Chapter 17
Over the next few weeks, Charlie became very familiar with Lorenzo’s ceiling.
Really, he became familiar with the entirety of Lorenzo’s bedroom, which was just as stunning as you’d expect a vampire’s bedroom to be.
The floor and walls were slick poured concrete, but the furniture was classically elegant, with the standout piece being his enormous four-poster bed, which had black cotton curtains whose edges wrapped around the posts of the bedframe like ivy on an old stone wall.
The room was huge—it took up the entirety of the top floor of the apartment.
There were bookcases everywhere, five separate dressers, and a fireplace big enough for Charlie to stand in.
Thick, sun-proof black curtains covered every window.
The ceiling, however, was a mess. It looked as if it had been under construction for years or even decades, covered in a haphazard quilt of tarps and plywood, all of which were weathered with age. Sometimes Charlie worried it would collapse on them one day.
But he never did get around to asking Lorenzo about it, because, well—they’d been busy.
Lorenzo kept taking him to meet new groups of supernatural creatures all over town: There were the river sprites who’d shown them some elemental water magic, resulting in sodden clothes they’d stripped off each other later.
There was the magic historian who’d given them a lecture about the history of covens while Lorenzo and Charlie played footsie under his heavy table laden with spell books.
And the werewolves had invited them back to witness the peace summit that was eventually convened between the packs after their brawl at the wedding.
There had been lots of long, boring speeches about peace and familial duty, and Charlie hadn’t been able to stop staring at Lorenzo all night, because the werewolf brawl was the first time he’d felt the strength in Lorenzo’s arms as he’d whisked him away from danger, the first time he’d felt the urgency in how Lorenzo had touched him, how important it had been to Lorenzo to keep him safe.
They hadn’t even made it back to Lorenzo’s place that night; they’d fucked up against a tree in the woods half a mile from the werewolf grotto, the rough bark digging into Charlie’s back, the stars spread out above them.
They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other since the succubus art show.
Every once in a while they abandoned Charlie’s research quest entirely and stayed in, spending hours in Lorenzo’s bed, reading and talking about nonsense when they weren’t all over each other.
Sometimes they would stay up past sunrise; Charlie had been mildly surprised to discover that vampires could do that, although it was difficult for them, and didn’t last long.
After sunrise, Lorenzo got drowsy and vulnerable in a grumbly way, which Charlie found adorable and kind of hot.
He liked coaxing sunrise Lorenzo into fooling around with him before he drifted off to sleep for the day—it was the vampire version of morning sex, and he loved it.
He’d learned a lot about vampires since he’d started spending every night in Lorenzo’s bed.
He’d learned that vampires didn’t need to breathe, but they still did sometimes in stressful or exciting situations—muscle memory, Lorenzo called it.
He’d learned that vampires’ cool skin could feel just as exciting as a human’s warm touch, and that they actually did tend to warm up somewhat when they exerted themselves.
His “education” with Lorenzo was working, and then some.
And every morning when he got back to his place, he wrote column after column, and sometimes even little short stories or essays that he had no idea what to do with.
It was the most prolific he’d ever been, and he thought it might’ve been some of his best writing ever, or maybe he was just high on all the sex.
Either way, his notifications as the Crone were insane—the column was a genuine hit.
It was incredible to be recognized, and to be able to breathe for the first time in months, at least where his job was concerned.
But he wasn’t engaging with it—he’d abandoned almost all of his social media.
Because what if Lorenzo found his Insta or his TikTok, and figured out who he really was, and what he’d been doing?
Better to focus on how proud he was of the column, and how easy writing had been lately. The creative process felt joyous for the first time in years. He felt joyous.
He and Lorenzo had made a halfhearted effort to keep their situation a secret from the others, but it’d only been a few days before Rachel had stormed up the stairs one night and banged on the door for them to keep it down.
Other than that, though, it hadn’t really changed much about the group dynamic.
Maggie mooned at them every chance she got and made horrible jokes about their portmanteau couple name; Lorenzo thought if they ignored her she’d eventually stop.
Rachel and Isolde still seemed more interested in thinking up coldly polite but insulting things to say to each other than in Charlie and Lorenzo’s relationship status.
Not that they were in a relationship. It was a change in their . . . well, some other status.
Charlie sighed. He was lying in Lorenzo’s bed again, with Lorenzo snoring alongside him, but he couldn’t sleep. He kept staring up at the ceiling, covered in half-finished detritus and cobwebs.
It couldn’t hurt to look, right?
The only way he could reach the ceiling was by crawling up onto a dresser and standing on his toes until he could reach just high enough to pull one of the tarps down and peek under it.
He craned his neck, straining to see. Eventually the moon came out from behind a cloud, bathing the ceiling in silver light, and Charlie realized it was—
A skylight. There was a skylight in Lorenzo’s ceiling—and a nice one too. It took up almost half the area of the ceiling, with a sharp, triangular, art-deco-looking shape. It was made of wrought iron and that old glass that looked like it had just been poured, bubbled and wavy.
