Chapter 16
Sixteen
Sully
Snow comes down in a flurry of drifting floaty flakes, lit silver by the moonlight. Sometimes sideways, riding the wind. Sometimes swirling. It catches on absolutely everything and clings—each tree, each branch, each separate pine needle—and bathes our world in a blanket of sparkling white.
I’ve never seen anything like real snow.
Images can’t compete. The way it glitters. The way it dampens every sound, like all noises are softer around the edges. It’s deeply magical. Even to my sensitive ears, every little creak and echo is pleasantly muffled as the snow falls.
Zoe calls, asking after us.
Are we okay? Yes.
Do we need anything? No.
Have we fucked yet? Silence.
I imagine I wasn’t supposed to hear that last part.
Ru’s face goes tomato red, and he spins to head down the hall to finish their conversation. I hear him hiss, “No, Zoe, we haven’t, and you’re nosy for asking.” Which just makes me love her more.
I’m still happy about it when he reappears, looking for all the world like they weren’t just discussing our potential sex life. If he thinks hard enough, he’ll realize I heard. My guess is he’s deliberately trying not to think hard enough.
We watch the last Lord of the Rings movie, snuggled together on the sofa, Socks on his side and Twenty-Four on mine. He lets me smash up next to him, even puts an arm around me, but he doesn’t seem interested in making out. When I try, he returns my kiss, but doesn’t deepen it.
The movie is good. I guess I’m glad I saw the ending, even though I’d rather be kissing. But I’ve come up with a plan for that.
We cook a late-night dinner together—Ru’s sliding into my schedule now that he doesn’t have to go in to work—him guiding me, me going through the motions while thinking through my plan.
One of the shows available to me to watch was Dawson’s Creek. And early on, they played a game called Truth or Dare in detention. I thought it was so cool. All of it. Their high school, the library, the concept of detention, and especially Truth or Dare.
Most especially when it led to kissing.
I would daydream about having friends, going to school, playing Truth or Dare. Ru likes games, even though he wasn’t very good at Jenga. He’ll play with me. I have years of stored up dares to play and truths to ask, on top of some questions I’ve been hesitant to bring up.
But a game would make that easy.
I wait until after dinner, when we’ve cleaned the kitchen and put away our dishes. When I’ve strategically locked Socks and Twenty-Four in my room. When the house is quiet, the fire is crackling, and snow is piling up outside.
“Hey Ru, can we play a game?”
“Sure.” He laughs. “Anything but Jenga.”
I grin. “How about Truth or Dare?”
Ru
Sullivan exists in this strange dichotomy of being both more mature and more youthful than he should be for his years.
Not that he should be any certain way. He’s lovely as he is. But I haven’t played Truth or Dare since middle school, and I don’t particularly want to play now.
But his face.
He’s so excited by the prospect. And in a way, Truth or Dare is a rite of passage—another of those core memories Sully never got to experience. Besides, why tell him no when I can just as easily say yes?
“Um, sure. We can play.”
Sully claps gleefully.
His mischievous grin plus the glint in his eyes are all I need to know I’m in trouble. Nerves flutter in my stomach like I really am back in middle school. I don’t know why. If he dares me to kiss him, it’s not like I’d say no.
Kissing him is practically all I think about when I’m not busy worrying about our future.
But we shouldn’t do more.
The truth is, Sully deserves someone better than me. Someone not compromised by II Tech’s immorality. Someone his own age.
I’m just the first guy to be nice to him. So he’s got a little crush. He’ll get over me when the right guy comes along, I’m sure.
We settle in the living room in our usual spots on the sofa. Sully’s wearing an old pair of my pajamas and looks a little too cuddly in them.
I offered to buy him his own clothes, but he looked offended. “No,” he said. “I like these. And Zoe’s. I like hers too. I don’t want clothes from a store.” Which suits me fine as we’ll need all the money we can get for our great escape.
“I’ll go first,” he says. “Truth or dare, Ru?” He bites his lip, one fang on display. It’s devastatingly cute.
I’m in so much trouble. Better play it safe. “Truth.”
His gaze is laser focused on me. “Did you ever think of turning me in? When I first showed up at your house?”
Oh, shit. That’s not safe at all. I did think of turning him in, and the last thing I want to do is admit to it. But I shouldn’t lie about this. Not to Sully.
While I’m stressing over how to explain, he erupts in a rumble of laughter.
My panic subsides in favor of curiosity. “What?”
“You did, didn’t you? I knew it. I was in that bathtub thinking you’d send the goons after me any second. I can’t believe you didn’t.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief. I’m glad he finds it funny and not hurtful. “Just because I thought about it didn't mean I could ever do it.”
