Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
RíO
T he rest of the band began to pack up their shit, but I felt myself hesitating. It wasn’t unusual for me to hang back after practice when we were at Tyler’s, but it was mostly so we could shoot the shit and talk about non-human things. Today, there were more serious thoughts in my mind that were itching for an audience. Or just—a third party to bear witness and help me make sense of them.
But I couldn’t tell him everything .
I put my Iceman in its case, raised a hand to Brody and Jess as they started the process of loading their respective cars.
Tyler’s house was huge and outside of town—the perfect place to set up all our gear and play as loudly as we wanted. When I’d first come here for practice and took in the sleek, modern home with black walls and gleaming floors, I’d been struck with how much it looked like my father’s. Where I’d lived out my imprisonment with staff at my beck and call that would also look the other way because they were just as likely to be killed as I was to be beaten.
But, the closer I looked, Ty’s home was also different. Not as many walls of windows, as he truly liked the darkness, the modest-sized kitchen in contrast with the sprawling rooms and grounds. A room specifically dedicated to our practices that was set up with pretty much everything we needed.
I’d been fiddling with the edge of a leather sofa that was pushed up along one of the walls of the practice room, but Tyler’s scratchy voice interrupted my anxious fiddling. “Are you leaving or staying?”
He wasn’t dressed in either of his personas tonight. No eyeliner or metal band frontman getup. No pressed suit and styled hair. Just a baggy t-shirt and cargo pants. “Thought I’d fuck around here in the lap of luxury for a bit.”
“Whatever, dude,” he flicked his eyes toward the door, “got a bite coming over in a few, but you can stay.”
Brody and Jess came back, all laughs and casual chatter, picked up the last of their stuff, and said goodbye. The front door closing behind them vibrated beneath my feet, though to them, it was probably just a soft thud.
“They actually know what they’re coming over for?” I raised a brow at him, teasing. Mostly.
He evidently took my words as a more serious accusation. His fangs descended, “I have some common decency. And the bagged shit gets old. What did you wanna talk about, because you’ve got that look on your face,” he waved a hand at me, as if my inner turmoil was distasteful.
I cocked my head and examined him a little more closely. I’d known vampires before, sure, but I could never call one of them a friend. And, though I’d never, ever say the words out loud, Ty was—my best friend. “Do vamps feel differently than we do? Like not as intensely or something?”
He returned my question with an exasperated glare and waved me behind him. I followed him up the hallway to the living room that was comprised of a sunken space decorated with leather couches, a thick glass coffee table, and a pristine fireplace. The windows to the left overlooked the manicured lawn that led to the forest beyond.
“We feel things differently like two humans feel things differently. It depends on the person, asshole.”
“Yeah,” I plopped down on the couch and put my socked feet up on the glass in front of us. At least, until a rage-filled glare from Ty made me drop them. “But don’t all the years and killing just… numb it all?”
He sat cross-legged, elbows resting on his thighs, and looked at me like I was completely and utterly full of shit. “And you’ve never killed anyone?” When I betrayed panic, wide-eyed before I got my features to settle, he tsked and pulled open a drawer hidden in the table. Tyler retrieved a small box and began to use its contents to pack and roll a blunt. “I can smell the death on you.”
I swallowed, fought to deny it or give some bullshit excuse, but the years reflected in my best friend’s eyes were truly well beyond his appearance. Nah, I wouldn’t bullshit him. It was probably what made me gravitate toward him in the first place. It wasn’t like he was the only non-human or only vampire in town.
Once the blunt was tightly rolled, he struck an honest-to-goodness match and lit up. His first drag was long, but when it was over, he sat back against the couch cushions, slouching further than he normally would.
When he offered it to me, I shrugged and put it to my lips. Instead of the weak human shit, the first taste of it made me shudder with anticipation. Recognition. I took a pull, drawing the smoke into my lungs, let it swirl and seep into my blood.
On my exhale, a cloud rushed from my mouth toward the ceiling, as did a round of coughs that let the drug seep in even further. “G-good shit,” I managed and passed it back. It’d been years since I touched the supernatural-grade stuff, after relying on it for so many years to help me get through to the next day. But after striking out on my own, trying to find it was too much of a risk, and the human-grade shit made my throat raw without any of the benefits.
This, though, I could already feel taking effect. I leaned back into the leather beside Tyler, both of us looking at nothing in particular. Just breathing, smoking.
Through the smoky haze trailing around the room, I imagined Ramona’s face. The way her blank facade would twitch and crumble if I tickled her just right with my words or my touch. The way my Jaguar would rumble and long to pounce on her. To truly claim her, drag her beside me while I kept running.
“So, what did you really want to talk about?” Ty’s knowing question broke me out of my daydreaming, but I was already way too high to actually startle.
He passed me the blunt, now halfway gone, and I took another hit, trying to draw my words. What was I here to talk about? “I might…”
“See the Wolf girl as more than a convenient fuck?” His short black hair shuffled against the leather behind him as he turned to look at me. I did the same and took in his already-reddening eyes.
I tried my best to glare at him through the smoke while I coughed, but it’d pale in comparison to anything Ramona would manage. And then that got me thinking about the cute pout she’d get when I said something stupid. The irritation that I could so easily turn to desire with a whisper in her ear or a tender nip at her neck. What would it be like when I finally got to taste her and sink into that?—
“Ugh, if you’re gonna pop a boner and some heart eyes just thinking about her, you’re absolutely further gone than you think.”
