Page 117 of Road Trip with a Vampire
I miss you
—Peter
The note was brief, but I had so many questions.
Where was Peter now? When on earth had he learned how to bakecookiesof all things? And above all: What did his sending me homemade cookiesmean?
If I suspended every ounce of disbelief I’d ever had, I still wouldn’t have been able to picture Peter doing anything in a kitchen that was ultimately intended for human consumption. Yet apparently he’d done exactly that. He must have been branching out and trying new things. I couldn’t begrudge him that, even if baking wouldn’t have been at the top of the list of things I’d have encouraged him to try.
I brought the box inside, then opened it on my kitchen table. Sure enough, inside was a plate stacked high with two dozen chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. When had someone last done something this sweet, thoughtful, and domestic for me? My mind drew a complete blank.
Touched, I took the topmost cookie from the pile. Examined it. It looked delicious.
I took a bite.
And immediately regretted every decision I’d made in my life that had led me to doing so.
“Ohgods!” It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever intentionally put into my mouth. I spat out the cursed mouthful in the kitchen sink, then ran, half laughing and half gagging, into the bathroom. I had to rinse out the taste or I was going to lose it.Itbeing my breakfast.
What wasinthose things? Baking soda, definitely—its sharp flavor and pasty consistency overpowered everything else. But beneath that I was pretty sure I’d detected hints of rice flour, banana, and…oregano, probably. I grabbed my mouthwash and took an enormous swig, swishing it around until the bad cookie flavor had been replaced with Listerine.
Then I sat down on the floor of my bathroom…andlaughed.
Vampires were notoriously terrible cooks. It made sense if you thought about it. A chef who couldn’t sample what they weremaking would always be at a serious disadvantage. Undoubtedly Peter knew this about himself, too. But tried anyway.
For me.
My laughter subsided, and a lump formed in my throat that had nothing to do with the horrible mess I’d nearly swallowed.
When I returned to my living room, I grabbed a pen and a sheet of scrap paper from my coffee table. Texting him would have been a more efficient way to communicate than what I was about to do, but he’d just sent me a handwritten note. It seemed only reasonable to respond to his note the old-fashioned way.
Peter, I wrote.
Thanks for the cookies. What a surprise! You really shouldn’t have. (Seriously.)
I paused, unsure what to write next. A million possibilities sprang to mind, but they all felt too sentimental. I hadn’t forgiven him—couldn’tforgive him—for the past. Letting him know how much I missed him would blur lines that had to stay firmly drawn.
Hope you’re doing well.
That was okay to say, I decided, even though things between us were over. It was the truth.
–Z
I kept the bag of transporting powder beside my dagger on my nightstand these days. I sprinkled a pinch of it over the note,thoughtPeter’s front right pants pocketas hard as I could, and watched as the note disappeared into thin air.
He couldn’t send a note back to me the same way. That was okay. If he wanted to reach me, he could text.
I chose to ignore the way my heart fluttered at the image of him finding my note in his pocket, opening it. Thinking of me.
Becky was checking students inwhen I returned to the studio thirty minutes later, box of cookies in hand. My earlier fatigue had deserted me the instant I’d learned of my mysterious delivery. If I laid down now, I’d just stare at the ceiling, giving thoughts that I definitely shouldn’t be having the opportunity to run rampant.
Keeping the inedible cookies in my apartment felt like a bad idea for similar reasons.
“What was in the package?” Lindsay asked. She’d finished the window clings while I’d been upstairs and had moved on to adding goat-themed decor to the Walnut Room door.
“Cookies,” I said, setting the box down where we kept the trash ready for the dumpster. After Lindsay’s reaction to me texting with Peter, it was best to keep the explanation simple.
“Who were they from?” Lindsay asked.
