Chapter 28
28
“ S o, how did it go?”
Mona swirls a spoon through her mug as she waits for me to answer. I can tell she’s dying to know, and the sadist in me enjoys making her wait a little. Besides, the knowing grin she gives me as she looks up tells me Max must’ve spilled at least a few details.
“It went well.”
Her lips flatten into a line and her eyes narrow at me in an almost comical look of disbelief. “Blair.”
I look back at her, keeping my expression blank. “Mona.”
She sets the spoon down with a loud clatter, then throws her hands up. “ Come on! You were in there for over an hour. You took her home. There’s got to be more than ‘it went well.’ Tellll meeeee.”
I break, chuckling at her frustration. “I would’ve thought you’d already know details with Max listening in.”
“No!” Mona sighs dramatically. “Max wouldn’t tell me anything other than that you both were safe. Though he blushed a lot when I tried to get more details, so it had to be good, right?”
“You haven’t talked to Grace about it?”
It’s been two days since our night at The Vault. Plenty of time for Mona to pester Grace for all the juicy details. Unless Grace didn’t want to talk about it. We’ve been texting back and forth, and nothing indicated she was feeling awkward, but maybe I misread her.
Fuck, I hate this nagging doubt. I’ve purposely built my life so I have as little uncertainty as possible. Worrying like this means I’m losing the emotional control I’ve spent so long developing.
“Whoa, what is that look?” Mona asks, her playful smile falling as she sees the thoughts crossing my mind show up in my expression. “Grace told me it was incredible, but was too shy to give me details.”
The relief I feel is absurd. I already know that’s how Grace feels. She told me she loved it. We’ve planned a time for her to come over and try another scene. I need to chill out and stop worrying about nothing.
“If she doesn’t want you to know the details, I don’t think I should share them.”
“Ugh, you’re all impossible!” Mona’s spoon clatters to the ground as she accidentally knocks it off the kitchen table with her frustrated gesticulating. The commotion startles the lump sleeping under a blanket on her lap, and a spectral blue pug face peeks out from underneath to give her a disgruntled look .
“Sorry, angel,” she coos, and he gives a little huff as if to say “please chill out” before settling back down.
“Even Nugget agrees that it’s none of your business,” I say wryly.
“Fine, I’ll stop.” Mona sighs. “I confided in you about all kinds of things, so I don’t get why you won’t tell me anything. I don’t need to know how many times you made her come or anything. I’m not a creep.”
“You’re not?” I ask, deadpan.
She scowls at me, and I crack.
“Only two,” I say, staying expressionless as I sip from my thermos.
“Only two, what?” Her brow furrows in confusion before she understands what I said. “Ahh, really?!” Mona claps her hands in excitement, and this time the pug on her lap wriggles completely free of the blanket and jumps down off her lap to find somewhere quieter to nap.
Mona beams at me. “Fuck it, I know it’s weird to be happy my friends are getting off, but that’s so exciting! I don’t think Grace has ever had an orgasm with a partner… oh, shit, I shouldn’t say that.”
I smile at her concern. “It’s okay. She told me.”
“Oh, thank god. I’m glad you know. And that you showed her she was wrong. Twice! All the horrible things her ex-husband said to her about being frigid and awful in bed really fucked with her head.”
My grip on my thermos tightens and my spine goes rigid.
“He told her that?” I ask, unable to keep the icy rage from spilling into my voice.
Mona blanches. “Uh, yeah. The bastard said it was part of why he cheated. Why he wanted a divorce. Can you believe it? If I ever see him again, I’m kicking him in the balls. Repeatedly. ”
“Does he have the same last name as Grace?” I make my tone even again, but I’m not fooling Mona. The monster inside me is screaming for blood.
“Blair, you can’t murder him!”
“Yes, I can. I’ve told you before. I won’t get caught.”
Mona rolls her eyes. “Okay, you can murder him. But you’re not going to. That’s not who you are.”
She says it with such confidence that it snaps me out of my singular focus on tracking down Grace’s ex and ripping his throat out. “It’s not?”
“Girl, you spent years torturing yourself for accidentally killing someone. There’s no way you’d go through with murder, no matter how angry you are on Grace’s behalf. The guilt would eat you alive. Earlier, you looked devastated when you thought you’d squashed a spider on my porch.”
“No, I didn’t.” I definitely did, but I thought I’d hid it well. Another sign that my cold facade is crumbling the more time I spend with Mona and Grace.
