfect date, I would do what he wanted instead. He'd requested pizza and movie rentals, or streaming, or whatever they called it these days. I could do that.
Besides, staying home seemed safer, since the trip to Blood Drive after our date had led to unplanned extracurricular activities. Boz didn't seem the type to want me to save his life every time we went out, so a night in made more sense.
I was already thinking of other places to take him, though. Restaurants. Bars. BDSM clubs. I wanted him to eat, drink, and relax a little while I tied him up. If he consented, of course.
I liked the way he responded to my orders after I shared my blood with him. Maybe I liked it a little too much. I'd hated my sire and the amount of control he'd had over me. Why was it such a turn-on when Boz did what I said without his usual backtalk and questioning?
I wanted him to trust me, that's why. Maybe one day he would. Until then, I couldn't allow myself to think his behavior when under the influence of vampire blood, my blood, was real.
Real or not, I wanted to spend more time with him. But only after I drank my fill of blood for the night.
I wasn't chancing another run-in with unwelcome vampires. I drove my Chevelle to Blood Drive to avoid going inside. Feeling festive, I ordered nutmeg-infused human blood. I swore they had a witch on staff. So far, none of their infusions had made me sick. Other blood stores got too much food in the mix, and I sometimes found myself puking for hours.
Within the five minutes it took to return to my parking spot outside my shuttered apartment window, I'd finished my drink. It was still too early to check on Boz after his first day at work. I didn't want to impose before he could decompress. He seemed the type to need a glass of wine and a half-hour of mindless television before a vampire rocked his world.
I hopped across the rooftops to Irena's again. I'd promised to visit, and I didn't want to keep her waiting.If everything went well with Boz, I was about to have a very late night.
Empty tables greeted me once I made my way downstairs. The one perk of the winter solstice and the days preceding was how much time I gained in the afternoon. Irena's would be quiet for another hour, the perfect length of time for a chat.
"Vampire," she said when she saw me. She'd worn a long button-down dress, green with white trim. It was a sharp contrast to her silver hair, pulled into a severe top knot. She wasn't much over five feet, but she carried herself like the former ballet dancer she was, head high, somehow both looking down her nose and up at me at the same time.
"I have a name," I reminded her.
"Yes, but you insist on using a pretend name like a child, so I call you by your kind instead."
I snorted. "You used to call me Santa like everyone else."
"And last Christmas, you disappeared. Didn't call, didn't write."
I took both of her gnarled hands in mine and brought them to my lips, kissing her knuckles. "I'm sorry I worried you. I promise, I'll do better from now on."
"Ha," she scoffed, but there was a tinge of pink along her high cheekbones. She tugged her handsfrom mine, and I let her go, following her to the same table where she'd seated me and Boz last week.
"Sit. Tell me why you stopped coming, on Christmas of all days."
"I didn't think you'd be open," I said. "And then it seemed too hard to come back."
The words were easy enough to say, but they ripped a gaping wound in my chest as easily as silver.
"I left the roof door open for you, you know. Bought a case of synthetic blood to tide you over if the place you like wasn't open. Our door, my door, is always open to you."
If my eyes could have watered from the strain of staring at her for over a minute, they would have. "You stayed open for me?"
"Lot of good it did me. Fifty weeks, you don't come back."
"You counted?"
"I know how many weeks are in a year." She rolled her eyes at me, and I laughed. "Give or take one or two." She crossed her arms on the tabletop and leaned over them. "I called that place you work after a month. They said you still worked there, were working the night I called. I asked if your schedule had changed, and they said it had not."
She shook her head, and I felt like the worst friend on the planet when she sighed.
"I thought about leaving a message, but I talkedmyself out of it. 'He'll come back,' I said. 'He always comes back. For twenty years, he's come here to talk me through my depression.' But you never came."
"You weren't depressed," I said. "You were grieving."
"I was depressed enough to recognize a kindred spirit, even an undead one." Her gaze pierced my very soul through the hole she'd ripped in my heart. "It is good to see you still alive. That boy is good for you. Tell me about him."
