Page 67 of Thirsty
“Sorry,” Rachel called from her room, her voice muffled. “I’m fine.”
Isolde was brushing the last few cobwebs off her shoulders in stiff, precise movements. Once the path out of the kitchen was clear, she left without a word.
“What wasthat?” Charlie breathed, trying not to freak out.Most of the webs on him had shaken off already, and the kitchen was almost back to normal, but he still felt chilly all over.
Lorenzo seemed far less affected. “Poltergeist thing, I guess,” he said, picking up his mug of blood.
“You guess?” Charlie demanded. “That’s the first time that’s happened?”
“This specific thing?” Lorenzo asked. When Charlie just gaped at him, he said, “These poltergeists, you know, they do all sorts of strange things.”
Charlie laughed to keep from shrieking. “Okay. So—speaking of strange. How can we find a real witch coven to talk to us?”
Lorenzo tipped his head back and sighed deeply. “Charlie.”
“Come on,” he said, taking a step closer to Lorenzo. Lorenzo looked away and didn’t move at all as Charlie slowly invaded his space. “You have to admit, curse aside—”
“It’s a hex,” he muttered.
“You’ve been—you’ve been so helpful to me,” Charlie said, finally letting his hands rest gently on Lorenzo’s chest. “Introducing me to all these people, taking me to a—a werewolf wedding, a druid initiation. You know everyone.” He smiled, no longer sure if he was buttering Lorenzo up or just thinking out loud. “I’m so lucky I ran into you.”
Lorenzo had a strange, sour look on his face. “Yes, well,” he said, and he shifted away from Charlie, ostensibly to rinse his mug in the sink. “I’m pleased my connections from decades spent doing nothing are of use to you.”
Charlie frowned at him. “You haven’t spent decades doing nothing.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. Charlie got the feeling he wished he hadn’t brought any of this up. “Don’t worry about it,” he said,as he shook out his arm, making it pop, and then looked at his hand. It still wasn’t back all the way; the tips of his fingers were barely there as Lorenzo slowly wiggled them back and forth.
How could Lorenzo describe his life asnothing?
“You are a very cool person,” Charlie said.
Lorenzo glanced up at him, something barbed in his eyes. “Charlie—”
“What?” he asked defensively. “You are. You’re a vampire. You’ve done everything. You know all kinds of cool people.”
“Thank you,” Lorenzo said stiffly.
Charlie nudged him. “What’s bugging you?”
“Nothing.”
“I think you have a much cooler life than you might think you do,” Charlie told him. “Which is understandable, because...it’s your life. And it’s easy to take it for granted.”
That got Lorenzo to turn around and glare at him, though he could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “You’re the expert, huh?”
“You’re a vampire with a bunch of cool supernatural friends,” Charlie said. “You have this...community.”
“It’s not a community,” Lorenzo snapped. Charlie thought he was probably trying to sound angry, but it didn’t come out that way; he sounded exhausted and grim. “We’re all from different—they’re not—” He sighed. “We’re not the same. It’s not like that. It’s just...I know people. But it’s not a community.”
Charlie thought about every time Lorenzo had introduced him to someone for his nonexistent thesis, and the way they’d all been unfailingly happy to see him. “It could be.”
That seemed to give Lorenzo pause, though he didn’t respond. A moment later Charlie popped again, and then a strange feeling of sudden, blissful rightness washed all over him. It wasnot unlike the first few notes of a Sade song, or being under a weighted blanket. “Oh,” he said, “I think I’m done popping.” He looked down at his hand, trying to see if it looked different. “I think I’m back.”
“Good,” Lorenzo said, smiling faintly. The tips of his fingers were still slightly blurred.
Charlie took Lorenzo’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “I’ll wait with you.”
Charlie had almost completely acclimated to a nocturnal schedule by now, and one of his favorite parts of his new routine was the sunrise walk home. He didn’t always walk; his apartment was kind of far from Lorenzo’s, but when the weather was just right, he enjoyed it. The streets were quiet, and the soft pink light made everything feel magical.
