Page 15 of Thirsty
Charlie carefully hung the bag from the hook in the backseat. It was an aggressively normal car, not piratical in the slightest. Still, that didn’t dampen his excitement at all. “You don’t think it’s cool that you were a pirate?” Charlie asked, as soon as the door was closed.
Lorenzo turned on his heel, heading back toward the party, and Charlie followed him.
“I wasn’t a pirate,” Lorenzo said. “It was just my life. Just a way to get by.”
“Just a way to get by,” Charlie echoed scornfully. “With eyeliner. And doubloons. And queer longing.”
Lorenzo shot him a quick look. Charlie ignored the flash of heat it set off in his chest. “It wasn’t like how they make it out to be now,” he said gruffly. “It wasn’t as stylish, or fantastical. Or nearly that clean. And my crew had honor.” He was glowering at Charlie now, looking almost offended. “We weren’t knaves or cheats.”
“Okay!” Charlie said. “Well, that...sounds cool.”
“It wasn’t,” Lorenzo said shortly. “It was just...how things were back then. Boring and brutal.”
Charlie narrowed his eyes. This was familiar—Lorenzo was closing off again. “I guess you’re right,” he said, his voice deliberately casual. “I bet every vampire has some kind of life story just like that—pirates, kings, warlords. All very normal.”
Lorenzo glared at him, but didn’t take the bait. Charlie said, “Okay, so—how did you become a vampire?”
“You said only questions about my human life,” Lorenzo reminded him.
“You were a human when you became a vampire,” Charlie said. “Up until the moment of...hey, how are vampires made, anyway?”
Lorenzo smiled coldly, but said nothing.
“You know, I’m gonna get you that plumber,” Charlie said. “It’s not, like, a difficult thing. You might as well talk to me.”
“No,” Lorenzo said, and with that, they had arrived back at the party.
Things seemed to have deteriorated quickly from the formal, coordinated event that had been unfolding as they’d left; the kids were now completely intermingled into one clump on the dance floor, dancing riotously to loud, bass-heavy house music. The adults on the sidelines looked on haplessly, their elegant affair now thoroughly drowned in hormones. Charlie stifled a laugh.
Lorenzo resumed his position off to the side, arms crossed, every inch the watchful, patient chaperone. Charlie stood next to him and realized, with a bit of surprise, that he was enjoying himself: being outside in the soft moonlight, listening to music, watching silly teenage antics. He felt lighter than he had in weeks. He felt as if he might actually get some writing done tonight, and that it might not be horrible.
Lorenzo said, “Why are you even doing this project?”
Charlie startled. “Hm? Oh, my thesis?” He flailed for a second, not really having put any thought into his cover story, and he felt a flash of guilt at the thought of adding more to the lie. But then he realized that he could simply repurpose the rote answer he always gave when asked why he’d become an advice columnist. “I like listening to people, and hearing about their lives. The stuff that I—uh, the things that my thesis is about—love, family, relationships—they’re things that everyone struggles with at some point,” he said. “So I figured, maybe by researching those things, I could help people.”
He smiled at Lorenzo, but Lorenzo only looked skeptically back at him. Charlie shifted uneasily.
“Why supernatural creatures?” Lorenzo asked.
Charlie blinked. “What?”
“Why are you researchingourlives and relationships?”
“Oh. Well, uh...” This was tricky; he couldn’t very well say that supes were trendy, his column needed clicks, and he may have already been mistaken, by a decent portion of the internet, for an ancient witch. “My—my thesis advisor, she seemed to think—uh, that it would help my chances in the job market. It’s an emerging area, supernatural studies.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lorenzo said.
“But mostly, it’s about helping people,” Charlie said. “Like werewolves, and vampires, and trolls, and the voluntarily haunted.” Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “So, really, you should work with me.”
Lorenzo seemed a bit mollified, though he was still skeptical. “You think you will help people by writing some dusty tome?”
“Well, you never know,” Charlie said. “Someone’ll probably read it, at some point.”
“Probably not.”
“You’re right,” he sighed. “It’s not as cool as being a pirate.”
Lorenzo visibly fought back a smile. Charlie beamed at him.
