Page 59 of Sleepless Beauties
“Why?” I can’t help but ask.
“Whyyyy?Because every good vampire movie needs a little hate fucking, that’s why!” His smile creeps up on one side, and it’s apparent to me that my sister couldn’t have hated him. He isn’t the cruel man she described as her killer.
He’s just a dork.
And she was just a broken woman.
Neither of them could see the other for what they really were.
His taunting with me is different than it was the first time we met. He wanted a reaction. He wanted to feed. I gave that to him freely, without even trying.
He wasn’t an asshole, he was just hangry.
“Then let’s hear it,” I say, grabbing the notebook on Kyra’s desk with one hand and his wrist with the other.
I guide Aston down the stairs and back to the floor we entered on.
I stop there and when I turn to him, he looks at me so much more intently. In fact… we’re much too close. I stare up at him, our chests brushing lightly.
And then I step abruptly back.
“Which one’s yours?” I motion to the doors, and it seems to take him a moment to realize I’ve asked him a question.
“Uh. Yeah. Right.” He motions to the left, and I follow after him.
We pass a few open doors. Acessa sits on a pale pink mat through one in a downward position as she stretches her long frame. Her curious eyes pass over Aston, and then myself.
Does she know?
She simply smiles quietly.
Aston opens the door at the end of the hall, and he stumbles when he motions me inside. He’s… excited, I think. And he’s a mess because of it.
An adorable vampiric mess.
I slip inside his room to find a velvet blue chaise just in front of the large glossy window. Two shelves frame it on either side, both filled with records.
I turn in a slow circle. Gold and silver records are framed along all the walls, from singers and bands that have long since passed.
“How did you get all these?” I point, and a smirk kisses his lips.
“Well, I have visited a lot of mansions over the years.”
I stare at him blankly for only a moment.
“You… you stole them? From celebrities?”
Aston scoffs dramatically.
“Celebrities are meant to be celebrated, are they not?”
“With petty theft? No, I don’t think that’s what their title means.”
“I was quiet. No one even noticed. And if they did, they’ll print themselves a new gold-plated record to gather dust in their empty condos. These ones aremine.”
He filters absently through his shelves until he seems to find what he’s looking for. The vinyl that he pulls from the sleeve catches the light of the chandelier with a black shine across the surface. He places it incredulously carefully on an antique turntable.
A beat of static silence passes before a symphony of music I couldn’t recognize if I tried plays out for us. His eyes close as he sits on the edge of the chaise.
