Vampire’s Mate Camping Short #3
Jay cocked his head. “Did you not already know Gabe and Soren have sex? I think they do it a lot, actually.”
“No, I just mean—” Danny sighed, frowning at the RV. “Never mind.”
In a case of perfect timing, the RV door banged open right then. There was Soren, looking a little rumpled but much happier than when they’d first arrived, and Gabe following him, looking relaxed and a little sheepish. “Hey, guys.”
Jay took them all along to the pond while they waited for the others. Danny seemed to like it best, letting out a long, happy sigh. “This is beautiful. It’s practically a lake. I had no idea it was even here.”
Then Jay helped Danny set up his tent, since Roman said he didn’t know the first thing about such matters and Jay had become a bit of an expert (he’d practiced in the backyard after the first time he’d accidentally broken the poles in his excitement).
He was overjoyed when Jamie and Luc pulled up. “You came!”
Jamie laughed at him, tugging his green hair up into a ponytail while Luc gave surly nods to everyone around them. “I texted you yesterday to say we were on our way.”
“Yes, but now you’re here! Do you need help setting up your tent?”
Jamie shifted on his feet, shooting a small frown at Luc. “I’m afraid we’re not staying the whole night, little guy. Someone here refuses to lower himself to sleeping on the ground.”
“We’ve rented a suitable hotel room some half hour away,” Luc explained. “We’ll stay until everyone settles for the night.” He shot Roman a smirk. “Enjoy the outdoors much, Roman?”
Jay held his breath. It didn’t sound like a sincere question; it sounded like teasing. Mean teasing. And the two had been known to fight over much less.
But Roman only smiled, his gaze traveling to Danny. “I was promised an exchange.”
Luc scoffed. “He’s going to give you your balls back if you play nice?”
Roman’s smile sharpened. “I get to take him away again, actually. I was thinking Croatia. A little house on the Mediterranean. Three weeks.”
“We agreed to two,” Danny countered from where he’d come to stand beside Jamie.
Roman gave him a pained look. “But, little king, to fully appreciate the culture…”
Luc was looking thoughtfully at Jamie, who was grinning back at him knowingly. “Regretting your stubbornness, monster?”
“We have an extra tent!” Jay yelled out, doing a little dance when Luc gave him a reluctant nod.
“Well, we brought a consolation prize for not staying, even if it’s moot now.” Jamie stepped to his car and leaned into the back seat to pull out a grocery bag, raising up a bag of marshmallows.
“Oh yes, thank you,” Jay said politely. “I love marshmallows.” Marshmallows wouldn’t have been better than Jamie and Luc staying, of course, but Jay didn’t have to bring it up now that Luc had been convinced.
Jamie shook the bag at him. “For s’mores.”
“S’mores,” Jay repeated slowly. He knew the word, but he couldn’t remember… Something about throwing marshmallows into a fire?
Jamie gaped at him. “Little guy, you’ve never had s’mores? Roasted marshmallows and chocolate smashed between graham crackers? Ooey, gooey, messy goodness that gets everywhere? Absolute camping staple?”
Well, that sounded…that sounded amazing. Jay whirled on Alexei. “You’ve been keeping these from me?”
Alexei smiled softly at him, shaking his head. “I never went camping either, kotyonok. I’ve never had one.”
“Oh. Right.” Jay smiled back at him, so grateful they’d found each other and could explore all the things they’d never gotten, but together instead.
Soren moaned behind them. “Christ, you two are tragic.”
By the time Wolfe and Eric showed up, it was practically dark. Jay waved at them from his spot between Alexei’s legs on the ground.
“Sorry we’re late,” Eric said. “We had to go to, like, three different wine stores. Apparently, we needed an appropriate ‘outdoor wine,’ whatever that means.”
That had Luc and Roman rising from their chairs, the two of them circling Wolfe as he pulled out different bottles for them to peruse.
“You don’t mind sleeping on the ground?” Luc asked Wolfe skeptically, after they’d all agreed on which wine to open first.
“It was Eric’s wish,” Wolfe said simply, as if that was all it took. Jay beamed at him, even though Wolfe wasn’t looking at him to see. He was just so proud of his friend, taking such good care of his mate.
Eric glanced around the clearing, a worried expression on his face. “But we get, like, sleeping pads, right? We’re not actually sleeping on the ground?”
“I have a tent all set up for you,” Jay reassured him.
They made the s’mores, the process helped along by a surprising amount of booze. There was Wolfe’s wine, Danny’s whiskey (“it seemed like a camping kind of liquor”), and Gabe and Soren had brought a huge thing of tequila, which Eric was drinking an awful lot of.
Jay was disappointed when his marshmallow immediately caught fire, but Jamie hollered in approval. “Now you just blow it out and you’ve got yourself a tasty treat. Charred to perfection.”
