Page 26 of My Roommate Is a Vampire

I felt a little bad that I was taking it down and replacing it with my own art. It wasn’t the painting’s fault it was hideous; someone, somewhere, had put a lot of effort into making it. It also looked seriously old, making me wonder if it was what Frederick had meant when he’d referred to family heirlooms.

Either way, this was my bedroom now, and that painting was nightmare fuel.

I gingerly lifted it from the wall. It must have hung there for years, because the paint on the wall behind it was half a shade darker than the matte cream covering the rest of the bedroom.

I picked up the first of the three small canvases I was about to hang in Ye Olde Hunting Party’s place, smiling as I remembered how fun the week I’d made them had been. We’d been on vacation in Saugatuck, and Sam had teased me for spending so much of our beach vacation combing the beach for trash—but then, he’d never understand how it made me feel to take what other people threw away and turn it into art that would outlast us all.

I didn’t have a big important lawyer job like he did—but through my art, I made a statement. And left my own mark on the world.

I grabbed my hammer, then dragged the antique desk chair that had to be at least as old as the city of Chicago to the spot where I planned to hang my series. I climbed on it and started banging a nail into the wall.

After a few loud whacks with the hammer, I froze, realizing what I was doing.

It was five o’clock.

I was still a little fuzzy on Frederick’s exact schedule. Would he still be asleep?

If he was, hammering into the wall would probably wake him up.

If it did, he would likely leave his room and come lecture me about waking him.

I still didn’t think I was ready to see him again.

I gingerly set the hammer down on the floor, hoping against hope that Frederick hadn’t heard it.

But a few minutes later his bedroom door creaked open.

Fuck.

“Good evening, Miss Greenberg.”

Frederick’s voice was deeper than usual, and thick with sleep. I turned slowly to face him, bracing myself for a lecture on the importance of keeping quiet when one’s roommate was trying to rest.

His voice and disheveled hair implied he’d just woken up, but he was fully dressed in a three-piece, pinstriped brown suit and a pageboy hat. He looked like an English professor from the set of a period film, off to give a lecture on the symbolism found withinJane Eyreor something—not like someone who’d just rolled out of bed.

Not that I’d ever had an English professor who looked likethat.

He didn’t launch into a lecture aboutJane Eyre, though. He also wasn’t staring at me the way I was staring at him. He was frowning at my Lake Michigan shoreline canvases where they sat propped against my bedroom wall, as though confused about what he was looking at. His arms were folded tightly across his broad chest as he scowled, which absolutely didnotmake me think about what his bare chest had looked like the other night. Or the way it ostensibly looked right that very second beneath his too-formal clothing.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” I offered, to steer my thoughts towards safer ground.

He waved a hand. “It’s fine. But... what are those?” He nodded in the direction of my landscapes.

“You mean my landscapes?”

“Is... is that what those are?” His eyebrows rose. He stepped into the room, as though to take a closer look. “Youmadethese?”

He sounded and looked at least as confused as my grandfather did whenever he saw one of my pieces—but he didn’t seem horrified. He also didn’t look or sound particularly complimentary or blown away by my creations, though. Which was valid. I’d long since made peace with the fact that my art wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

But this series was probably the most broadly accessible work I’d done in years. For starters, it was obvious these were lakeside images. If I was being honest, after the compliments he’d paid me on my silly little sketches on our notes to each other, part of me had hoped he’d immediately understand—and appreciate—what I was trying to do with these canvases.

“I made them, yes,” I confirmed. I tried to sound confident, though my voice was shaking a little.

“And you mean to hang them up?” Frederick eyed the nail I’d just hammered into the wall. “In here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” he asked, striding towards my canvases. He looked down at them, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his trousers. He seemed utterly bewildered. “I grant you that the painting hanging here previously was dated, but—”

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