I looked down at my lap, and, sure enough, my half-hard dick was evident through my jeans. Something about that made me laugh, but it came out more of a wheezing cough. And then that made me cough for real.
Tyler slapped my back a few times while taking the last draw from the blunt until it was a spent roach that he tossed in the ashtray on the table. “But—” I tried and sputtered “—what do I do about her?”
“Whadoya mean ‘what do you do’? It can’t be that different for you shifters. You spend time together, you fuck, you die, happyish-ever-after.”
“Happyish? I can’t just be happy?”
He snorted, “Not in my experience.”
My brain was too muddled to hang onto that enough to respond with something, my thoughts already drifting to the murky future that I didn’t even see clearly for myself. We’d met up more and more at the skate spot, me and Ramona, and each time, it felt… easy. Peaceful like hot coffee while watching the sunrise on a chilly morning. Normally, I got my dick wet and moved on to the next hole and next town.
Yeah, her tight throat was a fucking dream, but I’d only had it once . Besides that, a few stolen moments we could snag at the spot when we were arriving or leaving. Like yesterday, when I’d walked her to her car after skating for hours in the humid night. She’d parked near my truck, so we took a detour. Those that were still skating were far away, but that didn’t stop me from sitting her in the passenger seat and pressing my hand between her legs until she came. To my surprise, she’d squeezed and moved her palm back and forth on my crotch until I was coming with her, in my jeans like a horny teenager. It was hot and frantic and sticky, the confines of our clothes only adding to it, and I had to tug at my pants now to relieve the pressure that was growing just from thinking about it.
The doorbell rang, melodic and lingering, and Tyler stood smoothly. “You already made it clear that I’m never fucking you, and I don’t get fucked. So if you’re gonna keep doing that shit, you need to go to the bathroom and take care of yourself or leave.” On the way to the door, he mumbled, “Fucking stinking up my house,” and I couldn’t help huffing a laugh while continuing to adjust myself.
While Ty met his supper at the door, I started on rolling another blunt for us. I was in a pleasant, soupy place after the first, and there was no way in hell I was gonna be able to drive home. Luckily, he had at least two spare bedrooms and these comfy-ass couches to crash on.
If I thought he was gonna take his meal with linebacker shoulders and fiery red hair elsewhere, I was mistaken. They plopped down on one of the other couches in the living space, and my hands stilled as I tried to identify the guy that I could’ve sworn I’d met before. Max? Matthew? Adrian? Whatever.
“Hey, Río.” Welp. He knew my name, apparently. “You joining us?”
I frowned as I struck a match and lit the end of the tightly rolled blunt. Even with my loose fingers, it was more neatly rolled than Ty’s had been. Still had it.
Before I could respond, Tyler cut in again . He ran his hands through the guy’s hair. “Take off your shirt,” he directed at the redhead. “And no, he’s got a girlfriend .” The teasing in his voice and annoyance on his face made for a weird combination where I didn’t know what to get defensive over. That ‘girlfriend’ felt exciting but also wrong? Or that he somehow saw being attached to another as lesser? Which didn’t fucking help the conflict I was already experiencing.
“I came here for advice, shithead. Not to just get high and talked down to.”
Max-Matthew-Adrian tossed his shirt onto the floor and kept his hands obediently in his lap. I could pick out a series of bite mark-shaped scars on his neck, which explained the familiarity he exuded with Tyler touching him. “How boring. Hope she’s not a total snooze,” he added but grinned.
My instincts were still on alert amidst the drugs, because I felt my fangs emerge as I growled and leaned toward him for insulting her.
The guy blanched, going even paler than he already was, and pressed against the back of his seat. I stayed glaring, waiting for him to fucking say something else, but Tyler sliced through the tension with an amused chuckle. He tapped his finger along the guy’s neck that was straining with fear. “Watch it, Finn. Best not get between an animal and his mate.” To me and my own shocked face, he gave a sideways glance, “Just be with her. Quit fucking worrying about what it means because you already know what it means.” And without preamble, his fangs dropped and sank into Finn’s neck.
The guy’s yelp of surprise soon turned to moans, and I didn’t miss the tenting of both of their pants while Tyler drank greedily, thin trails of blood escaping his lips and running down Finn’s bare chest. The lust filling the room was more stifling than the smoke in my lungs.
Shoving to my feet, I held the blunt between my lips as I marched toward the kitchen and then further until I was out of the back door. The sun was only a faint orange sliver amongst the tree line, now, and the illuminated pool cast an aquamarine glow that filled my vision.
“Fuck this,” I said at nothing and everything. “She’s not—” but I couldn’t finish the sentence. My throat spasmed with something other than a cough. Angrily, I shoved off my clothes and took one last hit from the blunt. I was no fucking closer to understanding this thing between Ramona and I that I really didn’t need to become a thing in the first place.
She was… good. Underneath or perhaps because of the hard exterior and gooey inside, she was better than me, and I couldn’t afford a distraction like her to make me slip up further than I already had.
Because when were they going to come looking for Benny? Or was he low-level enough to have his disappearance be only a minor inconvenience to them? What—what would she say, how would she look at me, if she knew all the things I had done? What danger being with me would actually bring.
A blissful groan from inside reached my ears, and I crouched, stubbing out the blunt on the concrete lip of the pool. Great. Now I’d gone from relaxed to fucking anxious and in no better place than how I’d started.
I launched into the water, hoping it’d help calm my thoughts again or take away some of these burdens, at least for a little while. But as I let the water envelop me, the weightless feeling only reminded me of how I felt with her.