Chapter 16 Reno
RENO
I was working on cleaning Simon’s hair with a damp towel when Shirley came in, carrying a plate with three slices of pizza, followed by Cal, who had Simon and my phones and laptops. “Thought you might want these.”
“Thanks. And thanks for coming.” I tossed the wet towel into the bathroom, then took the plate from Shirley. Cal set the electronics down on the bed on Simon’s other side.
Shirley paused on her way out of the room. “I’ll be downstairs, but yell if you need anythin’.”
“Thanks, Shirley.”
She opened her mouth, shut it, then apparently decided to tell me what was on her mind.
“That’s a good man you have there. A good mate.
You may not be aware, but those are hard to find.
I know you were worried about getting’ bonded, but don’t forget you and Simon are not your mother and father.
” I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand.
“I’ll only say this once, and then I won’t bring it up again.
Your parents might have been joined at the hip for their entire matin’, but that was their choice.
Either of them could’ve asked for boundaries but they didn’t.
They set a piss-poor example for you, if you’ll pardon me speakin’ ill of the dead. ”
She pointed at me. “You may be afraid of repeatin’ the past, but it’s your and Simon’s choice how your matin’ looks.” She gave me a sharp nod and left the room.
I focused on scarfing down pizza instead of looking at Cal.
He must’ve decided to ignore the elephant Shirley had dumped in the room. “Both of your phones have been going off, but I can post an update on Discord if you like.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate it. I’m not really in a good mindset to deal with everyone right now.”
“Hah. Understandable.”
I pretended he was only referring to Simon being injured. “The guest room’s all yours if you want to stay the night. There are clean sheets in the hall closet.”
“Thanks, I’d like to see what happens with Jackson.” He rubbed his chest, right where his connection to Jackson had once emerged.
“You’re welcome here as long as you’d like to stay.”
“Thanks. I’m gonna head downstairs and write that post. You need anything?”
I lifted the plate. “I’m good, thanks.”
I was exhausted when I finished the pizza, so I laid down next to Simon and pulled the sheet over both of us. I was out before I had a chance to stew over what Shirley had said to me.
I woke a few hours later, my phone buzzing with a text.
It was a little after midnight. I checked on Simon, but there wasn’t any change that I could see.
Getting up and stumbling to the bathroom and back took enough time I knew I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts about Simon and our mating.
Taking a deep breath, I put on my big boy pants and unlocked my phone.
I waded through the texts and Discord private messages. Most of them were from before Cal had posted the update, so I didn’t bother to respond. A few were newer, and a couple of those were only well wishes for Simon to get better.
When I was done with my messages, I looked at Simon’s phone and laptop. I really shouldn’t... should I? He’d given me access to the devices after all, and he’d specifically said it was so I could check his texts and Discord.
His phone was dead, and I didn’t have a charger for it. He’d probably left his in the guest bedroom, but it was past the time when Cal would’ve gone to sleep. I’d just use his laptop.
I logged in without a problem, but before I opened his Discord app, my eye caught on the icon for his photos.
Simon had known how to use my camera when we’d been at Emiliano Duran’s apartment.
Did he have a camera of his own? What did he take pictures of?
Before I could debate with myself about whether anything on Simon’s laptop not related to the campaign was off limits, I clicked on the icon.
The first thing that came up was a series of pictures of a bald eagle flying.
The file names were labeled, “Eagle, New Braunfels, Texas”.
I dug a little deeper. All of the photos he’d taken this year—mostly landscapes or birds and animals—were in the main folder, but he’d created folders by year, going back to—holy crap! —1961.
I clicked on that folder. The first and oldest photos were taken in Greece.
The coastline and houses were unmistakable, even if the file names hadn’t been as carefully labeled as his more recent pictures.
But the old cars and the way people dressed and wore their hair were definitely from that era.
Too bad Simon hadn’t known about selfies back then, because he wasn’t in any of the photos.
I stopped on one of the early ones, named “Jimmy in Athens”.
A slim, sharp-faced man was holding a small sculpture of a sleeping cat. Weird.
The rest of the photos from that year chronicled Simon’s journey from Greece to Bulgaria, then to Istanbul.
