Page 76 of By the Pint

I couldn’t decide which was more adorable, pissy Dima, or his boomer phone.

“Because I can’t use the sensor touch ones!” he snapped, obviously having heard my thoughts.

The phone rang from the other end of the line.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, momentarily panicking that he’d called the emergency turning services. What if they didn’t follow through with the steps correctly? What if they simply terminated me? One fewer problem for them. I’d heard about that happening.

Dima’s eyes flashed bright red, as though the thought only just occurred to him, too.

“Hey, D,” said a loud — sleep-husked? — male voice. “You finally fuck The Temper yet, or not?”

“Goldie,” Dima said. “You’re on speaker and he’s in the room.”

“Totes awks,” Goldie said.

“Are you busy?”

“No, no. We’ve just finished,” his friend said.

Dima shot me an apologetic grimace. “Can you look something up on your phone?” he said to his friend, then added for me, It’s stressful typing on this fucking tiny keypad.

You could have asked me to do it,I said.

He ignored this.

“Sure, laptop’s already open. We were just watching—you know what, never mind. I’m on speaker.”

“Can you look up ‘Is it possible to become a vampire from drinking a few drops of each other’s blood’?” Dima said with a wince.

“Shit, mate, what have you done?” Goldie said, as I said, “It was only one fucking drop, not a few.”

A keyboard clacked, and Goldie made some sort of impatient beat-boxing sounds while he no doubt waited for the screen to load. “Okay, yeah, it says …”

I held my breath. Pretty sure Dima was as well, even though he didn’t breathe.

“Yeah, fine, mate. Says no to becoming a vampire. A few drops aren’t enough. Needs to be a—”

“Pint of each.” Dima finished Goldie’s sentence. His shoulders dropped in obvious solace.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Relieved? Kinda. A smidgen disappointed? Maybe. I strengthened my mind bag before thinking my next thoughts. It would have been so muchsimpler for Dima to turn me here, by accident, than go through whatever steps Killian wanted me to take.

But accidental turnings were rare, super, super rare, so they had funny, inconsistent, sometimes militant laws. Apparently, it was exceedingly difficult to prove an accidental turning. Hackers were usually called in, and in most cases, where intentional turning had been presented as something else, the sireandthe new vampire would both be sent to gaol. Or terminated.

So, all in all, probably a good thing I wasn’t about to become a vampire in the middle of Dima’s luxury, family-friendly resort.

But I couldn’t help but feel I’d much rather have Dima as my sire over Killian. Why though? Why was that important?

“Is that the news you were hoping for?” the guy on the phone, Goldie, said, breaking me out of my spiral. “Can you tell me what happened now? Sounds kinky as fuck.”

“Another time.” Dima smiled again. It had been thirty seconds, and I already missed his smile so much. Into my mind, he said,He’s a nymph, as though to explain his friend. “Goldie, did you manage to find anything out about the other thing you were looking into?”

“Uh …” Goldie paused. Dima watched me the entire time. “Yes, I have,” he said, sounding unsure perhaps. “It’s uh … it’s a no on that front as well.”

Dima’s shoulders drooped. “I thought as much. Thanks for looking that up. Speak later, okay?”

“'Kay, mate, bye.”

He let his phone fall to the floor and turned to me. “I’m sorry. I just had to make sure. I’m still going to stay here tonight just to be sure nothing … untoward happens.”

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