Soren sneered from his spot on Gabe’s lap—and Jay had really chosen the camping chairs well, hadn’t he, if they could hold both vampires in one? “Ugh. You would like your marshmallows that way.”
Jamie cheerfully waved his middle finger at him.
Jay noticed Soren’s marshmallow was perfectly golden, like a real professional’s.
Danny’s was somewhere in between: he’d gotten one side all luscious and golden-brown, but then he’d let the other side catch fire and burn to a crisp.
When he caught Jay looking, he grinned. “I get impatient,” he explained.
And Jamie had been right earlier: the s’mores were messy. Although, no one else seemed to get as much sticky marshmallow on their face as Jay, but that was okay because Alexei was the nicest, kissing it off him, ignoring Soren’s pretend gagging sounds.
“Is this when the orgy starts?” Gabe asked, grabbing the tequila from Eric.
Danny coughed out his sip of whiskey. “Excuse me?”
Jay was too content to be embarrassed as Gabe pointed at him with a lazy finger. “You know, Jaybird’s obsession with orgies?”
Danny tossed a marshmallow at him. “You really thought Jay was bringing us out here for an orgy? And you still said yes? We’re brothers!”
Gabe chuckled, and from the sound of it, he’d had just as much of the tequila as Eric. “I didn’t really think so. I just…worried…initially.”
“No orgy,” Jay promised, a little contrite he’d made his friends worry. “But everyone’s welcome to…you know…we just have to be quiet. Respectful,” he explained, repeating what Alexei had told him earlier when he’d brought it up.
He squirmed a little at the thought, biting at his lip. It was hard for him to be quiet when Alexei was inside him. But maybe if Alexei put his hand over Jay’s mouth…
“Oh my God, little guy.”
Jay looked up to find everyone staring at him, with varying expressions he was too happy to try to decipher at the moment.
Although, Jamie’s was easy enough, the vampire grinning as wide as Jay had ever seen him do.
Eric
Eric’s limbs felt loose, and his head was heavy, but in the nicest way. Was he a little drunk? He hadn’t really been drunk since he’d turned—apparently it took a lot to manage it—but he and Gabe had been passing the tequila back and forth all night, and the bottle was pretty much empty.
He felt a hand cover his, and he turned to Wolfe, who was managing to make even his camping chair look elegant, his long legs crossed, an actual wineglass in his hand.
Wolfe gave a small smile at whatever he saw on Eric’s face. “It will be dawn in a few hours, and you wanted to catch your fish, darling. Shall we take to our bed?”
Eric’s lower lip pushed out in something between a frown and a pout. “We’re vampires. Can’t we stay up all night?”
“Easily,” Wolfe soothed. “But you’ve had quite a bit of tequila, and you may wish to sleep it off, if only for an hour or two.”
Ah. So Eric was tipsy. Trust Wolfe to know these things. “Is everyone else going to bed?”
Danny stretched in his chair. “It’s not a bad idea.” He giggled. “Plus, I want to see Rome in a tent. I was promised.”
Roman gave his mate a fond smile. The stern vampire had relaxed considerably after the snobby trio—he, Luc, and Wolfe, of course—had polished off quite a few bottles of “outdoor wine.” He and Luc had even gotten to reminiscing together, their stories ending in laughter instead of the usual threats of violence.
They were weird, those two.
“There are no more marshmallows left either,” Jay added sadly, holding up the empty bag.
“To be fair, little guy, you ate all of those within the first few hours,” Jamie pointed out. “We’ve got another bag, but maybe you want to save it for tomorrow night?”
Jay looked to Alexei, who nodded at him with a small smile. The big former mobster was typically quiet, but Eric liked him well enough. He was as devoted to Jay as Wolfe was to Eric, and one couldn’t help but feel a little warm and fuzzy in front of a love like that.
Or maybe that was the tequila talking.
Jay hopped up from his seat, like the lack of marshmallows had settled it for everyone. “I’ll show you the tent we set up!”
Eric followed him with Wolfe behind, a hand on Eric’s lower back to guide him. Eric didn’t need it—he wasn’t stumbling or anything—but it felt nice, so he didn’t grumble.
When they got to the tent on the opposite side of the clearing from the campfire, Eric whistled. “Damn, Jay, is that a real air mattress stuffed in there?”
Jay beamed at him. “Do you like it? Alexei and I are learning to ‘glamp.’ We thought you two might want to be cozier than a tarp on the ground.”
Eric grinned back. “This is great.”
Then he and Jay watched, bemused, as Wolfe began pulling up the stakes.
“Um, babe?” Eric asked, the pet name Wolfe claimed to hate rolling off his liquor-loosened tongue.
“Yes, pet?”
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t care how quiet Johann thinks he can be. Your moans are for my ears only, darling.”