11. Eleven
Eleven
I f Ryker had been dating Leslie back when his parents had dated, he’d be in debt to the phone company by now. Good thing his generation had unlimited minutes and unlimited texts, because from Sunday night to Friday morning, he and Leslie were communicating one way or the other. Not nonstop, but often. Their video calls could last for hours. When Leslie had errands to run, she slid her phone into her pocket and went about her day, bringing Ryker with her. They both laughed when she told him about human shoppers who noticed her speaking to “no one,” unable to hear him replying from her pocket without the aid of Speaker mode.
He flew to see her every weekend, counting down the days she’d get to be the tourist and he the tour guide. He bristled every time he thought about the way her lousy boss had denied her time-off requests. More than anything, he wanted to give her the financial option of quitting, of making her art full-time. One day he’d be able to.
They’d been together for six weeks when Leslie got her first real taste of Ryker’s job. He was asked by a long-time detective colleague to tackle a case with an absurd deadline. Five days to be court-ready. Turned out the forensic accountant who’d been working on it for a month had been as dirty as the fraudulent non-profit he was pretending to investigate. Ryker got the call Wednesday evening, an hour before he’d planned to be in bed and a week since he’d last slept, but he couldn’t let his colleague down. Couldn’t let down the three churches who had worked with this fraudulent organization, lost parishioners’ donations to the scam. For the first time since they’d been dating, he didn’t fly to Tennessee for the weekend.
On Sunday at five in the morning, he answered Leslie’s phone call, scolding himself for not letting it go to voicemail. He didn’t have time for a break from the documents and the numbers. But he wanted to hear her voice. “Hey.”
“Hey! I just decided my new lake scene is going to have some people in it. I want a little vampire couple walking around the lake together, enjoying each other’s company.”
“And how will your customers know they’re vampires? Are you going to give them cartoon fangs or something?”
She burst out laughing but quickly sobered. “Ryker?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t sound great.”
“I’m fine.”
Her pause held a desire to challenge him, but instead she said, “How’s your case coming?”
“I’ve cleaned up the mess that fraudster left behind. And I think I’ve found the bad numbers from the organization itself. Just have to recheck a couple things and then write up the report I’ll give in court tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, that’s great. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Without seeing her, he sensed when her mood sharpened. He closed his dry eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling of his study, tilted his body back in his chair. “I’m fine, Leslie.”
“No, you’re not. You never went to bed Wednesday night.”
He pressed his lips together and opened his eyes to engage the ceiling in a stare-down. Couldn’t deny it. Wasn’t about to confirm either.
“Ryker Maddox. You’ve been up for ten days.”
“I have to finish this.”
“You have to sleep .”
“I’ll sleep when the work is—”
She hung up on him. Seconds later, a video call came through. He poked his phone screen but left the phone on the table, pointed upward. Leslie’s face appeared, a pucker between her eyes.
“Ryker. Go to bed.”
“When I finish this.”
“No, now.”
“If you’re worried I’ll mess up the math, believe me—I won’t.”
“I couldn’t care less about the math right now. This isn’t about your productivity. It’s about taking care of yourself.”
“I’m a vampire, and I—”
“You’re a person , and you’re not freaking invulnerable. Go. To. Bed.”
Sleep sounded so good he nearly began to cry. Whoa. Maybe he was actually tired. He leaned toward the phone and let his face fill her screen, and she shook her head.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“I…” He pressed his fingers to his eyes, which now burned. “Leslie, I have to get this done. There’s already been a continuance; the judge said she’s not allowing another one. If my report isn’t ready to present at ten tomorrow morning, these people could get away with everything they’ve been doing.”
“I hear all of that. But you’re beyond exhausted. I can see it and I’m not even there.”
“I…”
“If you go to bed now, you’ll wake up at one in the afternoon. That’s plenty of time to be ready the next morning if all you have to do is organize and type everything up.”
Was it? He could hardly think.
“Does this have anything to do with the matchmaker test question you didn’t answer?”
He blinked. Pressed his palm to his head, which had been aching for a full day now. “What?”
“It was a True or False. ‘I am more than the sum of my accomplishments.’ It’s the only question you left blank.”
A flash of memory from ten years ago… Reading the question over and over, fighting with the part of him that knew the correct answer was True but feeling deep in his cold un-aging bones that for him if for no one else in the world, this was absolutely false. He was precisely the sum of his accomplishments. He tackled a thing, did it well, finished it well.
“Right,” Leslie said as though he’d responded. “Okay, we’ll talk more about this when you’re not catastrophically depleted.”
A laugh broke from him. “I’m what now?”
“You heard me, vampire.” She brought her phone close to her face. “Sorry I’m not there to say this in person, but you listen up anyway.”
He nodded.
“Ryker, you accomplish a lot, but it’s not all you are. I’m not dating you for your accomplishments. I’m dating you because you’re so much more.”
A salty lump filled his throat, and he swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“Now put the work down and go rest. You get to rest just like everyone else on the planet.”
“I can probably finish it in the next couple hours.”
“No. Trust me on this. Set an alarm if you’re afraid you’ll sleep past one, but do not set it for earlier than one. Promise me.”
He nodded.
“Say it.”
Even his laugh sounded tired now. “I promise not to set my alarm for earlier than one.”
“Good. And good night.”
“G’night, Leslie.”
The call ended.
Well, shoot. Now he had to sleep. He’d promised.
He woke up on his own, no alarm needed, a few minutes before noon. By six o’clock, he was ready for court in the morning. He sent his girlfriend a video call.
Her face filled his screen. “You look much better. Ready for tomorrow?”
“Yeah. It went pretty fast after I woke up.”
“Good.”
“But I hadn’t made any mistakes. For the record.”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “Remember how sleep was for you , not for the math?”
“Yeah.” He hated to admit it, but maybe he should. “Thanks. I feel…a lot better.”
“You don’t say.” She gave him a smirk meant to tease, but it sent sparks through his blood instead. One of her silver eyebrows lifted. “What are you thinking?”
“I want to kiss you right now.”
Her little hum set the sparks inside to exploding. “Well, good news: you get to kiss me in less than a week. Also…” She bit her lip as though he needed one more reason to crave the taste of those lips, but the rest of her body language said she was suddenly nervous. “Next time you’re here, I’d like to invite my parents over.”
Whoa. He nodded. “If you feel ready, then let’s do it.”
“I’m sorry in advance if my parents get weird about any vampire-related topics.”
He could have laughed, but she was somber. Ready, yes, but worried too. “Nothing they can say is going to bother me, Leslie.”
“Or not say. They’re more likely to clam up.”
“That’ll be okay too. Whatever happens will be okay, and it won’t be your job to keep everything smooth and easy. Okay?”
Her shoulders lowered as she finally relaxed. “You really know me.”
Knowing Leslie was pure pleasure, a gift he couldn’t hope to put into words. Instead he said, “It’s mutual, you know.”
“Hmm. I did send you to bed.”
“Exactly.”