Page 95 of My Roommate Is a Vampire

“Fine,” he said, tersely. “I hope, however, that you are not averse to picking up where we left off when you get back home.”

Then I kissed him. Because no—I was not averse to it at all.

I floated more than walked into the library for my shift.

When I got there, I sat down at the circulation desk in the children’s section and went through the motions of putting away my purse and logging into the station’s communal desktop. But my mind was miles away, back in the apartment.

The sun had risen about an hour ago. Frederick was likely getting ready to go to sleep. This morning was another art day, and I needed to get the watercolors, canvases, and plastic floor coverings all set up. Kids had already started showing up for the event, milling around book displays with their parents until we were ready to get started.

While art days were usually a highlight for me, right now I wished I were back at home, cuddling with and sleeping next to Frederick.

“Good morning.” Marcie was tying her hair back into a ponytail, rummaging around for supplies in the closet behind the circulation desk as she greeted me.

“Morning.” I looked down at the plan for this morning that I’d come up with a few days ago, glad Marcie had printed it out and placed it in front of the computer. “What do you think of my idea?”

“Paint Your Favorite Book’s Setting?”

“Yeah.”

Marcie smiled at me. “I think it’s great.”

My chest warmed. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m pretty proud of it.”

“You should be,” Marcie said. I blushed a little at the praise, then grabbed a ponytail holder from my own bag and pulled as much of my still too-short hair as I could into a messy knot on top of my head. “We’ve done book characters before, and Disney princesses, but not settings.”

“So many children’s books take place in amazing locations,” I said. I crouched down and started hunting beneath the desk, trying to find where I’d stashed the box of brushes and colored pencils. “I hope the kids have a lot of fun with this.”

I didn’t have to wait long to get confirmation that the event was a wild success.

“Miss Greenberg? Is it okay if I add a dragon to my castle?”

I turned away from a little girl I’d been helping who was painting a vibrant picture of the sun. She’d chosen a nearly neon shade of purple for the sun’s rays. It was easily my favorite of all the projects the kids were working on.

“Of course it’s okay,” I said to the little boy who asked the question, who’d earlier introduced himself as Zach. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Zach gave a one-shoulder shrug. “The instructions were to paint our favorite book’s setting,” he said. “I already did the castle, and I thought painting a character, too, would be breaking the rules.”

I crouched down so I was eye-level with Zach. His canvas was covered in shapeless swirls of browns and greens. It didn’t look like any castle I’d ever seen—but then again, I’d never seen a castle in person, so who was I to judge? Maybe in his favorite book, or in his imagination—or both—this was exactly what castles looked like.

“I think a dragon would look great right here,” I said, pointing to the one corner of the canvas that hadn’t been covered in watercolor paint.

“But Fluffy is the main character of the book, not a setting,” Zach pointed out. His tone was as serious as if he were giving a lecture on the current state of American politics, which—given that he was all of six years old—was so adorable I nearly burst out laughing.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep that from happening and pretended to study his canvas. “I see your point,” I said. “But you know—the only real rule in art is to make something you enjoy.”

His eyebrows shot up his little forehead. “No other rules at all?”

“None,” I confirmed. “We wanted kids to paint the settings from their favorite books today, but if you want to add Fluffy, go for it. In fact,” I added, “I can’t really picture a castle without a dragon. Maybe Fluffy actuallyispart of your book’s setting, and not just a character.”

Zach chewed his bottom lip as he considered my words. “That makes sense.”

“I agree,” I said. “In the end, though, this is your painting. Make something you love.”

And with that, Zach dipped his paintbrush in the pot of orange watercolor in front of him, painted a giant swirl in the only spare corner of his canvas, and smiled.

By the time I made it back to the apartment it was nearly sundown. I took the stairs two at a time, grinning as I imagined throwing myself into Frederick’s arms and picking up where we’d left off this morning.

When I got to the third-floor landing, however, I knew that something was very wrong.

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