Page 21 of Road Trip with a Vampire
I snorted. “It had nothing to do with you,” I confirmed. “Though I hope your girlfriend does something about your ego.”
“Oh, she does,” Reggie said mock seriously. “It’s her life’s mission to take me down at least one peg every day.” And then in a more serious voice he said, “She’s human, you know. The love of my life.”
As hard as it was for me to imagine my friend seriously dating a human, the joy in his voice was impossible to miss. “I’m really happy for you,” I said, meaning it.
“I’d love for you to meet her.” I could all but hear the grin in his voice.
I hesitated. Could we meaningfully rekindle our old friendship after all this time?
“Anybody important to you is important to me, too,” I said. That part, at least, was true. “And now that the mushy stuff is out of the way, can you please tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do with a six-foot-tall amnesiac vampire?”
He chuckled. “How terrible would it be if I admitted I have no idea?”
“How did I manage to never throttle you in all the years we hung out together?”
“A question for the ages,” he quipped. “Look. Since I put you in this situation, I’ll ask around to see whether there are any vampire communities out your way. Maybe Peter can find some people interested in making friends.”
“Thanks,” I said. “He seemed disappointed when I didn’t welcome him with open arms.”
“Consider it done,” Reggie said. “I don’t know what I’ll find, but I’ll do my best.”
An awkward silence fell between us. What did you say to someone who had once been a close friend after ten years of no communication?
“I…need to run,” Reggie said, the catch in his voice suggesting he felt the awkwardness as well. “But it’s been good catching up. Even if you only called to yell at me.”
“I’ll be sure not to let ten more years go by without calling,” I said.
I could at least promise him that much.
Five
Two months earlier
While traveling, Peter only broughtthings hewouldn’t be able to easily find wherever he was going.
His preferred mouthwash always came with him, as did a few bags from a blood bank just in case. He loathed drinking from plastic bags, hating the depraved, desperate way it made him feel. Sometimes, though, on long, isolated assignments, he had no choice.
His journal always came with him, too, wherever he went.
It served two functions.
The first was to help him keep track of his jobs. He was good at what he did, which meant his services were highly sought after. Seventy years ago, he’d remembered everything without jotting any of it down, but he was no longer a young man. Without a place to write down where and when he was supposed to be, Peter would never keep it all straight.
The journal’s second function was for his designs.
In a different lifetime he’d dreamed of becoming an architect.While most of his human memories were distant and murky, he still remembered the pleasure he’d found designing birdhouses for his mother and innovative pens for his father’s animals. He’d even designed the house he’d lived in when he’d come of age and moved out of his childhood home.
When time allowed and inspiration struck, he still enjoyed designing. It wasn’t something he discussed. Who would he tell? He had no close friends. It had been decades since a lover had stuck around long enough for him to confide in them. Designing and building pretty things was the stuff of dreamers, ofhumans.Not of people like him.
He enjoyed making his sketches nonetheless. And imagining what might have been.
Peter walked into the WalnutRoom at six the following evening for my post-work Fit Flow.
“You came,” I said, surprised.
He shrugged. “I said I would.”
He’d traded his black T-shirt and jeans for one of the muscle shirts we sold in the lobby and a pair of tight-fitting running shorts that did incredible things for his thighs. His eyes were clear, and he seemed much more relaxed than when he’d shown up unexpectedly the other night.
