Page 61 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
ANDRES
Andres could not keep his nerves together.
He wasn’t normally like this—not before a con, or a theft, or even a seduction. The knowledge that they would be talking to their only lead into Vitalis-Barron soon, the one thread he’d followed so hard to get here, was wearing on him, certainly. But the thing that kept fluttering up his stomach and tightening his lungs was far simpler, and somehow even more important: their pre-meeting dinner was, technically, his first date with Shane.
They hadn’t gone out together like this before, no mask, no pretenses, their goals for a future—a normal, healthy future—stated out loud. Things had felt easy and natural back at Shane’s apartment, but they had both been preoccupied with their own tasks, delegating them to different spaces, physically if not mentally. But now…
Andres could no longer ignore how pathetically his body had been reacting to Shane’s sudden touches—his grabbing on the boardwalk and his shaking of Andres yesterday. Even that little pressure had ignited in Andres’s mind like agony, like anguish, all his vampiric strength rising at once to throw the feeling off. And it had hurt Shane in the process. Shane, who did not deserve that.
Andres would just have to contain himself better. Keep enough distance. But not too much distance.
Justhowmuchdistance was the right amount when out on a public first date with your bought-blood-turned-willing-role-play-slave who also wanted a normal relationship on the main?
Andres checked the time as he pulled into the lot for the little Mexican hole-in-the-wall he was supposed to meet Shane at. He was twenty-three minutes early. Huh. Better that than late, at least.
He opened his phone, shooting a quickhere early, let me know when you pull uptext to Shane before flipping to his thread with his only decent cousin.
Cat Mom
Going on a first date, can you believe it?
(Okay so technically we know each other already and we’ve kissed before but it’s the first Real Date and I’m FREAKING OUT.)
Hell Creature Extraordinaire
Ugh, you suck. (Congrats bitch!)
What’s he like? I need all the deets!
And more importantly, what are you wearing?
Cat Mom
He’s brilliant and messy, adorable freckles, sharp as fuck but does as he’s told (you know, in the sexy way.) And in the limited time I’ve known him, I already can’t imagine life without him, so there’s that.
I’m dressed like a fashion devil, obviously.
He sent a selfie after, the camera angled down at himself, still sitting behind the wheel in the leather and rose-lace jacket he’d had on during his run-in with Shane at the Fishnettery—now that he could finally wear it without giving himself away—over a sheer crop top, with his dangling necklace from the Starlight Club, and a pair of simple studs in his ears, black on one side and red on the other. His thick black leggings were mostly outof view, but they could not possibly have been tighter, filtering into lace around the calves, the muscles accentuated by the heel of his sandals. It was a more feminine look than he usually wore outside the security of his own home, but Shane had told him that he was magnificent, and Andres wanted to share this with him, this wonderful, beautiful, magnificent part of himself. As anxious as he was, he felt real in his own skin, like all the pieces of himself had come together for this.
Hell Creature Extraordinaire
You’re such a NERD.
(I love it, though. I’d still kill for one of those jackets, you know.)
Cat Mom
Then people might realize I’m related to you!
Hell Creature Extraordinaire
I haven’t seen you in person in like a fucking year, I don’t think people even know we’ve ever met.
Honestly, I forgot what you looked like until that selfie.
Cat Mom
Way to guilt trip?
