“I was the one who spotted you, you know. At that bar.” Joe’s tongue dipped to the corner of his mouth and he lavishly licked clockwise from the corner and all around to where he started.
“Why’s your heart beating so fast?” he quirked an eyebrow up and folded his arms across his chest.
Tristan Tristan Tristan, Help. Quick.
Suddenly, Tristan was noiselessly in the hallway behind Joe and his face was the personification of cold and calculating. The look on his face made her blood run cold and bolstered her calm at the very same time because she suddenly knew she was safe. Her gaze must’ve indicated someone was behind him as Joe put his hands back on the trolley and stood there, expectantly, a little smirk on his face.
“Joseph?” Tristan asked, quietly. His jaw tight, his arms folded across his chest.
Joe didn’t turn around to face Tristan, “I came back to speak to you and you weren’t here so I waited.” Joe continued to stare at Kyla, “And your little pet here is being a bit peculiar.”
Tristan eyed Kyla, who was still perched on the windowsill against the drapes. Kyla did her very best to hold her face as expressionless as possible.
“Walk with me,” Tristan said and Joe turned and followed him out, closing the door behind him. Kyla counted to 5 and then blew out a huge exhale. She had no idea how she’d managed to remain outwardly calm then and had no idea if she’d pulled it off or not. By what he’d just said, she seriously suspected the answer to that question was a resounding No.
She darted to the trolley and then breathed relief when she saw 4 chilled water bottles. As she drank, she contemplated opening the bottle of wine in the chill bucket but stopped herself. She lifted a lid and saw a dinner of Cornish hens, mushroom risotto, asparagus spears, dinner rolls, and two dishes of peach cobbler. It smelled great but she couldn’t possibly think about food right now. She downed another half a bottle of water and then hurried to the bathroom and washed her face in cold water.
About 25 minutes that seemed like 4 hours passed before she heard the doorknob twist. Her heart lurched forward and she prayed silently it would be him. It was. She let out an audible breath of relief. He rushed to her and pulled her close and squeezed, almost too tight.
“What happened?” he asked.
~~~
Tristan held his head in his hands as she recounted what had happened in the conversation with Joe.
“But you can’t tell him, right? Then he’ll know I’m not a zombie.”
He shook his head, “I could have asked you to relay to me just what he said to you. I’m not worried about that. I have to deal with our houseguest problems now. In fact, I’m going to kill a few birds with one stone.” He stood up.
“What are you going to do?”
He shook his head, “I’m going to deal with it. Please don’t worry. Eat dinner. Relax. I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”
Relax? As if!
“Tristan…”
He silenced her with a hard and fast kiss, “Don’t worry. I really need you to try hard to not worry so I can actually think straight, okay?”
He was gone. She heard the door lock. She locked the balcony door. But she suddenly felt an icy cold trickle run up her spine as she recalled him leaving. Was there any trace of blue in his eyes or had they gone black as he left? She didn’t know. She shuddered.
She started to eat alone. The meal was still a tolerable temperature. She left Tristan’s meal lidded hoping he’d be back before it got cold. She wasn’t able to muster much food so gave up after a few bites and decided to take a shower. She didn’t eat the peach cobbler. She suspected he’d requested that especially due to her revealing the truth about his flavoured kisses the other night. She didn’t want the dessert, she wanted a peach cobbler kiss instead.
A romantic, gorgeous, sweet, sweet smelling, sweet tasting, dangerous, somewhat psychotic vampire with a bunch of psycho friends? How much more screwed up could things get? Dare I ask?
By the time she was done he still wasn’t back and she wasn’t in the least bit tired so she decided to try the computer. She double-clicked the Firefox icon on Tristan’s computer and it did connect to the net this time. She decided to login to her Facebook account. She scrolled through her dozens of game notifications and a few friend requests, saw a bridal shower invite for someone who worked at the diner, and then scrolled through the timeline and couldn’t wrap her mind around how normal everyone looked, how mundane their status updates were. Daisy had a recent update that said, “Need a new roommate. No freaks or creeps. Anyone?”