Page 33 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
“I’m always—” Vincent began, but the rest of the sentence died in his throat. He stared across the living room at the dining table with its simple arrangement of plates.
“It’s just dinner. Andnotspicy this time. Also no garlic in yours, I made sure.” Wesley laughed, and it sounded a bit like his soul escaping his body. “I’m not claiming it’s even good either, my usual cooking skills are about the level of putting peanut butter on crackers, so doctored mac and cheese from the box is already a step up.” He didn’t know how else to saydear god, please, please like this or I might dieany better, so he shut up and watched Vincent make his way over.
The vampire touched one of the spoons like they were made of silver, if the metal were actually as dangerous as the myths, then examined the little place card with the fanged emoji-head beside his bowl. He brushed his fingers over it with the same almost terrified reverence. “It’s…”
“Let’s eat already, it’s probably getting cold.” Wesley’s heart hammered, propelling him forward. “Actually, I can microwave it? I’ll microwave it.” He grabbed both bowls, but Vincent snatched his own right back, hands sliding around Wesley’s.
“I like it cold,” he whispered. His cheeks reddened. “I mean, it’s a nice change of pace from the typical hot kind. Who wants hot mac-n-cheese all the time, anyway?”
Still holding his own dish, Wesley sat down awkwardly. This was too much like a date he hadn’t actually invited Vincent on. And for the life of him, he couldn’t tell if every little flustered, soft reaction from the vampire was a desire for that to have been Wes’s intention or a fear of it, and Wes absolutely couldn’t ask now. He shoveled food into his mouth instead. It wasn’t too cold, and it wasn’t too bad either. He’d have to make this more often.
Vincent hummed as he swallowed his first bite. “That’s kind of delicious.”
“Only kind of?”
“It’s your first try. I have to leave you room for improvement.”
“Fuck off, you know I’m already perfect.” Wes had meant it as a joke, but Vincent seemed actively trying not to look at him now.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Incredible, maybe,” the vampire muttered, a little flushed.
Incredible, maybe.An incredibleasshole, absolutely. Wes guzzled half his water, trying to calm the buzz of guilt and nerves in the back of his head.
Vincent was still just eating, awkwardly avoiding Wes’s gaze as he dragged his spoon downward against his tongue at the end of every bite. With the hint of red still lingering in his cheeks, the subtle gliding of his lips over the metal made Wes short circuit everywhere but his nether-regions. He wasn’t allowed to be feeling thisnow, not while he still withheld the truth from Vincent.
He attempted to distract himself by cartwheeling to the first new topic he could think of. “So you know my friend Kendall?”
Vincent looked at him finally. “The annoying lesbian you’re in love with?”
“Yeah, that one.” Wes drank the rest of his water like it might save him. “She wants your chat app username. I think she’s planning on interrogating you through DMs. She can be like that. With my friends. Friends who are vampires, anyway.”
“You have many of those? Vampires, I mean.” Vincent’s lips had a little quirk to them.
“Oh, loads. This neck hasbeenplaces.” What was even coming out of his mouth anymore? Wes wasn’t entirely sure. It still sounded English, at least. Once he started babbling at Vincent in Spanish it was time to launch himself into the sun.
Vincent poked his spoon towards Wes like a sword. “You’ve been cheating on me! I knew it. I bet he has bigger fangs, huh? More intoxicating venom?”
Never, Wesley wanted to say,there’s no one I could ever crave the way I crave you, but he detoured right around that to a shambling laugh and a, “Please, you assume they’re a dude? I’ll have you know that I’m happy to get my blood sucked by vampires ofanygender. Or all vampires, of all genders! Bite me up, baby.”
The joyful expression didn’t drop from Vincent’s face, but his brow tightened and he grew a little more serious. “Wait are we—what are we talking about here?”
This was it, Wes was done for. This had all been a mistake: the dinner, Vincent, his existence, queerness as a general concept. If he had ever been a truly practicing Catholic, maybe he could have confessed it all back. He let his spoon clatter into his bowl and dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck if I know,” he groaned. “I am perfectly happy with just one vampire, I should probably clarify that now.”
Vincent hummed softly in the silence. He scraped the bottom of his bowl a few more times before asking, so gentle it almost hurt, “You are bisexual, then? Sorry if that’s a weird conclusion to draw, it just seemed like, from your joke…”
At least Vincent hadn’t taken it too seriously. Wesley breathed in, then out, and forced himself to shovel down more food, twitching his lips into something like a smile. “Yeah, I’m bi.”
With the serious nod of an assassin about to commit to a murder, Vincent said, “Hi bi, I’m gay.”
That undid Wesley so fully that he choked on his last bite of mac and cheese. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Vincent lifted his spoon threateningly. “Do not cite the deep jokes at me, son, I was there when they were written!”
“Damn you.” Wesley shook his head and stumbled out of his seat. “How much garlic do you take before you go into anaphylaxis because I think—” he gasped, coughing through something stuck in his throat as tears welled in the corners of his eyes, “I think there’s a dad in you that needs to be freed.”
“No, no that’s for werewolves and grandmothers, and you do it with a knife, like in Little Red Riding Hood.” Vincent grabbed Wes’s arm, cackling as he pulled him back.
The pressure of his hands lit something inside Wesley, so overwhelmingly hot and light that he stumbled into Vincent. Their brushing chests and knocking hips sent sparks trembling beneath Wesley’s skin as the vampire guided him back into his chair.
