Page 38 of The Vanishing
He frowns as he looks at her, his eyes glossy from the lamp hanging over their table. “What is this word? Fun?”
“Stop it.”
“Tonight aside, I haven’t had ‘fun’ since the early 1900s—”
“Ah… was it when you went on your famous sexcapade?”
They pause. Giovanni frowns. “Isthatwhat you call it?”
“Mmhm.” Cellina nods, grinning. “Your great sexploration. Your youthful foray into sexdom.”
“No.” Giovanni picks up his beer and brings it to his lips. “It wasn’t then.”
“We just… shut each other out.” Cellina sighs, staring at the messy griddle. “I wanted to talk things through with you—maybe come up with a plan together? But I had no idea you’d react that way. I was so angry and disappointed, even if you’d tried to talk to me, I probably wouldn’t have listened.”
Giovanni places his beer on the table and takes a deep breath. “Nineteen fifteen was the worst year of my life—and every day… every year after has been the same. Numb.”
“Nineteen fifteen…” Cellina considers. “I turned sixteen that year. That was also the year your mother starved in the war and Domenico got sick… I started feeding Nino. The sexcapade—”
“AndI lost you,” Giovanni adds. “The only vampire in my life that has ever cared about mywell-being. I did that shit to get your attention—in my idiotic eighteen-year-old head I was trying to make you jealous. My father ended up screaming at me about that and saying the vilest shit he’s ever said to me. It feels like everything went to hell that year and never recovered.”
It worked.Little did he know, he’d been successful. His actions back then had made her jealous and very angry, fueling her superpower to maximum strength. She shakes her head. “Giovanni, I’m not the only person who cares about you. Vampires in our aristocracy and across Europe adore you. Your father cares for sure. Nino, too.”
He sneers. “I’m a civil servant to all of them—someone who handles their fucking problems.”
Cellina disagrees, but she won’t argue with him about a touchy subject like this. “Well… you and I are talking now, at least? I just wish we could have talked about what happened sooner.”
“I’m glad we’re talking about it, period.” Giovanni looks down into his empty glass and twists it against the table with his fingers. “I didn’t think we ever would.”
Cellina nods as she stretches her arms up, yawning. The driver had been right. The food was delicious.
“Are you tired?” Giovanni asks.
“Are you?” Cellina smiles. “Don’t worry about me. You’re the one with a flight to catch in a few hours. Should we go back to the hotel so you can get some sleep?”
He considers for a moment, still twisting his beer. He meets her gaze. “No. If you’re up for it, let’s walk around—maybe find something sweet? They have something called taiyaki. It’s a hot pancake shaped like a fish and stuffed with custard or red bean… sometimes other things. You might like it. We could split one?”
“Hell yeah I’ll like it—we’ll see about this splitting business.” Another stuffed-pancake situation? Cellina’s mouth is already watering. Tonight feels like a challenge: how much delicious food can she stuff into her body. “I might need to buy a new wardrobe by the end of this trip.” She smiles in jest. “It’ll be worth it though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “You’ll always be you—someone I can drop the ‘purebred leader’ bullshit around. You’ve never subscribed to it and have always treated me like a normal, feeling person and not just someone who could do something for you. You live by yourownrules and it’s mesmerizing to me. I admire that in you, and I wish I could…”
Giovanni pauses, staring down at his empty beer glass. Blood rushes to Cellina’s cheeks and she takes a breath, willing her nature inside to stop flipping around before her eyes alight and embarrass her in the middle of this restaurant.
He shakes his head, smiling when he meets her eyes. “Will you walk with me? Let’s stay out all night… just one night. I’ll sleep on the plane.”
She looks up at him, controlling her bubbling insides.Uncomfortable shoes and oppressive body images be damned.
“Yes. I’m in.”
Nineteen
A couple weeks later, Nino focuses on his phone, watching the gray bubbles of the impending text from Cellina float in the bright white glow of the screen.
[I don’t know, I’m pretty sure he’s flirting with me.]
Nino smiles, typing his response. He hits send.
[Not to downplay your obvious attractiveness, but I think that’s Jun’s resting personality?]
