Page 84 of The Awakening
“Do I have a choice?” Jae frowns, still watching me. “I think this is contrived.”
“What?”
“You don’t want me because of what I am, so this is your way of letting me down easy—gradually distancing yourself. You’re telling me that how I feel about you is potentially artificial, but it’snot. I’m not into you because you’re the first ranked vampire to pay me some attention or because you’re fit. There areloadsof other reasons. This might be my first night as a vampire, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I know who I am and what I feel. I’m notconfusedabout it. It’s all rubbish.”
I’m shocked, staring at him and blinking. If nothing else, this male always surprises me. “I’m not ready for you, Jae. Not yet. Not right now.”
“Whenwillyou be?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I can’t give you a timeline… Are you demanding that I do? Is this an ultimatum?”
“No,Jun.Christ.I just—” He shakes his head and stands up from the couch. He’s pacing now, running his hands into his thick hair. “I’m not ‘making demands’ of you. I wouldnever. I don’t know how to do this, alright? Be a purebred vampire. It’s like I can’t be myself because I know how you feel about me now—thisnew versionI’m supposed to be or whatever. It’s unfair. It’sbollocks. If I’d known you’d be like this, I wouldn’t have fucking gone through with it. I would have just tried to stay as I was!”
I fold my arms as I sit against the couch, watching him carefully. “So… you became a vampire for me, Jae? You blamemefor this?”
Jae pauses. First, he’s looking at me in disbelief. Then he shifts his gaze away and rubs his palm into his hair again. He looks like he’s in pain. “Shit.No. I didn’t mean that… I…”
He plops down against my live-edge coffee table. His head is in his hands and his back is hunched. “Fuck.”
“You still aren’t registering the situation, and it makes me nervous, Jae. You had two choices—be awakened or die young. Embrace your nature or let it slowly eat away at you. You havealwaysbeen a vampire. Regardless of whether or not I awakened you, you were one of us—you just didn’t know it. You still don’tgetthat. It’s not sinking in and you’re putting all your vampire stock inme.”
He’s silent with his back bent, elbows on his knees. I pick up my beer and take a sip before I say, “You know what I don’t want? For us to bond, and then some weird shit happens in the aristocracy—because inevitably, it will—and you have a bad day. Then you come home and say, ‘If I hadn’t let that fucking Junichi awaken me, I wouldn’t need to deal with this bullshit.’”
Jae sits up, frowning as he turns to look at me. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“You basically just did.”
“I apologize.”
Bringing my bottle to my lips, I tip my head back and down the rest of the liquid.
We sit in a long stretch of silence. Lulú eventually appears, slinks past me and hops up on the table, bumping her head into Jae’s lower back. Traitor. She’s taking his side. Or maybe she’s giving him comfort when I’m refusing to.
He turns, petting the top of her head with his palm. She’s nuzzling her nose into him. Showering him with affection. “What now?” Jae asks, focusing his gaze on Lulú and stroking her back. “I should sleep around the aristocracy and get a taste of everyone’s blood on my path of self-discovery?”
“Generally, sleeping around in the aristocracy is frowned upon. But you’re a purebred, so technically you can do whatever the hell you want… maybe not in thisparticulararistocracy? I don’t think Haruka and Nino would appreciate that. But they are pretty chill about things.”
“Is that really what you want me to do, Jun?”
“It’s not about what I want. It’s about you accepting whoyouare now. Whatever path you decide to take to get to that point. Again, your choice. I won’t tell you not to.”
I know what he wants from me—what he wants me to say. Idon’twant him to sleep around and feed from anything ranked that moves, but I won’t say it. It’s his journey. His decision, and I think it’s necessary.
“I’d like for us to stay close, though,” I say. “I’m not ‘distancing’ myself from you, like you said, and Idon’twant us to become strangers. It would be nice to know what you’re doing—how you are. I don’t want you to be angry with me. I just need time.”
“I—I understand,” he says. “I hear you…” Lulú is literally lying against him now with her legs outstretched.Dios mío. She sits up abruptly when Jae slowly stands from the table. He sighs. “I’ll go pack up my room then.”
I sit up straight, surprised. “What? I’m not kicking you out, Jae. You don’t need to leave—you can take your time, and you probably need to feed again.”
He shakes his head. “No… I’ll figure something out. I’ll leave tonight. It’s best, I think.” He tries to walk around the opposite side of the table, an effort to avoid passing me. I stand and quickly move to block his path. I put my hands on his shoulders and look down into his face.
“Are we clear that I’m not ‘done’ with you, or whatever the hell you keep saying? That’snotwhat this is. Do you really understand? It’s just time apart to think and work on ourselves. Recalibrate.”
“I understand,” he says, avoiding my eyes.
In this moment, and in this singular day where I have decidedly not indulged Jae (afterweeksof doing so), I take his chin in my fingertips so that he looks up at me. I lean down and brush my nose into him, slowly submitting to the intense pull I’ve been feeling toward him all damn day. Resisting it has been exhausting, and even giving in this little bit eases the tension in my spine.
I tilt my head and press our lips together. I’m kissing him, but Jae is totally guarded. He doesn’t part his lips for me. He’s awkward and not meeting my rhythm, trying hard to keep the kiss polite. Sterile. I decide to steal a page from his book. I move one hand up and into the thick waves of his hair, then move the other down between us to graze my fingers against the swell between his legs.
