Page 14 of Never Say Die
Aiden Moore: okay but meet at Java in 15. yes?
Dylan Fisher: yeah see you there
Georgia sent a red-faced pissed-off emoji and a thumbs-up.
“What happens now?” Shay asked, scrolling through his new rose-gold iPhone.
Aiden heaved a sigh. “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.”
“What’s the worst?”
“Jacob breaks a chair over your face.”
“What’s the best?”
“Georgia punches you in the dick and we call it a day.”
“Oh, awesome. I should’ve stayed home.”
“I’malmostkidding.” Aiden gave the kitchen floor another once over and knelt to inspect the grout in the hallway. He’d scrubbed gore from the tile. Poured bleach over everything. Scrubbed again with soap and doused ghostly stains in fizzy hydrogen peroxide. For the first time in months, his apartment was actually clean. “I bookmarked some websites after we got back last night, by the way. All signs point to vampire.”
Shay rolled his eyes and threw himself on the bed. Ridiculous, dramatic princess. “I’m not a fucking vampire, Aiden.”
“Okay, then you’re a zombie.”
“I’m not azombie.”
“You’resomething,” Aiden snapped.
“It’s not like I found an instruction manual at the bottom of the fucking ocean, Aiden. My bad.”
“Look, you could be a Chupacabra?—”
Laughter shook Shay’s shoulders. He covered his face with his hands, heaving a sigh. “Maybe I’m Mothman,” he said, exasperated.
Aiden threw a shoe at him. “You consumed flesh—humanflesh. You drank blood, you have topandbottom fangs, and?—”
“And, what? We don’t have a clue what happened to me, okay? I know two things. Excuse me, three things. One, Iwasdead. Two, I’mnotdead. Three, I’d like to stay not dead.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure stayingnotdead involvesnotstarving. Have you…” Aiden considered his next words carefully. “Are you hungry? Have you been hungry since?—”
“It’s not the same type of hungry,” Shay said, and threw theshoe back at Aiden, whacking him in the thigh. “Speaking of which, aren’t we supposed to be at Java?”
“Yeah, let’s… Let’s just go. We’ll do research when we get back. Has anyone sniffed around about Thomas yet?”
“The only shit saved on his phone was pony-fetish Reddit forums and Tinder. He didn’t have Facebook—just Insta. The last time he called his Dad was, like, I don’t know, sometime last year. Christmas, maybe?”
“Good.” Aiden tightened his belt, and flipped a hat on, bill facing backward. He’d stomped on Thomas’s phone last night. Smashed it under his boot, collected the pieces, boiled them for twenty minutes, and dumped them in a sewer drain two blocks away. Gone. Disappeared. Hopefully, forgotten. Insignificant grief nipped him again, but he watched Shay brush invisible dust from his gray Mastodon tee, and the nagging faded.I bought you that shirt,he thought. Three years ago, at a concert in Portland. Walking along the Willamette, drinking tall-boys wrapped in paper bags, watching the famous neon deer shine red on shadowed windows. Aiden blinked the memory away. “I called you as soon as Thomas’s text hit the group chat. You finally answered after going dark for two days, told me the bullshit with David killed any future with Chain, and I put an offer on the table. That’s the plan, yeah?”
“You forgot the part where we told each other to fuck off,” Shay said.
“They’ll assume that much.”
“Are you telling them Thomas came back here with you?” He lifted a tapered eyebrow, smile ticking upward.
Aiden shot him a furious glance. “Yeah. And he passed out in the hallway. The end.”
Shay hummed, swinging his car keys around his index finger. He leaned against the outdoor banister while Aiden shut and locked the door, playful judgement pushing his browshigher. His smile split into a grin. “I always knew you were hot for singers, but?—”
