CHAPTER THIRTEEN || COLE
“What do you want?” Harris demanded, sounding both groggy and annoyed with me. “Has something happened? Another vampire attack?”
“No—unless you know something I don’t.”
“Well, an entire bus full of Mormon missionaries went missing. They were headed back to Salt Lake for debriefing.” He sighed, sounding exhausted. “We found the bus, but the missionaries are gone. Does that count?”
I snorted. “Hardly. If a hungry vampire attacked the bus, you’d know. The missionaries probably came to their senses and went partying instead.”
“All fifty of them?”
“I’ve been around for a very long time, Detective. Trust me—stranger things have happened. Are you lot treating this as a homicide?”
“Not yet. The FBI will probably take over anyway. We’ve managed to keep it quiet so far, but it’s only a matter of time until the media has a field day.” Then he hesitated. “Cole, seriously. Is everything okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”
I paced my living room. It was far smaller than the property I owned off Sunset Boulevard, but it felt more like home. And that was entirely because of Eli’s proximity.
“No, everything is not okay,” I said, stopping in my tracks. I stared at the painting the decorators had put on the wall—a field of lavender. There was a strange ache in my chest that I didn’t like one bit. “Eli is unhappy, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You called me up to talk about your love life?”
“Well, yes.” My grip tightened on the phone and, even though he couldn’t see it, I shook my head. His question was ridiculous. “Who else would I talk to about it?”
Harris sighed. “C’mon, Cole. It’s four in the morning. Have some decency.”
“Not in my nature, I’m afraid.”
“And don’t I know it,” Harris muttered—not really a question. He sounded more alert now, thankfully. “Fine. We’ll talk about your love life. Because why not?” He paused, then added, “Are things not going well with the doctor?”
“No, everything is fine. He kissed me tonight.”
Harris sighed, and I heard rustling, as though he’d sat up in bed. “Poor guy.”
“I’ll always treat him well,” I said firmly. I didn’t like how much Harris sounded like he meant it. “Eli has little to fear from me.”
“I really cannot tell if you mean that or not.”
“Are you always this cranky?”
“Only when I’m woken in the middle of the night to talk about boy troubles with the psychopathic vampire who thinks we’re besties,” Harris said, punctuating that with a yawn. “And anyway, if he kissed you—what’s the problem? Aren’t you getting what you want? Or close to it, at least?”
“No!” I snapped, my annoyance climbing. Abruptly, I realized that maybe I thought we were friends—and his words had stung.
After all, I wouldn’t call just anyone for advice.
Hypnotizing humans into helping me had become routine over the centuries, but asking them for help with my love life certainly hadn’t.
And truly, how could Harris think we weren’t friends?
Trying to keep my voice even, I added, “If I merely wanted to sleep with Eli, I would have been done with him two weeks ago.”
Harris went quiet on the other end for a long while. I began to worry he’d fallen asleep when he finally said, “If he’s not a potential victim and you don’t just want to sleep with him, then what the hell do you want?”
“I told you this already. I don’t want him to be unhappy. He seemed upset earlier. That’s why I’m calling—for you to help me fix it.”
“Did you tell him what you are?”
“Of course not!”
“You’ll need to, eventually,” Harris said. His voice softened, becoming gentler. “And soon.”
“I know that,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to frighten him.”
Harris again fell silent.
“Detective, are you still there?” I demanded, officially becoming annoyed. Perhaps I should’ve done an internet search instead.
“I am,” he said slowly. “Look, I’m just trying to put this together with everything I know about you. And it’s not adding up to a complete picture.”
“Spare me the interrogation talk.”
“Then let me put it bluntly. You called me at four in the morning to talk about Eli. Correct?”
I snorted. “Obviously.”
“And your intention isn’t to seduce him.”
“Not right now, no. I wouldn’t need anyone’s help with that, anyway.”
“Then you noticed he was sad, and you’re calling for advice on how to make him happy. Correct?”
“It lacks nuance. But yes, that’s accurate.”
Harris snorted. “And you’ve just admitted you’re worried about scaring him with the truth of what you are.”
“I’m delightful, of course. But I’m not sure the good doctor is ready to understand everything I am,” I replied airily—mostly to cover up the thread of unease that had wound itself through me.
