Page 87 of Road Trip with a Vampire
Peter eyed the Edward Cullen poster dubiously. “Huh.”
“Hers is hanging in our bedroom. Right above the bed.” At Peter’s horrified look, Reginald leaned in closer to him and added, a bit sheepishly, “It’s…a whole thing.”
“I don’t want to know.” Peter looked like he’d rather swallow broken glass.
We were saved from further comment when Reggie’s phone buzzed. His eyes went wide. “Oh shit. I forgot. I have to go meet Amelia. We’re picking out paint samples for the living room.”
“You’re picking outpaint samples?” I asked, flabbergasted.
Reggie broke out into the dopiest grin I’d ever seen. “I sure am,” he said happily. “Will you two be all right on your own for a bit?”
“Of course,” I said. “Go be domestic with your girlfriend.”
“Make yourselves at home.” Reggie was already halfway to the door. “I’ll see you later tonight.”
After he left, I poured myself a glass of water under Edward Cullen’s brooding, watchful eye. “I can’t believe how different he is,” I commented to Peter.
Peter pulled out a stool from the kitchen island and sat down, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t parse. “He’s changed?”
“Majorly.” I shook my head. “The Reggie I knew wouldn’t be caught dead in a paint store unless it was for a prank.”
“Sometimes people change when they find someone to care about.”
The way he wouldn’t meet my eye made me wonder whether we were still talking about Reggie. My heartbeat kicked up a few notches as I asked, tentatively, “Is this something you’re remembering from your past?”
A long pause. “No.” When his eyes finally met mine, they were so soft it felt like drowning. “A current observation.”
Peter set up shop onone of Reggie’s matching living room couches, the road map spread open on his lap. Given all the distractions of the past twenty-four hours, we hadn’t discussed how long we would stay in Chicago. But now that we were less than a day’s drive from Blossomtown, I doubted Peter would want to linger long.
I took advantage of Reggie’s absence and Peter’s preoccupation to do some exploring. Though I’d still not met Amelia, each room seemed to be a perfect melding of Reginald and the human accountant he’d fallen in love with. I found little touches of both of them everywhere. A framed family photograph—Amelia’s family, I assumed—hung in the hallway next to a poster from a David Bowie concert Reg and I attended in 1979. The kitchen, with its antique kitchen table and granite countertops, seemed to be mostly Amelia—but with the sparkling Edward Cullen poster, it was Reggie’s space, too.
I still couldn’t wrap my mind around how a relationship between two such fundamentally different people could work. Butthe longer I spent in the home they shared, the more obvious it became that whatever their challenges, Amelia and Reggie were determined to give this their all.
“They’ve set up two separate rooms for us.”
I was so focused on poking around that I jumped at the sound of Peter’s voice. When I turned, he was standing behind me in the hallway.Rightbehind me. The space was narrow; he stood so close we were nearly touching.
I swallowed. “I didn’t know you were there,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” His smile was sheepish. “But you should come see.”
A few more minutes of exploration showed he was right. One bedroom was clearly intended as an official guest bedroom, complete with a queen-size bed and pretty floral throw pillows that matched the curtains. A large desk and bookshelves lined with some of the most boring-looking books I’d ever seen monopolized most of the other room; it had a twin-size bed tucked into one corner, almost as an afterthought. Each bed had been clearly set up for its own guest, with a towel neatly folded at the foot, the sheets turned down and—was that amintthey’d left on the pillows?
The proper guest bedroom would clearly be the more comfortable of the two rooms. My nerves jangled, the urge to suggest that Peter and I share the comfortable bed bubbling up inside me. But while Peter and I had shared a room every night on this trip, it had just been something that had happened, with no advanced planning. Intentionally sleeping together while staying in Reggie’s home would send a message. To Reginald, of course. But also to Peter.
And to myself.
“You can take the guest room,” I said. While we were staying with Reggie, sleeping apart would be simpler. “I can bunk in the study.”
Peter frowned, displeased. “What?”
“Well, you slept on that nasty floor the first night of the trip. If we aren’t sharing a room, you get the bigger bed.”
Peter made a show of poking his head in the study and examining the accommodations. When he looked at me again, he shook his head. “No.”
I blinked at him. “No?”
“No,” he confirmed. “For one thing, that bed doesn’t look comfortable enough for you. For another”—he held up his hand, began counting on his fingers—“it has superhero bedsheets.”
