Page 24 of Thirsty
Lorenzo shrugged.
“Religious issues...?” Charlie tried.
Lorenzo glanced at him stonily.
“I can see the age thing being a problem too,” Charlie mused. “I mean, you could simultaneously be too old and too young for someone. Has that ever been an issue?”
“No.”
“Hm,” Charlie said, taking a few notes down on his phone. He thought for a minute, and then said, “And then I guess there’s the whole blood drinking thing.” He looked Lorenzo up and down consideringly. “Has anyone ever been too scared to date you because you’re a vampire?”
“Not really.”
Charlie sighed. “Are you going to expand on any of these answers?” Lorenzo’s shoulders just crept another inch up toward his ears, and Charlie gave him a playful shove. “C’mon, I want to know what it’s like to be the vampire lothario.”
Lorenzo’s eyes had a pinched look to them. “I’m not a—lothario, or whatever you say. And no, no one has been afraid to date me,” he said. “I am not a violent person.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” Charlie said quickly. “I didn’t mean that. Just...I mean, before vampires were even, y’know,out—well, that must have been really hard. Trying to forge arelationship with someone when you have to keep a part of yourself secret.”
Lorenzo stared at the row of bottles across the bar. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“And at the same time, you’re gonna outlive any human partner you’d ever have,” he added, as it occurred to him. “That must be tough.”
Lorenzo said nothing, looking as lost in thought as Charlie was becoming. “You’ve probably loved and lost a lot over the years, right?” he said, thinking about what a fertile area this must be for his readers. “I mean, before everyone knew about vampires, you must’ve had to leave people behind to avoid getting found out.”
Charlie jotted down some notes on his phone as the many dimensions of potential vampire relationship drama unfolded before him. “Some heartbreak in your past, I bet,” he mused, as Lorenzo continued to sit in silence beside him.
When the silence had stretched on for another beat, Charlie looked back up at Lorenzo. He’d craned his head to stare at Charlie, his eyes narrowed, expression unreadable.
Before Charlie could ask what was on his mind, Sal broke down into tears.
“Hey—hey man,” Charlie said, concerned. He was standing closer than he’d realized, obviously listening to their conversation, and now he was dabbing his face with increasingly damp cocktail napkins. Charlie reached across the bar toward him. “Are you okay?”
“’S nothing,” he said wetly, his voice wavering. Lorenzo was speechless.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked.
“I’m sorry,” Sal said heavily. “Just—those things you were saying about—about how hard it can be to find someone when you’re...living in secret...”
Charlie gasped. “Yeah?”
And as Sal launched into a story about a cosmic chasm opening in his demonic home realm, which had thrown him and a few of his compatriots into the human dimension, forever separating them from their home and loved ones, Charlie almost entirely forgot that Lorenzo was still sitting there next to him.
“I do care about her,” Sal said a while later. “But there are so few of us left in this realm, I feel like I’m betraying our cause by loving a human. I mean technically she’s a faerie, but, y’know, to our people you’re all the same.”
“Sure,” Charlie said, nodding deeply. “But it sounds like, from what you’ve told me, she’s not making room for your life and your culture. She’s not putting in the time to learn about your demonic rites. If she can’t do that, what kind of life are you going to have together long-term?”
Sal sat silently for a moment, his brow furrowed. “You think...I should leave her?”
“I think you deserve someone who cares about the things that are important to you,” Charlie said.
Lorenzo’s barstool scraped loudly as he pushed away from the bar. Charlie jumped at the sound, belatedly realizing how long he’d been consoling Sal—and ignoring Lorenzo. “Hey,” he said, as Lorenzo threw some money down on the bar. “You’re going?”
He pulled his coat on, not looking at Charlie, and didn’t answer. Charlie wondered if he’d annoyed him by getting so distracted. “Hey wait, before you go,” he said, getting his phone out of his pocket. “I still need a new picture of you for your license.”
Lorenzo looked up at him, his features twisted into a glare. Charlie raised his eyebrows, surprised, but snapped a picture of Lorenzo anyway.
“Great,” he said uncertainly, glancing down at it. He’d have to wash out the background to make it suitable for the license, but it was a great pic of Lorenzo, despite his thunderous expression.
