Page 16 of Road Trip with a Vampire
It was nearly seven thefollowing morning when I blinked open my eyes.
Despite how exhausted I’d been, I’d slept fitfully. Simply knowing Peter was in my living room had woken me up several times throughout the night.
My first class was in an hour, though. Tired or not, I had to get ready.
I pulled my robe over my pajamas, then removed the sound-buffering wind spell I’d put under the door the night before. I listened closely for hints that Peter was still there. He’d said he’d be gone first thing, but I was dubious. Though most vampires could function during the day, those stereotypes about nocturnal vampires preferring the night were based on truth.
When I cracked open my bedroom door, Peter was hunched over my coffee table, reading through the journal he’d shown me the night before. His focus was so intense he didn’t notice me watching him.
Did hehaveto be so attractive? It was inconvenient as hell. He wore the same clothes he’d had on the night before, but his simple black-T-shirt-and-blue-jeans combo really freaking worked on him. I watched as a lock of slightly-too-long hair fell into his eyes before he pushed it to the side. The sunlight streamed in through the living room window, bringing out highlights I hadn’t noticed earlier. Hints of auburn glinted amid his dark brown strands in the morning light.
As if he could feel my eyes on him, he lifted his head and glanced in my direction. I quickly looked away, feeling like an idiot for having been caught staring.
“Uh…” I muttered towards the windowsill. “Good morning.”
Peter’s brows furrowed in irritation. As though my presence were an annoyance, taking him away from something important. And then, as if realizing that he was behaving rudely—which he was; thiswasmy home after all—his eyes softened. “Good morning,” he said. “Um. Sleep well?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “But it’s fine. I frequently don’t.”
His forehead creased. “No?”
I shook my head. “I tend to drink caffeine too late at night.” My yearslong love affair with caffeinated beverages did frequently wreak havoc on my sleep schedule, though, of course, last night’s insomnia had nothing to do with it.
“Oh,” Peter said, not sure what to do with this. “I’m…sorry to hear that.”
I moved into the room, sitting down in the chair opposite him. Peter’s eyes met mine before flicking down to my bare legs, lingering there a beat too long. I flushed with the attention before chiding myself for waltzing in there in a robe that barely covered my ass.
I grabbed the fleecy throw draped over the back of my chairand covered my legs. “Going over your journal?” I asked, nodding at his notebook.
“Yes,” he said, before closing it on a frustrated sigh. “I’ve been going over the entries, hoping they might jog my memories. It was one of the only things on me when I woke up with amnesia, so I assume it was once important to me.”
“Has it helped?”
“No.” His disappointment was palpable. Even though the last thing I wanted was to start caring about this person, I felt bad. “Some of the entries are cryptic notes with nothing but a date, a location, and a few words I have no context for. Others are sketches.”
My eyes widened. “Sketches?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Of buildings and whatnot. I wonder if I was a traveling architect. Or something.” He paused, considering. “But I don’t remember making the designs or visiting any of these places.”
Peter stood up stiffly, stretching his arms over his head and closing his eyes on a quiet groan. Had he managed to sleep at all on that tiny couch? His shirt rode up a little as he moved, leaving bare a two-inch strip of pale skin just above the waistband of his jeans.
I stared, before I realized what I was doing and looked away.
Gods. I was acting like someone in one of my romance novels. Not that I’d ever read one where a secret witch ogles the hot vampire she’d just let crash on her couch.
“Can I take a shower before I go?” Peter’s question cut into my self-recriminations. “The bus terminal doesn’t have one. It’s been a while.”
“Oh, sure.” I pointed towards my bedroom. “You need to walk through there to get to the bathroom.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That okay?”
I thought of my secret stash ofjust in casesupplies. “Yeah. But stay out of my closet.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Once I heard the shower running, I made myself toast and coffee so I wouldn’t have to start work uncaffeinated or on an empty stomach. Becky had brought homemade apple butter into the studio for everyone last week and I slathered some on my toast as a treat.
While I munched, my eyes drifted to Peter’s journal. The urge to leaf through it was strong. I had many good traits, but keeping my nose out of other people’s business had never been one of them.
