Page 8 of Thirsty
“I just—I didn’t know vampires, uh. Used the bathroom,” Charlie said.
“We don’t,” Lorenzo said. “I like hot baths.”
Charlie’s round cheeks tinged with pink. Lorenzo scowled at him. “Okay!” Charlie said, clapping his hands. “So, dry cleaning and a plumber. I’ll get those done no problem. And in return...”
He pulled out his notebook once more, an ingratiating smile on his face. He probably thought those schoolboy good looks of his were charming. They probablydidcharm most people, though the thought turned Lorenzo’s stomach.
“No,” he said. “You will do my biddingfirst, and then—ifyour performance is satisfactory—I will deign to answer your questions.”
He wouldn’t, of course, but this errand-running charade would buy him time.
Charlie sighed. “Okay.”
Another silence stretched between them. Finally Charlie said, “So, uh—did you have those clothes you wanted me to get cleaned?”
“I will get them,” Lorenzo said severely. “You, stay here.”
Of course Charlie immediately ignored his request and followed Lorenzo into the living room. He swore under his breath when he realized that they weren’t alone—not one but two of his roommates were in the main room, which had been empty not five minutes ago. He’d checked, in no mood to explain Charlie’s presence to others. They must have been lying in wait.
Maggie was the only one openly spying on them—lurking by the couch, chewing on a fingernail. She never seemed to take up much space, even with her seven-foot build and silver-blonde mop of frizzy hair, but her craggy face lit up when she saw them. “Hi!” she said, extending an enormous hand. “I’m Maggie.”
“Charlie,” he replied, beaming. It all happened so fast that Lorenzo barely had time to intervene. “Are you one of Lorenzo’s roommates?”
“Yep!” she answered, bouncing back and forth on her feet in excitement. “Me and Rachel.”
Charlie glanced toward the kitchen, where a sizzling sound and the smell of burning meat betrayed Rachel’s presence, but all they saw was a hand waving lazily through the cutout. Lorenzo wasn’t fooled; she’d planned this.
“How do you know Lorenzo?” Maggie was asking Charlie.
They stared at each other for a frozen moment before Lorenzo recovered. “He is my manservant.”
There was a snort from the kitchen. “That’s—no,” Charlie said, with an embarrassed chuckle. “We’re—friends.”
Lorenzo glared at him, as this was the furthest thing from the truth. He ground out, “He is to run errands for me during the daylight.”
“Hey, man,” Maggie said, sounding wounded. “I’d run errands for you during the daylight.”
“Yes, but this is not about your kind gesture,” Lorenzo explained. “This is about humiliation.”
“Oh, it’s that kinda thing, huh?” Rachel asked, coming out of the kitchen with burgers on a plate and bottles snagged between her fingers. She looked more outwardly human than Maggie, with her curly red hair and curvy, compact figure, but there was an oil slick quality to her eyes that betrayed her true nature, if one looked closely enough.
Charlie coughed, turning pink again, and fiddled with his glasses. “Hi,” he said, waving at Rachel. “Charlie.”
“Hmm,” she said, settling in to eat her burger and seemingly ignoring them.
“So,” Charlie said, after a moment. “Those clothes you wanted me to clean?”
Lorenzo eyed Charlie and his roommates suspiciously, but could come up with no credible reason not to leave them alone. “I will return momentarily,” he said, giving them all his best threatening glare, but Charlie just stared back at him blankly, Maggie beamed, and Rachel continued to feign indifference. He sighed.
He jogged up the stairs to his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. Having Charlie in his home was making him doubt the wisdom of having agreed to any of this. Yes, revengewas sweet, but why even go to the trouble of inviting Charlie back into his life at all?
He spotted a wool sweater in the corner of his room and lifted it consideringly. Olivia had liked his clothes—he tried to keep up with fashion just as he kept the house looking modern, but he was often worried about being out-of-date, simply because of how easy it was to become stuck in one’s ways at his age. But Olivia had laughed—in a sweet way—at the oversized sweaters he liked to buy, especially the ones with big, silly patterns. (Most vampires, being cold-blooded, preferred dressing warmly.) She’d liked to toy with the drawstrings of his hoodies whenever they sat close together, kissing or talking, or play with his cuff links when they were out at restaurants. She’d been tactile in that way, with a sort of casual possessiveness that made him feel special.
He’d been saddened but not terribly shocked when she broke up with him. Their relationship had been sweet and affectionate, but she had been about to graduate from university, and he’d always known there was a chance that when she left Brookville she would leave him too.
He had not, however, been expecting Charlie to play such a prominent role in their breakup. Seeming unsure of how to explain her own feelings, Olivia had told him that Charlie agreed with her that it was best for them to end things. He had reassured her what a good idea it was to make a clean break. He’d explained that long-distance relationships never worked for anyone. From the way she spoke about him, he could tell that she trusted Charlie implicitly.
Even when she’d told him that she would always remember him, it sounded like Charlie’s poisonous words on her breath.He wondered what else Charlie had said about him to convince her to leave him behind.
