Page 122 of Road Trip with a Vampire
He turned to go.
“Peter,” I said impulsively.
He paused and turned to face me, eyebrows raised in silent question.
“It’s…good to see you,” I confessed. “Really good.”
He let out a shaky breath. “You, too, Zelda,” he said, my name in his mouth a gentle caress.
I absolutely didnotstand in that open doorway, watching him walk away until he rounded the corner and was out of my line of sight. If I had, I’d be forced to admit to myself that I wanted him back.
Twenty-Eight
Front-page headline from theRedwoodsville Times, present day
Record-Breaking Rains to Sweep the North Coast All Week
Redwoodsville Times, staff reporter
By the time I finishedwhat I’d needed to accomplish in the studio, the rain had started up again, light enough that I barely noticed it.
An hour later, though, after I’d changed into my pajamas but just before I was about to begin my nightly routine, I heard the distinctiveplink, plink, plinkof dripping water landing in the various buckets I’d scattered throughout my apartment. A few minutes later, the drips became thin, steady streams.
If my ceiling was leaking again, it was raining hard.I looked out my bedroom window. Sure enough, it was coming down in sheets.
Was Peter still on the roof? Or had he gone inside when therain had started picking up? I nearly opened the window so I could stick my head out and check—if Peter was on the roof, he’d be drenched by now—before reminding myself he didn’t need me taking care of him.
He was a grown vampire. If he wanted to be on the roof in a rainstorm, that was not my problem.
Then again, what if he was so determined to fix this roof that he stayed on it longer than he should? As he’d demonstrated time and again in our yoga classes, his balance was terrible. It didn’t take much imagination to picture him slipping off and getting badly hurt.
After another few minutes spent in an internal tug-of-war with myself, the part of me that was worried won out. I grabbed a raincoat and pulled on a warm pair of leggings so I could go outside and insist he stop working for the night. Halfway down the stairs I heard a banging on the studio’s front door that was so loud it reverberated through the building.
When I threw open the front door a minute later, Peter blew inside with a gust of wind that rattled the windowpanes.
He scrubbed a hand over his face to clear the water from his eyes, sending droplets flying. I didn’t know when the rain had kicked up again in earnest, but Peter had clearly been out in it for a while. He was drenched to the skin, the soaked locks of his dark hair hanging limply in front of his face. The thin cotton of his T-shirt now clung to his body like a second skin and gods help me—I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his chest. On our trip I’d seen him in every stage of dress and undress, but something about the way his shirt clung to him, hinting at all the muscle that lay beneath without allowing me to see it—
“May I have a towel, please?” Peter’s reasonable and entirely innocent question cut into my filthy imaginings. “It’s pouring.”He was so drenched a puddle of water was forming on the floor at his feet.
“A towel,” I stammered. “Yes, of course.”
I hurried to the back closet, where we kept towels for our students’ use during class. Our towels were small—they weren’t intended to dry off an entire soaking-wet person of Peter’s size—but if he took three or four, it should get the job done.
I ditched my raincoat and slid open the closet door, preparing to grab a handful.
Then I froze when I saw what was inside.
Or rather—whatwasn’tinside. The closet was completely empty save for a handful of yoga blocks that must have been mistakenly put there by one of our fill-in instructors. Where were the dozens of neatly folded towels that were supposed to be in there? Had Linds or Becky sent them out to be laundered without telling me?
Peter was moving towards me, the squelch of his wet shoes on the tile floor giving him away. When he reached where I stood, he peered over my shoulder into the nearly empty closet. His hair dripped onto my shoulder, the chilly splash seeping through my shirt and all the way down to my skin.
“There are no towels,” he noted.
“Yeah.” I swallowed, hyperaware of him at my back. “We usually have a ton in here. Maybe they got moved because of the leaking roof? I’m…not sure.” I was about to offer to bring him a towel from my apartment when I had a better idea. Or worse, depending. “If you want to dry off and change in my apartment, you can.”
“What?” he all but squeaked.
After that, my words came faster than a runaway train. “We can throw your wet clothes into my dryer. I’ll grab some dry things from the studio’s inventory that you can wear until they’reready.” Surely something on our racks hadn’t been ruined by the leaking roof.
