Page 3 of Thirsty
He stretched some of the stiffness out of his neck and glanced around the twee little coffee shop, which was dim and quiet past eleven p.m. When he was hunched over his laptop, he could forget where he was, the blue-white glow like a portal back to his life in New York. But he hadn’t been able to afford rent in New York for a while now. A few weeks ago he’d finally faced reality and sublet his place to a stranger from Craigslist, flagrantly breaking the lease; but it was better than giving the place up entirely. At least this way he could tell himself he’d be back soon. Then he’d packed up his things and moved back home to Brookville.
Most people didn’t expect to find a funky little town like Brookville in the middle of rural Virginia, but tourists loved it—the cobblestone streets, eclectic nightlife, and rolling mountains were an appealing package. The coffee shop was classic Brookville: locally owned but with the polish of a chain, rainbow swag already up well in advance of Pride, posters for ukulele lessons and the local DSA on the corkboard. B’ville was the kind of oddball small town most people found charming.
As a local, Charlie had been itching to get out of Brookvillehis whole life. He hadn’t been able to turn down the free tuition that came with being the son of a University of Brookville faculty member, so it had taken him until after college. But he had, eventually, gotten out, for a few sweet years. Brookville was cute, sure, but New York was the center of the universe to an aspiring writer.
And now he was back, because B’ville was dirt cheap compared to New York. He’d rented a tiny, stale-smelling apartment from a grad student who was gone for the summer, and he’d barely bothered unpacking more than his toothbrush and laptop charger. He had no intention of being here long. He was going to get his column on track and move back to the city.
And if he didn’t, he’d just have to...move in with his father.
Needing to shake off that thought as quickly as possible, he got up and headed to the counter. He got there just as another customer finished his order and moved to the side to wait for it. As Charlie gave his order to the barista, he glanced over at the other customer. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with tousled, touchable black hair and a sharp jawline. A distant part of Charlie’s brain, mostly buried under all the panic and stress, wentmmm.
He finished paying for his drink and moved toward the pickup spot, while the other guy shuffled away from him slightly. He was wearing kind of a lot of clothes for summer-time, most prominently a long, well-cut jacket that fell nearly to his ankles, which Charlie had to admit did flatter his frame. He was facing away from him, though, which stymied his efforts to check the guy out fully. He sighed and got out his phone.
There was a nagging text from Ava and nothing else of interest. He slid his phone back into his pocket, and when he looked up, he caught the other customer looking at him, thoughhe whipped his gaze away quickly. This time, with a fuller view of his face, something pinged at Charlie—familiarity.
Did he know this guy?
Just from the quick glance he got, he was able to confirm that, yes, the guy was hot—veryhot, with rugged, masculine features, though his skin was pale and his eyes a little sunken and red. He was wearing a faded-looking sweatshirt and loose jogging pants beneath the coat; not someone who cared that much about fashion then, but honestly, with his tall, muscled frame, he didn’t have to.
It was driving Charlie nuts that he couldn’t figure out where he knew this guy from. He didn’t think he was someone he’d met in New York, but he didn’t remember him from the last time he’d lived in Brookville either.
The guy glanced at Charlie again, his eyes narrowed. It was kind of a...glare, almost. A sexy smolder, maybe? Or maybe Charlie was just being optimistic.
Then the barista put a coffee cup on the counter and said, “Lorenzo,” and it clicked.
“Lorenzo!” Charlie shouted unhelpfully.
Lorenzo squinted at him some more. “Charles,” he said, in a strange, almost formal tone.
“Sorry,” Charlie said, embarrassed. “I couldn’t, uh. How are you?” It was all coming back to him now: Lorenzo had dated one of his friends, Olivia, for a few months their senior year of college. Charlie and Olivia had been close, but he’d never gotten to know Lorenzo that well—it was more the kind of relationship where Olivia brought him to parties and everyone made stilted small talk with him and mostly just tried to ignore that he was there. Charlie had a vague memory that Lorenzo had been kind of weird and hard to talk to, and Charlie waspretty sure he’d thought Olivia could have done better. He was starting to lose interest in talking to him now.
“I am well,” Lorenzo was saying, somewhat stiffly. He had the same faint accent that Charlie remembered now—he must have been an exchange student from...somewhere. Europe? “In fact, I am thriving.” He picked up a jar labeledArtisanal Flaked Ironand tipped some of it into his coffee.
“Uh, great,” Charlie said.
“It is great,” Lorenzo said. “And I am glad to see you here, so that you can see how well I am doing since your betrayal.”
Charlie plowed into the words like a person in front of him who’d just stopped walking. “My—my what?”
“Please,” Lorenzo said scathingly. “Your feigned stupidity does not fool me.”
“Uh,” Charlie said.
“I know what you told Olivia.”
“What I told...” Charlie said, confused.
“That you told her to leave me,” Lorenzo bit out.
“Oh, right,” Charlie said distantly. Honestly, he could barely remember much of anything about Olivia and Lorenzo’s relationship, because, well, it had been an extremely unimportant part of his life at the time, which was four—no, five years ago now. He did vaguely remember talking to Olivia about Lorenzo right before graduation; she’d been unsure if she should try to make things work with him long-distance after she moved away from Brookville. And she’d come to Charlie for advice about it, because that’s the kind of friend he was: the sensible, wise-beyond-his-years one who listened well and stopped his friends from doing stupid shit.
It was why he’d become an advice columnist. He sighed at the memory. It was nice to think about Olivia—he made amental note to reach out to her, it’d been too long—but all those little moments he’d once viewed as pieces of his calling were tainted now.
Because maybe he’d been wrong.
Anyway, he was pretty sure he’d told Olivia to dump Lorenzo. Lorenzo, who was now standing in front of him, clearly gathering himself up—and wow, he really was tall—to give Charlie some kind of stinging rebuke. “Indeed,” he said coldly. “Well, as the Americans say, the best revenge is living well, and I assure you, since your duplicitous actions, I have been living exceptionally well. Or, rather, un-living, but the point is the same. Good day.”
“Wait—” Charlie said, taking a step toward him as Lorenzo turned to leave. “Lorenzo, look, I’m sorry about, uh, everything that happened with Olivia, um, back in college, but—well, it was good to see you, and I’m glad you’re doing well, and holy shit you’re a vampire,” he finished, the words and his epiphany happening at the exact same time.
