Page 81 of By the Pint

Because next to him, an apparently empty seat.

26.

Casey

That fucking kiss cam. It was the last straw.

He’d already been in a sour mood. His vampire differences highlighted at every possible turn at Remy Paragon Stadium. I should have figured spectator sports and the undead did not mix. And I was only just realising this would be my future. Did the thought bother me? Maybe. In that moment, I couldn’t tell, I was too preoccupied by how stressful Dima was finding it all. I needed to soothe him. Help him, like he would help me if the roles were reversed.

I didn’t know how Killian put up with it every home game for the two-ish years he visited me. And come to think of it, why had Killian even been in Bordalis for two years, when he lived in the City of the Undead?

From the stands, people began yelling at us. At me.

“Freckleman, is that your boyfriend?”

“Casey? A vampire? Seriously?”

“Casey, will you sign my tits?”

Kiss cam had already moved onto its next victim, but Dima still stared at the screen, his eyebrows knotted inwards into a deep V and his red eyes were sad, mournful even.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said, getting to my feet and pulling him up with me.

People continued to shout stuff, faces and cameras and phones followed us. I didn’t give a shit. I needed to get Dima somewhere private, away from the crowds. Away from the cameras and the noise and the barrage of thoughts. Somewhere surrounded by metal.

A metal box … I wished I could pull him inside the locker of my mind

I led him from the stands and into the corridor. Dima was uncharacteristically quiet beside me.

“Mr Freckleman, everything okay?” Lana said, lifting the ropes again for us.

I nodded to the orc and pulled Dima farther along the passageways to the elevators. I smashed the call button and crossed my fingers the interiors were not mirrored.

What are you doing?Dima said, and even in my mind he sounded quiet, resigned, dejected.

The lift doors pinged open, and thank gods, not mirrored walls. Instead, life-sized, floor to ceiling vinyls of current and historic Rockets players. A little easier on the mind. A nearly seven-foot Mike Ryder adorned the back wall. Easier on the eye, too.

Two faces whipped towards us, two human men in their forties or fifties. The elevator’s only passengers. Their eyes ping-ponged between Dima and me.

Casey Freckleman. Oh my gods, that’s Casey Freckleman,the shorter of the pair thought, while the other one thought,A fucking vampire? At a wingball game? We’re all in danger.

“Out, now. Get out,” I said, holding my arm over the door sensor.

It was the shorter one that spoke. Tentatively, as though he was unsure of himself. “But this isn’t our floor?”

“Now!” I didn’t shout, but it was shout adjacent.

The men practically fell out. One of them said,Wow, what an asshole.I couldn’t find a fuck to give. I positioned my body as a shield between Dima and these fucking people, and guided him inside, holding up my hand like a traffic cop so that no one would follow us in. I pressed the button for the top floor, floor fourteen, and waited five, ten seconds. Then I slammed my hand against the emergency stop button, halting the elevator somewhere between floors eight and nine, and pulled the manual override lever, so Control wouldn’t be able to move the damn lift before we were ready. Before I was ready.

From my jacket pocket, I took out one of the only two things I’d brought with me, a condom still in its wrapper. Man, I had really assumed tonight might have gone in an entirely different direction. I spat onto the foil because I didn’t have any adhesive and wedged it over the lens of the security camera in the corner.

“What’re you doing?” Dima said, his head cocked to the side like the adorable, lethal killing machine he was.

I took his face in my hands and backed him up against the wall. “Tell me everything. What’s going on inside that brain of yours? I can’t bear seeing you upset.”

He shook his head, his hands reaching up to cover my wrists. “I can’t tell you. I can’t … It’s not … I just …”

“This is why you want me to stay human, isn’t it? Why you don’t want me to become a vampire. Like you.”

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