Page 12 of Thirsty
He walked over to Lorenzo, lifting the cellophane bag he’d been carrying. “I brought you your dry cleaning,” he said, knowing he sounded a little smug.
Lorenzo crossed his arms, causing his leather jacket to stretch pleasingly across his biceps. His expression, however, was less encouraging. “I can’t believe you came.”
“Sure you can,” Charlie said happily. “So, what is this? A mixer for all the werewolves in town?”
Before he could answer, a tall man with an air of leashed energy approached them. He was wearing a fantastic blazer embroidered with abstract shapes in dark charcoal thread, and carrying a clear acrylic clipboard with a pen threaded through the mechanism at the top. He had a stiff, polite smile on his face,and didn’t seem much like a werewolf. Then again, Charlie had no idea what werewolves seemed like.
“Hi,” the man said as he reached them, clicking his pen twice. “Are you with the caterers? Because we’ve got everything set up—”
“Oh, uh—no. Hi,” Charlie said brightly, offering a hand. “I’m Charlie, I’m here with Lorenzo.”
The man glanced at his hand and then asked Lorenzo, “Here...with...?”
“He’s a human who has been...following me,” Lorenzo said darkly.
“We’re working together on a project,” Charlie said, turning his outstretched hand into a friendly wave. “Nice to meet you.”
“I don’t understand,” the man said, clicking his pen again twice. “How can I help you?”
“Oh, well, I’m a graduate student,” Charlie explained, offering the same cover story he’d told Lorenzo. “And I’m writing a thesis on relationships between humans and supernatural creatures, so I was wondering if I could maybe interview a few folks, or just mingle, or observe.”
The man lifted an eyebrow. “You want to observe...teenagers?”
“Teenagers?” Charlie echoed. Then he stopped to take in the scene around him in a way he hadn’t fully done before.
Most of the people milling around the dance floor did look somewhat...pubescent. There were a few ring lights on tripods set up at various points around the clearing, turning them into pre-made selfie spots. And the speakers were pumping out pop songs he didn’t recognize.
He looked back at the werewolf, who was clearly in chargeof all this, with a newfound sense of embarrassment and mild horror.
“I—I’m so sorry,” Charlie rambled. “I had no idea this was an event for—I won’t talk to any of the teenagers, believe me. I just—maybe there are some chaperones I could speak to, or—or maybe you—”
“Iam busy,” the man said, clicking his pen twice more.
Charlie was fairly certain he was about to be booted from the event—or possibly mauled—when Lorenzo jumped in. “I’ll keep an eye on him, Gray,” he told the man wearily. “I will make sure he does nothing to disturb the event.”
The man—Gray—eyed Lorenzo in anI don’t have time for thissort of way, and then said, “Great,” and walked away. As he did, Charlie could see that the shapes on his blazer actually formed an image of a large wolf howling at the moon. He didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver.
He did turn to confront Lorenzo, thoroughly appalled. “You could have warned me this was a—a thing for teens!”
“I told you not to come,” Lorenzo pointed out.
“That’s...fair,” Charlie sighed. “So, what is this—werewolf prom?”
The werewolves—teens, he now saw quite clearly—were chatting excitedly in small clumps around the dance floor, though no one seemed to have worked up the courage to start dancing yet. A few were taking videos of each other jumping and posing excitedly—for some TikTok trend, maybe? He hadn’t felt this old in a while.
“It’s not healthy for the packs to only mate among themselves,” Lorenzo explained. “So they throw this event every year for the young wolves to meet each other. This way the pack leaders can approve any new alliances. And they hire vampiresas security because we’re not allied with any of the packs and are therefore neutral.”
Charlie glanced around. “Are there any other vampires here?”
Lorenzo scoffed. “You don’t need more than one vampire to control some rowdy wolf pups.”
Charlie bit back a grin. Maybe this night wouldn’t be a total bust after all. He began rummaging in his bag for his journal and pen.
As Lorenzo spotted him, he said, “You can’t be serious. Don’t talk to the young wolves, it’s creepy.”
“I don’t want to talk to them, I want to talk to you,” Charlie said. “Say more about vampire security, it’s fascinating.”
“No, it’s not,” Lorenzo said flatly.