I poked around and looked at a few of the photos from each year.
I’d known intellectually that Simon had had a long, lonely life tracking the rogue vampires, but these pictures really drove home how alone he’d been and how much he’d gone through to get here now.
I took a minute to stroke his hair. “Finding your mate must’ve been like the ultimate goal for you. Finally, you’d have someone to share your life with. But you got stuck with me instead, and the first thing I did was tell you I didn’t want to be mated to you.”
My eyes burned with tears, but I blinked them back. Crying over how guilty I felt wouldn’t solve anything. Before Simon woke up, I’d better decide once and for all whether I was in or out of our mating. It was only fair to him.
“Okay, Simon. I have two options. First is my original plan, ask you to sever the bond.” I breathed through the pain the bond sent my way as punishment for bringing that up again.
“In this scenario, let’s say the new District Monitor shows up in a few months.
I go off and sit on a remote beach somewhere by myself.
It’s heavenly.” I smiled, imagining putting my toes in the warm sand and watching the sun set over the waves.
No phones, no texts, no Discord messages.
“But while I’m doing that, what are you doing, Simon?
I can’t ask you to wait around Corpus Christi for me.
” I looked down at his face, still beautiful even with matted hair and a slack mouth.
“Wonders and magic carriers will be throwing themselves at you.” I pictured some random guy with his hands on Simon’s bare chest, and my vision turned red.
Was I baring my teeth? Shit, I hoped this mating bond didn’t give me fangs.
“Right. Okay, so what have we learned here? We’ve learned that, as much as I want to go on a tropical vacation by myself, I am not willing to risk you finding someone else while I’m away.
” I blinked. Wow, that was easier than I’d expected.
I sighed and laid my fingers against his cheek.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me. I hope you like the beach, because we’re going on vacation as soon as the new DM appears.
But you can stay in the cabana while I sit in the sand.
No pressure to join me.” In fact, it might be pretty romantic to spend some of the days apart, meeting back up in the evening for dinner and lovemaking. “We’ll figure it out, Simon.”
Tucking his hand in mine, our bond purring with happiness, I went back to the folders of photos and clicked through the years.
In the late 1970s and the 1980s he’d wandered through Egypt, Sudan, Tanzania, and Nigeria.
He’d gotten some great shots of animals and birds, but there weren’t many photos of people.
1990 and 1991 were pretty sparse, but 1992 had a subfolder in it.
I leaned forward. None of the other years had had subfolder.
It was called “Davi”, and there were a bunch of photos in it, along with a video and another subfolder called “Davi’s Photos”.
This must’ve been the friend Simon had said he’d stayed with for a few months. The one who’d passed away.
I started with “Davi’s Photos”. These were typical family and friend pics.
Davi had lived somewhere in South America, I guessed based on the houses and beaches.
He’d grown from a gangly kid into a handsome young man with curly black hair and laughing eyes.
There weren’t any photos after he was about twenty years old.
Had he been that young when he’d passed away?
I went back to the main “Davi” folder and clicked on some of those photos.
For once, Simon appeared in a few. His hair had been a little longer than he was wearing it now, and he had a tan, but otherwise he looked exactly the same.
Davi, however, was older, maybe around thirty.
And he was obviously ill. He still sported a sassy grin in most of the pictures, but as time went on he got thinner and paler.
I could see what had to be a couple of Karposi sarcoma lesions on his arm and neck. AIDS. Fuck.
I rubbed my chest, then I lifted Simon’s hand and kissed his fingers.
“You stayed with him until he died, didn’t you?
” How wonderful of Simon to pause his journey chasing the vampires to take care of his friend.
But also, how awful for him. He’d been alone for decades, and his one friend had died after what the photos indicated was only a few months.
And then there was the video. It was called, “With Love from Davi” and I knew I probably shouldn’t watch it. It was for Simon, obviously, and it’d be rude to snoop.
I glanced between the laptop screen and Simon. His head wound was about the same, but he had some color in his face. I should feed him again. I didn’t feel the same antipathy to feeding him from a bag anymore, so I put the laptop aside and went downstairs.