Page 11 of Thirsty
“Rude,” Rachel said, walking away with a self-satisfied grin. Maggie, however, followed Lorenzo as he went into the kitchen for a large mug of blood to calm his nerves.
As he busied himself pouring, she said, “He seemed cool.”
“He’s not,” Lorenzo bit out.
“Clearly,” Maggie said, leaning against the counter. “How’d you meet this guy again?”
“We met a few years ago,” Lorenzo said, staring down into his mug. “He was a friend of Olivia’s.”
“Oh, okay,” Maggie said with faint recognition. “I liked Olivia.”
Lorenzo said quietly, “Me too.”
There was a faint ache in his chest, the hollow pang of loneliness. He knew it wasn’t Olivia he longed for, though. He thought of her from time to time, as he thought of others he had loved and parted ways with. But he knew that she wasn’t his soulmate.
It was only that no one was his soulmate. He was 239 years old, and he still didn’t have a partner in his undeath. He was a vampire—a powerful and handsome vampire, thank you—but he didn’t date that often. It wasn’t as easy to meet people asit seemed in all the humans’ stories. For one thing, he had no interest in high school students. Where was the vampire version ofWhen Harry Met Sally? Why couldn’t vampires meet their soulmates on Hinge?
Becoming a vampire had imbued him with many powers, but inherent charisma was not one of them. It wasn’t particularly easy to make new friends in your third century; supernatural creatures were all distinct, and some quite prickly, both literally and figuratively. And the older he got, the faster he felt time slipping away from him; the harder it was to keep up with the latest cultural language, the pulse of human camaraderie. He knew himself to be handsome and brooding, but the handsome brooding types spent a lot of time alone, lurking behind things.
He retreated to his room, put the mug of blood on his mantel, and perused his records. He was in the mood to let music do his thinking for him.
He pulled a thin sleeve off the shelf and smiled at the warm wash of yellow. “At Last” was her most famous song, but he preferred Etta’s “A Sunday Kind of Love.” It was all about getting past the thrill of Saturday night passions and into something like the kind of love he wanted: Predictable. Comfortable. Warm.
He sighed, realizing he’d become the worst kind of cliché—a vampire dreaming of love in the sunlight. How pathetic.
He put Etta back on the shelf carefully. Olivia had smelled of sunlight, somehow—he’d nearly tasted it on her skin when he’d touched her. They may not have been soulmates, but she’d brought warmth to his life. She had been lovely and kind to him.
He would get his revenge on Charlie for ruining their happiness.
Chapter 3
With the hints Rachel dropped, it wasn’t hard for Charlie to figure out when and where the werewolf party was likely taking place. His Uber took him out of town and down a poorly paved road with farms on one side and steep mountain cliffs on the other, then wound up and around a small peak a few times before dropping him off in a pebbled parking lot surrounded by forest. A few lanterns illuminated a footpath further up the slope, through the trees.
He was lucky Rachel had clued him in about this event existing at all.Wise Old Cronehad gotten hundreds of letters about werewolves by this point, almost as many as he’d gotten about vampires, and last night had been a total bust on the latter front. He’d enjoyed getting to know Rachel and Maggie, but he still needed Lorenzo to answer at leastsomequestions about vampirism if he was going to have any hope of writing a column people would actually read.
And Ava had been breathing down his neck about the column due tomorrow, which he’d yet to send her. After running intoLorenzo at the coffee shop, he’d only told her that hemight have something, a tidbit so tantalizingly vague she’d been blowing up his phone constantly looking for updates. He was ignoring her for now. He didn’t want to do anything that might derail his progress, even something so small as express hope to another person.
Maybe he’d actually get enough out of this arrangement with Lorenzo to write something good. Or maybe these were the surreal final days of his dream job; the death rattle of a wizened crone who, it turned out, wasn’t very wise at all.
Unhelpfully, his thoughts went to the last time he’d spoken to his father—when he’d opened up about the changes atMidnightand the threat to his career, committing the classic mistake of thinking that his dad might be encouraging or even just warm. It was hard enough to convince his rich, boomer father that in this century’s economy, anyone could be screwed over at any time, especially when new owners came in——it didn’t matter how “indispensable” you made yourself. Insufferable advice aside, Professor George Wever had never respected Charlie’s career choice.
It’s a blessing in disguise, he’d said.Go get a PhD.
I don’t want a PhD, Dad, Charlie had replied, for at least the thousandth time.I don’t know anything.
And yet you’re an advice columnist.His dad loved his own sense of humor, regardless of its effect on others. Charlie remembered gripping the phone so hard his palm hurt.
You could go to medical school. People do that late in life, his dad had rambled on.Hell, go to law school! That’s a bit pedestrian, but it’s a living.
I’m making a living, Charlie had told him.I’m a writer.
And his dad had said,You’re not making a living at being a writer. That’s why you called me.
Charlie had muttered something about regretting that choice and hung up. And now, here he was, weeks or possibly days away from losing everything. He started climbing the forest footpath faster, trying to outpace his anxiety.
Right as he started to huff from the slope, the footpath emerged from the woods into a large clearing with a small barn on the far end and a dance floor in the middle. Trees decorated with twinkly lights hemmed in most of the clearing, but a small break in the woods opposite him provided a picturesque view of the town below. Off to his right was a table laden with party snacks and a couple of speakers in the process of being set up, and people were beginning to gather on either side of the dance floor, dressed in summer party clothes. He felt a surge of tentative triumph.
And then he got his confirmation that he was in the right place: Lorenzo was standing off to the left, scowling when he spotted him. “What are you doing here?” he hissed.