Lorenzo snored loudly and Charlie jumped, twitching the tarp back into place and crawling back into bed. But he still couldn’t sleep, as the curtains flapped quietly.
Lorenzo was working his way up Charlie’s body slowly, kissing his calves, rubbing his thighs, and nuzzling his hip bones as Charlie shifted impatiently.
Then he turned and dipped his tongue into Charlie’s belly button.
It startled a giggle out of him, and he panted, “This is not what I thought sleeping with a vampire would be like.”
Lorenzo lifted his head, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Shit, sorry, I—” Charlie winced. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”
“How did it sound?” Lorenzo asked. Before he could answer, Lorenzo trailed a finger down Charlie’s inner thigh, and he gasped, distracted.
“I just meant—I didn’t mean . . .” Charlie trailed off, entranced at the sight of Lorenzo drawing his tongue in lazy circles over Charlie’s skin. “Fuck.”
“You were saying?” Lorenzo asked.
“Why are you doing that,” he panted, “if you want me to answer?”
“Maybe I want a straight answer,” Lorenzo said. “I want your mind elsewhere so you won’t lie.”
The word lie sent a chill through him that chased off his lust. “Hey,” Charlie said, sitting up and pushing Lorenzo back. “I wouldn’t—”
Lorenzo was just staring at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence, and Charlie cursed, covering his eyes with his hand. “I didn’t mean to—you’re a very scary vampire,” he said. “Very cool, and tough.”
Lorenzo frowned. “Of course I am. What does that have to do with anything?”
Charlie hugged a knee to his chest. “I thought you were mad because you thought I was saying that you’re not like what I thought a vampire would—or should—be like.
Which—you are!” he added. “Or—I guess I was . . . there’s obviously no one right way for a vampire to be, and .
. .” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice.
“When you . . . when you’re gentle, and sweet, and silly, it’s . . .”
He trailed off when he realized the shaking of Lorenzo’s shoulders was laughter. “It’s nice,” he finished sharply. “What?!”
“I wasn’t mad at you for impugning my scary vampire nature,” Lorenzo said. He had a very, very nice smile that came out when they were like this—just the two of them in bed, talking shit and getting lost in roundabout conversations.
“Then what?” Charlie demanded.
The smile faded somewhat. “I was just . . . I was surprised to hear you say something like—that you had thought about what it would be like,” Lorenzo said, not meeting his eye. “To be with a vampire.”
“Oh. Really?” he asked. He was surprised Lorenzo was surprised—there must have been dozens of vampire groupies in his past. It wasn’t exactly a rare fetish. “Hasn’t everyone?”
Lorenzo didn’t say anything, and as the silence stretched out, so did Charlie’s anxiety. They’d started this whole thing with the understanding that it was educational. That was for the best—it kept everything simpler. More straightforward.
But Lorenzo had a look on his face that was anything but simple. Charlie wanted to reassure him, but what would he say?
He glanced at Lorenzo’s ceiling again, thinking of the beautiful glass peaks underneath. It worried him more than he wanted to admit, thinking about how much sunlight must pour into Lorenzo’s bedroom every morning, held at bay only by tarps and plywood.
But he couldn’t ask about the skylight any more than he could ask about everything else unspoken in Lorenzo’s life and past—any more than he could tell Lorenzo the truth about himself.
So instead he said, casually, “I’ve already learned so much about vampires from you.”
He crawled into Lorenzo’s lap, ignoring the way Lorenzo’s eyes cut off to the side rather than look at him. “Like, the fact that vampires are ticklish.”
He dug his fingers into Lorenzo’s ribs, and Lorenzo huffed out a laugh as he wrestled Charlie’s wrists away. There was still something dull and preoccupied in his smile, though.
“Or that vampires have very sensitive ears,” he said, leaning forward to breathe hotly into the tender shell of Lorenzo’s.
He shivered, running his hands over Charlie’s hips and the small of his back. “Charlie.”
“Or that vampires are allergic to cinnamon,” Charlie said, pulling back to smile at him.
“That’s not all vampires,” Lorenzo said, scowling.
“I know,” Charlie said, as his smile grew. “It’s just you.”
“And I’m not allergic. I just hate it.”
A giggle burst up out of Charlie’s throat. “That’s so weird!”
“Why is it weird?” Lorenzo demanded.
“Because!” Charlie said. “Vampires, fall, Halloween? It’s supposed to all be, y’know, connected.”
“It’s a stupid spice,” Lorenzo muttered. “I hate PSL season.”
“Hm,” Charlie said, running his fingers through Lorenzo’s hair and onto the back of his neck. “So.”
He leaned forward and caught Lorenzo’s lips in a soft, clinging kiss. “Thank you for educating me,” he whispered.
Lorenzo went still, but Charlie kissed him again, and this time Lorenzo kissed him back.