Chapter 1 #4
“Ah, yes.” Arthur let out a nervous laugh, not particularly keen to discuss the particulars. They’d managed to stay away from vampire-related conversation all evening and he wasn’t about to break their streak now. “Dr. Young was good enough to schedule Salvatore after hours.”
“Terribly anti-paranormal of him not to have evening hours to begin with, I say,” Salvatore grumbled.
“But kind of him to accommodate your preference all the same. Now, off you go!” Arthur made a shooing motion with his hands.
“No, really, I couldn’t leave our guests without my dazzling company.” Salvatore put his phone away and flashed them all a blazing smile.
Arthur could clearly see the calculus happening in Sal’s brain. He disliked Quinn, but he hated dentists more, and at least here there was wine and cheese.
“You can’t skip your appointment. Dr. Young made room in his schedule just for you,” Arthur insisted.
Sal had attempted to get out of the routine cleaning by claiming he simply couldn’t go to the dentist during the day, as it wouldn’t be fitting for a nocturnal creature.
Arthur had reminded him of the many other errands they managed just fine in the sunlight, but Sal had continued to wax poetic about his air of vampiric mystique.
In the end, Arthur had arranged a nighttime appointment in a rather graceful checkmate. “Go on, we’ll be fine.”
Salvatore bared his fangs, not unlike a disgruntled house cat. “Must I?”
“If you want to keep that smile intact, I think yes.”
“But I hate needles,” Salvatore said with an almighty pout. “And drills.”
“The sooner you go, the less likely they are to use them.” Though as vampires he and Salvatore were immortal, Arthur still insisted on routine teeth cleanings and yearly physicals.
Perhaps they couldn’t get sick the way humans could, but they could still get plaque buildup, and nothing spoiled an afternoon quite the way a split fang could.
“I don’t care if Dr. Young is the devil incarnate. You still have to go.”
“I think I’d prefer him that way,” Sal grumbled, but he stood up and straightened his cravat. “I must bid you all adieu. Don’t get up to any mischief while I’m away—I’ll be terribly jealous you’ve left me out.”
“Give Dr. Young my regards.” Quinn turned to Nora to add, “He’s a friend of the mayor’s.”
“Of course he is.” Sal gave them all a tight smile before sweeping from the room with the swiftness of a bat.
The upside to Salvatore’s unusual silence all evening was that when he was gone, the room didn’t seem much emptier than before.
Arthur still felt his absence, though. It had been decades since Arthur had done much of anything without Sal by his side—not since before “Waterloo,” the song, not the battle.
Conversation struggled along in fits and starts, until at last it died for good.
Social niceties, unlike himself, could not rise anew from the grave.
He couldn’t help but be reminded uncomfortably of the many times he’d suffered through the social ritual of cocktail hour with his old coworkers, hoping one day he might suddenly find he belonged as if by some sort of magic.
Alas, he’d liked neither the drinks nor the company and never mustered the confidence to decline the invitation until after he met Salvatore.
The grand irony was, once Arthur became immortal, his coworkers ceased including him in such activities.
He would have dearly loved to tell them no at long last, but it was not to be.
It pained him to know he might now be the source of that same anguish in his guests.
“Should I open another bottle?” Arthur suggested when the silence stretched too long. It had only been a quarter hour since Salvatore’s departure, but somehow it felt like eons.
“No, I should be going.” Quinn jumped up from the plush cushions she’d never truly settled into. “It’s obvious the mayor isn’t coming.”
Nora stood, too, her posture braced as if for a fight. “I guess you really don’t do anything that doesn’t win you points with him.”
“Let me show you out,” Arthur said quickly. No need to prolong the tension and allow whatever animosity they held for each other to escalate.
Quinn gave him a curt nod before leaving, not bothering to say thank you or even goodbye.
Nora sighed once she was gone. “I should never have invited the mayor. I didn’t know she’d come instead.”
Arthur parted his lips to ask for more details but decided against it at the last minute. He wasn’t much for gossip, and Sal wasn’t there to insist upon it. “Would you like more wine?”
“No, thanks. I’m going to turn in for the night. Thanks for hosting this. Wasn’t your fault Quinn—” She cut herself off and shook her head. “Good night.”
She headed upstairs, her footsteps heavy.
Alone now, Arthur cast his gaze around the room. At least they’d made a dent in the food, though he’d only had to open one bottle of red.
Still, as he piled perhaps an unwise amount of cheese on his plate, listening to the record player transition to a suitably depressing song, Arthur supposed this was a start.
Things could finally be looking up for the Iris Inn, and for their place here in Trident Falls.
This had been their most successful event yet, even with the mayor’s absence.