Page 74 of Road Trip with a Vampire
His eyes blazed. “I know you are.”
He kissed me then, all lips, tongue, and teeth, and—
All conversation stopped after that.
When I woke up againa few hours later, Peter was still sleeping beside me.
I was tempted to stay in bed with him for a while longer. The idea of waking him up with kisses and picking up again where we’d left off was so appealing I nearly gave in to the temptation.
My stomach demanded breakfast, though. It was nearly eleven, and last night’s dinner had been more than twelve hours ago.
I decided to take advantage of Peter’s sleeping in to check out the hotel’s breakfast buffet. I pulled on the clothes he’d all but torn off me the night before from the floor of the suite’s common room. My cheeks heated as I remembered how determined he’dbeen to get me as naked as possible as fast as possible—and how eager I’d been to return the favor.
Before I left, I grabbed Peter’s road map so I could review it while I ate. Then I turned back to look at him one more time. He’d rolled over onto his side, the arm I’d used as a pillow outstretched as if I were still beside him. His mouth hung slightly open as he slept, his normally furrowed brow relaxed in slumber.
It was probably cliché to think someone looked younger when they slept. But in Peter’s case, it was true. Watching him, I could almost imagine the person he might have been before becoming what he was today. Somebody with very human hopes and dreams. Maybe with a family. A more innocent person by far than what he was now: A vampire, who had done gods only knew what before losing his memories.
I shook off the pang of sympathy that hit me whenever I thought about everything vampires had to lose to become what they were. For most, it was a tragic story. Some vampires chose that life for themselves, but for every person I’d known who’d run to vampirism with open arms, I’d met at least a hundred whose origins were steeped in violence and tragedy.
Peter knew my story, warts and all. What was his? I had so many questions about this enigma of a man. Hopefully one day we would both get answers.
I got to the breakfast buffet just before it closed, my stomach grumbling when I caught a whiff of bacon and fresh coffee. The dining area was only half-occupied, mostly by hungover-looking people in their twenties and thirties staring blearily down at their plates.
Wedding guests, probably.
I had to stifle a grin of recognition at how miserable some ofthem looked. I’d been there myself countless times. The importance of alcohol moderation hadn’t hit home until well into my third century.
After heaping my plate with scrambled eggs and sautéed tomatoes—nothing beat a good buffet—I found a table near the back of the room where I could review Peter’s map, wrinkled now from frequent handling. Calling my own handwritingchicken scrawlwould be an insult to chickens everywhere, but Peter’s writing was as neat and intentional as he was. It made his notes easy to follow. The bowling alley we were visiting was just down the state highway from here. It wouldn’t take more than an hour to get there.
I traced the interstate eastward, cross-referencing all the locations Peter had circled with my murky memories of this part of the country. I’d spent an unwise amount of time doing unwise things in Nebraska in the 1980s and was relieved we weren’t stopping there. Not because I thought any of the vampires who lived outside Omaha would still be angry or even remember me. But on the off chance I was wrong, it seemed wise to give the entire state a wide berth.
I paused when my eyes landed on Chicago. The place where Reginald still lived and the last place I’d lived before leaving Grizelda the Terrible behind.
I hadn’t called Reggie yet to tell him we might be crashing at his place on our way to Indiana. Now seemed like as good a time as any.
Paying the city a visit would be good for me, I realized. So would seeing my old friend.
Before I could talk myself out of doing it, I grabbed my phone and started texting.
Zelda:Hey Reg. It’s me
Zelda:Can I ask a favor?
Reg:A favor??? Sure!
Reg:Actually, wait. It depends what it is
Fair enough. This needed to be a phone call, I decided, not a text exchange where tone and intentions could get lost.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Can I assume that since you’re asking for a favor that you are no longer mad at me?”
“Maybe,” I conceded.
“Good,” he said, his smile evident in his tone. “Now. What’s the favor?”
I hesitated, thinking about how Lindsay and Becky had reacted to my going on this trip. How could I explain what Peter and I were doing without Reggie thinking I was a lunatic?