The idea of Eli knowing me—really knowing me—and rejecting me…
It made something twist painfully in my stomach.
“You feel something for him, don’t you? Something real.”
I went quiet. I wanted to deny it. I hadn’t felt anything at all—real or otherwise—for a very long time. What he was suggesting was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
“Cole?”
“I’m still here, Detective.”
“Yeah, isn’t this honesty thing so much fun?” Harris asked, but without any heat. He sounded almost sympathetic. “And it only works if you’re actually willing to do the emotional labor.”
“I’m reasonably certain one needs to have emotions to do emotional labor, Detective.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Harris paused. “You swore to me you’d always be honest. And despite everything else, I’ve never doubted that.”
I sighed, suddenly not liking this conversation one bit. “Eli is… important. He must not be harmed.” I hesitated, searching for the truth and just the truth. I came up with, “And I dislike seeing him unhappy. I dislike it quite a lot.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Maybe you are a real boy, after all.”
“Detective, it’s four in the morning. Please don’t play games with me.”
“Oh, so now we’re playing the ‘four a.m.’ card?”
My eyes narrowed at the painting of the lavender field. I realized abruptly that the reason I kept staring at it was that it reminded me of the French countryside—of home.
“Harris, don’t piss off the psychopathic vampire. It’s unwise.”
“Hey, you were the one who decided we were besties, not me.” Harris snorted, sounding amused rather than frightened. “Look, Cole. I’ll help, okay? I’m just trying to get over my surprise that you care enough to ask for it.” He paused. “Tell me everything that happened between you.”
When I did, Harris was silent for a long time afterward.
“Well, it sounds like he might go for emotionally unavailable men,” he said at last. “After the first ex, I guess that makes sense.”
“I didn’t call to talk about Eli’s exes. I called so you could help me fix him.”
“First rule: you can’t fix him. He has to fix himself, and you can’t rush that. It might take him a lifetime—or never.”
I scowled. “Then this entire conversation was a waste of time.”
“Humans aren’t toys, Cole.” Harris paused. “Good God, I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”
“Do what?” I demanded.
“Help you.” Harris sighed. “Cole, let’s walk back through what Eli said.”
“About the ex-boyfriends?”
“No, not that. He’s got a messed-up love life—it happens. But if you look at what else he said, he already told you exactly how to make him happy.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding at once what Harris was getting at. Once he pointed it out, I felt very foolish. “Yes, he did, didn’t he?”
“Good,” Harris grumbled. “Glad that’s settled. Now, would you please, for the love of everything holy, hang up the phone and let me get some sleep?”
* * *
Eli seemed baffled when I knocked on the door the following evening. “Hey, Cole.”
I greeted him with, “Earlier, you said you didn’t have plans. But now you do.”
Eli stared at me, and when his eyebrows hit his hairline, I tacked on, “If you want, that is.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Though a normal guy might’ve called me first.”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
Eli rolled his eyes but smiled at the same time, as though I’d amused him. It caused a warm feeling to bloom in my chest. It was like seeing the sunrise.
“What are the plans?”
“Do you trust me?”
Eli smiled again. “Give me a half hour to get ready and I’ll head over.”
I nodded solemnly.
Exactly thirty minutes later, Eli knocked on my door. He was freshly showered, his hair still damp. He smelled even more strongly of church incense and—very faintly beneath it—French lavender.
“Okay,” he said warily, stepping over the threshold. “What is this about?”
I beamed at him and held out an apron. “Doctor De La Cruz, you and I are making dinner together.”
He snorted, taking it from me. He closed the door behind him with a soft click. When he turned around, the expression on his face was incredulous. “Wait a second… You invited me over so I could cook you dinner?”
“No,” I said, pulling him in close for a soft kiss. Then I stepped back and finished tying my own apron strings into a neat front-facing bow. “I invited you over so we could cook a meal together.”
“Oh.” Understanding filled his expression. Emotions chased each other across his face. “Oh.”
“Yes,” I said with a sharp nod. “I went to the grocery store and got everything we need. I also picked the recipe. It’s coq au vin—chicken braised with wine and vegetables. And we’re doing a chocolate soufflé for dessert.”