“Sure, whatever,” Mona says with a teasing smirk. “The point is, you’re too good of a person to do it. So bluster if you want, but I know the truth.”
I don’t bother denying it. She’s right.
I’m an imposter. I pretend to be tough and badass and cold, but inside I’m the weak little girl who sobbed as her parents washed her mouth out with soap and called her a sinful devil worshipper after they found her secret stash of Halloween candy.
People are cruel, and I’m not strong enough to actually do anything about it.
I’m a vampire, for fuck’s sake. I shouldn’t be bound by morals. I should’ve gone to my parents’ house and paid them back for every time they punished me for failing to live up to their insane expectations, but all I do is block my mother’s texts when she manages to find my phone number. I should’ve spent the last ten years hunting down the bastard who turned me, rather than catering to men’s desires for money. I should be able to defend the people I care about.
Instead, I’m sitting here in Mona’s kitchen trying not to cry as I think about the poor little spider who’d worked so hard on making her web that I almost carelessly destroyed.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I murmur, swallowing hard against the ridiculous tears.
“Oh Blair, I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. Shit.” Mona stands and rounds the table to where I’m sitting and the next thing I know, she’s using her surprising amount of strength to tug me out of my chair and crush me against her chest. “Not having the capacity to intentionally harm means you’re a fundamentally good person.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “It makes me weak,” I mutter against her shoulder.
“Fuck that. Weak people hurt others. It takes strength to uphold your morals even in the face of shitty people.”
“I hate that he hurt her like that,” I say thickly.
Mona must understand that I’m not referring to just Grace, but also my past self, because she hugs me even tighter. “I know. I do, too. But she’s not alone now.”
Unlike in the past, I don’t bother fighting her embrace. Yet another sign of how I’m losing control. I let Mona hold me, rubbing my back until the urge to cry passes. A few drops of blood tears slip free despite my best efforts, and when I pull back, there’s a dot of crimson on Mona’s cute white top.
“Shit, sorry,” I say with a grimace.
Mona glances down. “Oh, no worries. You cry blood? That’s so cool.”
Her bizarre reaction pulls a choked laugh from me. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re only now realizing this?” she asks with one of her goofy snort-laughs. “So are you, by the way. But your secret is safe with me. I know you need to keep your stern, sexy dominatrix street cred.”
“Thanks,” I reply with a weak smile. “I’d hate to lose out on work because people found out I cry over spiders.”
“Aha! I knew I saw that.”
“You see way too much. It’s annoying,” I deadpan.
Mona grins, unbothered. “That reminds me! I had a dream about us hanging out with Grace. We were watching the premiere of that reality show, and I went to the bathroom, but when I came back I caught you making out and she was touching you under the blanket. It was nice!”
“And you claim you’re not a creep?” I ask, raising a brow at her cheery declaration.
“I’m not!” She shoves my shoulder lightly. “I only brought it up because it made me happy to know that you’ll still be, uh, having fun together a month from now. That’s when the premiere get-together Grace is planning is, right?”
Mona discovered her latent magical abilities last year, which manifested as dream visions. “You think it was a premonition?” My chest squeezes at the thought of spending a month with Grace.
“Oh, definitely. I’m learning what’s likely to be a random dream versus a portent. You’re lucky it warned me ahead of time so that when it happens in real life, I’ll know to stay in the bathroom longer. So you two can have more time alone.” Mona winks at me, and my cheeks heat.
I resist the urge to press my hand to my face. I’m not seriously blushing, am I? How is that even happening without me controlling it?
Something is seriously wrong with me.
I almost ask Mona if she thinks she’ll be able to see further in the future. What will things be like between me and Grace in six months? A year? Do I even dare to hope for something that’s more than a passing phase? Or worse, something that will ultimately ruin me if it turns out to be real?
Focus on the present. That’s all you can control.
“How generous of you,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Speaking of generous… twice?” Mona waggles her eyebrows at me.
“It would’ve been more if I hadn’t made her promise not to come.”
Mona lets out a squeak of titillated surprise. “Oh damn, that’s really hot.”
“You think twice is generous?” I ask, crossing my arms and giving her a teasing look. “Is Max not doing his job right?”
“What? No! Max is amazing at his… job,” Mona says, flushing.
“What’s that about my job?” the man in question asks as he wanders down from upstairs, stooping over to rub Nugget’s belly and earning a sleepy groan from the pug, before coming over to join us by the kitchen table.
