Page 99 of By the Pint

Goldie would make jokes.

Taurin would talk about his job at the timberyard and his, as of yet, unfulfilled dreams of starting his own cake decorating business. And I honestly believed he did both in the hopes he would bore me to sleep. It almost worked as well.

Holly asked me questions about my un-life before she knew me. The history of Borderlands. What the City of the Undead was like. If I ever got pins and needles. Did I miss real food? Did vampires really use the bathroom, or was it all a big ruse? Honestly, I didn’t know she was capable of so much chatter.

Mal would either read to me, or nap. Like an old man after a hearty dinner. Like he completely trusted me not to explode myself with sunlight.

But Joey was my favourite. And once the others found out what we talked about when she was on shift, they tried their best to keep us separate. They couldn’t stop us though.Especially after I took up whining her name repeatedly until Goldie and Holly relented.

Because Joey spoke only of Casey. She made me tell her everything. Replay moments in her mind like little movies so that she could fall in love with him as much as I did. I stopped short of showing her any explicit stuff because Goldie had told me in no uncertain terms, “Not cool, bro.” Though, I hardly thought it was fair I had to sit through every vivid memory and sordid fantasy of everyone else’s, but didn’t get to share my own.

Soon I would be the only person to remember our time together.

But at least I could share most of it with Joey. There would be someone else to remember Casey.

Joey gasped, and sighed, and laughed, and sobbed at all the right moments. She pulled my head to her squishy, motherly chest and stroked my hair through her fingers. She didn’t wince when she dragged me close, or hold her breath, or think how desperately I needed to bathe. She just let me talk about him.

“He is beautiful,” she whispered. I didn’t tell her that the memories I replayed were tainted by my bias and emotion. Of course Casey would be beautiful in my memories.

Though he was beautiful. The most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Or imagined. More beautiful than anything I could have dreamed up in my entire six-hundred-and-twenty years.

“Especially when he smiles,” Joey added. “He loves you. Nobody smiles like that for someone they don’t love. The kind of smile that’s not just on their face. It’s not a laughter smile either, those are different. This is the kind that lights up their whole body like … like they’ve just had a line of coke.”

“Such a romantic,” I teased.

She laughed. “It’s true though. It’s like you give him life. Ironic, really, since you’re so undead.” Her fingers never left my hair, and I knew she meant no insult by it. “But it’s like he comesawake when you’re near him, like you’re the sun— Well, no, not the sun. You’re the moon and he’s a …”

“Moonflower,” I whispered, holding back my sob.

“Yeah. He’s a moonflower.” She nestled her cheek onto the top of my head. “Tell me again about the mini golf. When he got so mad at you he chased you over the holes and pinned you against the volcano.”

I groaned. “I feel terrible about that. I was such a shit.”

“A fucking hilarious shit. Please show me again.”

“Well, it was pretty funny …”

So, I launched into the memory again. Starting at the first hole. Casey’s gorgeous furious face when he thought I was better at sport than he was. The way his arms and chest filled out his long-sleeve t-shirt. How he finally relented into laughter as he gave chase. Occasionally Joey made me pause the memory, so we could spend extra time admiring Casey, or else laughing at his ridiculously short fuse.

“This bit, the shark bit, is my absolute favourite. Oh my gods, look at his face!” she said. “He was about to toss that club into the moat at that point. And the—”

“Wait!” I sat upright beside her and held my hand up to shush her. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Joey asked, her face sobering in an instant.

“I heard … something.” I looked around my darkened room as though expecting to find a certain person lurking in the doorway.

Joey tried to speak, but I slapped a palm over her mouth.

“Stop thinking,” I spat.

Amazingly she did. Her mind went quiet. Except for one tiny thought that bubbled to the surface.I wonder what he heard.

“I … I’m not really sure. I think … he might be thinking about me.”

Of course he’s thinking about you,she said in her head because I still had my hand clamped over her mouth.He loves you. What did he say?

“My name. But I couldn’t make out the rest.”

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