Page 86 of Thirsty
Charlie was wearing a collared shirt, but Lorenzo had watched him put it on; he knew his bite mark was there, just below the collar. Charlie hadaskedLorenzo to bite him.
He knew a lot of vampires thought of the whole idea of bites between lovers as mere superstition. But Lorenzo could swear there was a magnetic pull between them that hadn’t been there before. Charlie was a part of him now, like a hook under his ribs, drawing him close. This party was a terrible idea, hedecided suddenly. He should have canceled all their plans and kept Charlie close all night, all week, all month.
Isolde cleared her throat loudly, making him realize that she was standing right next to them, by the sink. “Could you two keep it down, please?” she said, sounding irritated.
Lorenzo was mortified. To someone like Isolde, who sensed sexual energies, he and Charlie must have been excruciating. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. It’s just...like you’re shouting right next to my ear,” she said, imitating the woman fromCluewith the flames on her face.
The image made him smile, and he hid his face in Charlie’s neck while Charlie swatted him away. Isolde winced. “Have you seen Rachel?” she asked in a strained voice.
“No.”
She sighed and wandered away, and Lorenzo took the opportunity to drag Charlie out of the kitchen and to the edge of the living room, so they wouldn’t be at risk of fully humiliating themselves. They got drinks and took in the atmosphere. “So,” Charlie said, grinning. “This is going well.”
“Seems like it.”
“Do you think you should,” he said, and waved a hand vaguely at the room. “Y’know?”
“What?”
“Give a speech?” Charlie asked. “Or something?”
“A speech?” Lorenzo asked, his stomach plummeting.
“Yeah. Just—welcome everyone,” Charlie said. “Tell them why they’re here.”
“I, uh...” Lorenzo said.
“You don’t have to,” Charlie said quietly, and he took one ofLorenzo’s hands in his. He instantly felt steadied. “But I think you’d be good at it.”
He sighed, and Charlie leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. From that angle, Lorenzo could see his bite mark on Charlie’s throat below his collar. His cheek was still warm after Charlie pulled away.
It quieted his nerves enough for him to raise his glass, gathering everyone’s attention and waiting for the noise to die down.
“Okay,” he said. “Uh, hello, everyone. Thank you for coming. And, uh, welcome. I don’t...”
A dozen faces looked at him expectantly, and he took a calming breath. “I’ve, uh, known most of you for years,” he said. “And. I feel sort of...silly...”
He trailed off again, but a few feet away, Charlie nodded at him firmly.You can do this.
“I just thought it would be nice to get together a group of—um, well.”
It all sounded so stupid when it was time to say it out loud. He took a deep breath and started again. “It can be a lonely thing, sometimes. Being one of us. We’re not human—though we welcome our human allies.”
Charliewooed quietly, pumping his fist.
“Um...but we’re...” He sighed. How to put words to the feeling of being an unaging artifact of foul magic; a silly pretense of immortality, when all his many years had afforded him was a view of how vast it all was, and how insignificant he was in comparison?
“Sometimes, even if you’re a powerful immortal being, or a creature that everyone has read about and whispered about and watched in movies,” he began, cautiously, “it can still be lonely. You can feel like you don’t belong.”
He glanced at Isolde, stone-faced in the back of the room. “Maybe you’re...not welcome among your kind.”
Rachel looked lost in thought, staring down into her drink.
“Or maybe you...maybe you just feel like you’ve lost your way.”
He swallowed. “Maybe you feel like you live in the shadow of this...this idea...”