“Oh, nothing!” Mona waves his question off, then stands so she can kiss the confused look off his face. “Blair was telling me about how well the other night went.”
“Ah. Right.” Max clears his throat, a red flush that matches his hair creeping up his pale, freckled neck and onto his cheeks. “I didn’t, um, give her any details. In case you were concerned about that.”
I fight the urge to chuckle at how worried he is. If we were closer, I might even beg him to tell me the emotions he felt coming off of Grace during our scene. Not that he would tell me. Max only reveals the secrets of the people he’s getting paid to observe for his job.
“I wasn’t,” I lie.
Of course I was concerned. I hated that not only was someone listening in on our private moments, but that someone had a line into my thoughts. Max surely knows now how much of my strength and calm are an illusion. I want to believe that he wouldn’t use it against me, but I can’t be certain. What if he decides that I’m too dangerous to be around his fiancée?
Mona wraps an arm around Max’s waist, giving him a loving squeeze. He bundles her closer, leaning down to kiss her hair. The love they share is palpable, and tonight it makes my chest expand uncomfortably, as if it’s making space for something similar. It’s far too close to the way I felt back when I was infatuated with Dominic. When I believed I could have a fairy tale romance. Now it highlights the void where those hopes and desires once lived.
I don’t want to fill back up with futile dreams. It’s easier to be empty. Yet my mind can’t help but wonder how it would feel to have Grace hold me the way Max holds Mona. God, what would it feel like to truly feel safe in someone’s arms?
I clear my throat and stand. “I should go. Need to get to a session with a client.” I have three hours until I’m meeting X in my city studio, but I don’t know if I can sit here with these thoughts any longer.
We exchange farewells, and it’s clear as I leave that Mona wishes I’d stay longer, but she’s kind enough to not press me. Which is good because I might end up crying more blood tears onto her shirt.
When I get out to my car, I check my phone to confirm the session is still on before I drive all the way into the city. Under my messages from X, there’s a new one from Grace.
Grace: I can’t wait to see you on Friday. Is it silly that I miss you even though it’s only been a few days?
A lump of emotion clogs my throat. She misses me. When was the last time someone told me that who wasn’t a client angling for more of my services?
Blair: Do you miss me or the way I made you come?
Grace: You. Duh.
Grace: That other part was just an added benefit
Blair: Just checking.
Grace: Well, stop it. How many times do I have to tell you I have a huge crush on you and can’t stop thinking about you?
I laugh, imagining the glare that would accompany Grace’s words if she were saying them in person.
Blair: At least a few more times.
That’s the truth. I know myself. All of this with Grace seems far too good to be true, and it will take a long time for the alarm bells to stop ringing. When you’ve been burned like I have, it’s easier to expect and prepare for the worst, so the fallout won’t cause as much pain.
Grace: I’m really into you, Blair. I keep getting all these weird fluttery nerves whenever I think about seeing you again. It’s like when I met my ex but times a thousand, and so much better because I’m 99.9% certain you’re not an asshole and you won’t hurt me.
Blair: I won’t.
Blair: I’m glad you don’t think I’m an asshole. Mona said something similar earlier, so clearly I need to work on my scary vampire bitch energy.
Grace: Haha I do like that side of you. It’s sexy. But it’s even hotter because I know you’re secretly the sweetest person I’ve ever met.
I grin down at my phone, the same fluttery feelings she described having surging in my stomach.
Blair: Ugh, sweet?
Grace: Deal with it.
Blair: I’ll need to show you how wrong you are when I see you.
Grace: I like the sound of that, Mistress.
Grace: I know you’re working tonight, so I’ll leave you alone. For now. Who knows when the urge to bother you again will strike?
Please don’t stop. Hearing from Grace is the best part of my night.
Blair: You’re not bothering me.
Grace: Tell me that when you wake up tomorrow night with five rambling voice memos about my theories on alien life and the feasibility of space travel.
Grace: I got sucked down a video rabbit hole. Or maybe I should call it a wormhole.
Grace: Anyway, have a good night! Give your client hell, or uh, whatever they’re into.
Blair: I will. Goodnight.
Before I head out on the road for work, I do a quick search for podcasts on space exploration. I settle in for the drive, a ridiculous smile still tugging at my lips as I think about how surprised Grace will be when she’s the one waking up to messages from me about her current fixation.