“Don’t stress.” He extends a leg and pokes my thigh with a fuzzy sock–covered foot. Those must have been Zoe’s. As far as I know, I don’t own any fuzzy socks. “I’m glad you were willing to take a chance on me. Your turn.”
Dodged that bullet easy enough. “Okay, Sully. Truth or dare?”
“Truth. Should be easy for me. I have, like, almost no secrets.”
My turn to laugh. “You should not have said that. I would’ve given you an easy one, but now I want to know one of your secrets.”
His face goes from cheerful to put-out between breaths. “Aww, Ru, not yet. It’s too early in the game. Ask me that one later?”
That’s not how Truth or Dare works, but I find I’d rather make Sully happy than harp on rules. We both hate rules anyway. “Okay, fine. Um, which fictional vampire would you rather make out with, Bill Compton or Edward Cullen?”
He scrunches his nose. “Ew, neither.”
“You have to pick one.”
“Then I pick Eric Northman.”
“That’s cheating. Kiss one or die. Bill or Edward.”
The nose scrunching doesn’t stop. He throws his head back and groans. “Okay, fine. Bill, I guess. But gross. My turn. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Who was your first crush?”
“Easy, Zac Efron from High School Musical.” That would be embarrassing except—
“Who’s that?”
—Sully doesn’t have any idea who he is. I huff a laugh. “Cute guy. Super talented. Great singing voice. I’ll show you sometime. Who was yours?”
He blushes. “Uncle Jesse from Full House.”
That startles another laugh out of me. “That tracks.” Poor Sully, stuck with only outdated TV shows his whole life. He’d probably love High School Musical.
“Whose turn is it?” he asks.
“Mine. Truth or dare?”
He nudges me with his foot, then slides both of them into my lap. “But you asked about my crush.”
“It wasn’t a truth or dare, I just asked a question and you answered it.”
“Sneaky. And you call me a cheater.”
“Ha! You are one, though. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
Man, we’re boring. All truths, no dares. I guess we have a lot of questions we want answers to. “Okay. Have you ever wanted to drink blood for real? Like from a person, not a bag?”
“Wow.” He goes still. “I’m kind of surprised you want to know the answer to that. You tend to avoid my blood drinking as much as possible.”
Guilty. “I do, don’t I? Sorry. It’s weird that what you naturally need to drink also happens to be what keeps me alive.”
“It keeps me alive too. We’re not so different.”
“Touché.” I hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe I should. “So? Do you?”
“Of course I do,” he says quietly and without looking me in the eye. “I’ve always been curious. But even more now, since bagged blood is going to be harder to get.”
Yeah, try impossible. But now our topic is veering toward the problems of real life and away from the fun and games territory we’ve been clinging to tooth and nail. “That makes sense.”
Tentatively, he lifts his gaze. “Does it freak you out?”
I shrug, going for a casual air I’m not quite feeling, but I want to put him at ease. I lay a hand on his ankle. “Maybe a little, but that’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
He nods to himself, fiddling with a loose string at the wrist of his pajamas. “Truth or dare, Ru?”
“Truth.” Why not spill all my secrets while we’re here? Plus it keeps me from getting up for some stupid dare. I like it here, all cozy with Sully’s fuzzy-socked feet in my lap.
“Tell me about when you lost your virginity.”
My face heats. “Why are you so good at this game?”
“I've been obsessed with it since forever. Now spill. I want the whole story.”
“Oh geez. Are you sure about that? It’s embarrassing.”
He grins. “I want it even more now that I know it’s embarrassing.”
“Evil. Truly evil.” I tip my head back and close my eyes, remembering. “Okay. It happened during high school. I was a senior, and I liked this boy Corey.”
“A boy?”
“Yes. He was on the track team. We went to a small school, so the track team was co-ed. I’ve never been a runner. I have asthma. But I started going to track meets to watch him run. He did everything. Cross-country, sprints, hurdles, field stuff, and I watched all of it.”
“Sounds fun.”
“It was. Having a crush is usually fun. Anyway, this girl we were both friends with, Samantha, was on the team too. She noticed me in the stands. We had math together. So she started talking to me after class. About track, school, the weather. Just whatever. Samantha was a pretty girl. Smart. Nice. The kind of girl I thought I should be attracted to.”
The kind I could date publicly, bring home to meet my family, like a normal boy. Oof, being a teenager was rough.
Sully listens quietly, his soft gaze unwavering.
“Meanwhile, Corey never gave me the time of day. I’m sure he was straight, and even if he wasn’t, he was out of my league. But Samantha was definitely flirting with me. We were so young and desperate to be in love—whatever that means—so I asked her out.”