A very short description of events that had taken me most of the day. I had agonized over every detail. It needed to be perfect. Doctor De La Cruz deserved nothing less.
Eli snorted. “Sounds great.” He gave me a skeptical look. “Do you know what you’re doing in the kitchen? Aren’t soufflés kind of hard to make?”
I winked at him, then turned to lead the way into my kitchen. It was smaller than I was used to and hopelessly pedestrian, but it would suffice. Over my shoulder I said, “Don’t be silly, Doctor. I’m good at everything I do.”
* * *
Two hours later, I was forced to admit that I wasn’t, in fact, good at everything I did.
It turned out I wasn’t a very good cook. And neither was Eli. Neither of us had a single clue what we were doing.
“I’m not sure it’s supposed to look like that,” I admitted. The soufflé on the table stared back at us accusingly. It had a giant crater in the center. Where it had sunken in was visibly underdone, but the edges were darker than they probably ought to have been.
“I think we did it wrong,” Eli confirmed. There was a smear of flour across his cheek. “I don’t think we did the coq au vin right, either.”
“No,” I agreed, wincing. “It’s entirely possible we didn’t cook any of this correctly.”
The chicken was rubbery, the vegetables had turned to mush, and the sauce tasted like salty water.
I sighed. Well, I wouldn’t be impressing Eli with my culinary skills anytime soon.
“We could still try to eat it?” Eli said hesitantly, eyeing the monstrosity of a dinner we’d whipped up together. He sounded doubtful. “Maybe it won’t be so bad?”
“Definitely not. I invited you over to cook a meal together, not poison you.” I shook my head. “How on earth do people make a living doing this? Cooking is actually rather hard.”
“If it helps, I was at least fifty percent of this disaster,” Eli said with a little laugh. “I’m not exactly what you’d call a good cook, either. I never get a chance to try.” He snorted, glancing down at the table and shaking his head regretfully. “Though maybe that’s for the best.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” I said. “I wanted us to make a nice meal together.”
“I mean, we kind of did. Or, well, we made a meal together. And we’ll do it better next time.”
I looked up from the crime scene on the kitchen table and met his eyes. They were sparkling with amusement, and there was a soft smile on his lips.
“Next time?” I asked, feeling a flash of surprise. “You’d like to repeat this crime against humanity?”
“Sure. We might have gotten it wrong, but it was fun cooking with you.” Then Eli grinned at me, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “But for tonight, let’s order a pizza.”
And so we did.
We ordered a pizza and, while we waited for it to arrive, we disposed of the evidence. Eli solemnly told me no one would ever need to know what we’d done. “After all,” he said, dumping the soufflé into the trash, “no body, no crime.”
My kind of human.
We ate together, and I wasn’t quite sure what we talked about, because we talked about everything and nothing. We teased each other about the monstrosity of a meal we’d created. We discussed his work. I peppered him with more questions. It was… nice. Oddly domestic, but not in a bad way.
After dinner, Eli’s eyes widened with surprise when I turned on the movie.
“Evil Under the Sun?”
I nodded.
“It’s an Agatha Christie movie,” Eli said slowly. “From the nineteen-seventies.”
“Yes,” I said, patting the couch next to me. “I’ve never seen it, though I rather like Agatha Christie.”
“Me too,” Eli said warily, coming to sit down beside me.
I flashed him a grin. “I know. I saw your collection.”
He snorted. “Right. When you broke into my home and stole my journal.”
“Correct.”
He didn’t protest when I slid my arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. Instead, he laid his head down on my shoulder, settling his weight against me. His warmth was delicious and perfect.
“You’re very strange, Nicolas,” he murmured.
I went tense. “In a bad way?”
“No,” he said with a happy sigh, pulling a blanket over us both. “It’s not bad at all.”
As the movie played, I became aware of the fact that Eli’s breathing had gone calm and even. He’d fallen asleep, curled up against me, in my arms.
I stayed motionless for a very long time, afraid to move.
I couldn’t bear the idea of waking him. Even after the movie ended, I sat there frozen, watching his chest rise and fall.
I found myself realizing that, right up until that moment, I had never truly noticed—or cared—how precious a single human life was.