18. Eighteen
Eighteen
A s ready as Leslie thought she was, the nerves came back as she and Ryker got out of his sleek silver two-door and headed up the walkway. The stone-fronted farmhouse was adorned with a regal covered front porch and a longer covered porch on one side. The pine-green front door opened as Ryker stepped up onto the porch ahead of Leslie.
Laurence Maddox was the most human-looking vampire Leslie had ever seen in her life. His build was almost husky, and his face defied agelessness with smile lines that crinkled around his eyes as he stepped out onto the porch and engulfed Ryker in a hug.
“Good to see you, son!” His voice was velvet even as it boomed from his chest. He pounded Ryker on the back, then offered his hand to Leslie. “And it’s so good to meet you, Leslie. I’m Laurence.”
“It’s a pleasure, sir.”
“Now, none of that ‘sir’ business. I know you were raised by Southern folks the same as this one was”—he hooked a thumb in Ryker’s direction—“but please, first names are just better. Friendlier, you know.”
“Okay, Laurence.” She wanted to laugh, not at him but with him. He exuded a warmth realer than the politician’s charm she had anticipated.
“Now come inside and meet my lovely wife.”
Laurence motioned them ahead of him, into the house and down a hall hung with family photos. Leslie itched to pause and examine every one, but instead she followed Ryker. “I told her not to fuss, but she thinks she’s got to offer you food. It’s a Senna thing. You’ll get used to it.”
“Oh, I hope she didn’t go to any trouble.”
“She enjoys going to trouble. It’s her love language,” Ryker said with a wink over his shoulder.
The hall emptied into an open concept main level with a cathedral ceiling and exposed dark beams. The kitchen lay to the right, the den to the left, and ahead of them a wide doorwall onto the covered porch.
At the island that divided kitchen and den, Senna Maddox stood arranging slices of caramel cake on a glass plate shaped like a lotus blossom. The smile she offered Leslie could have held actual sunbeams. Her eyes were so striking, Leslie couldn’t look away—brilliant emerald green, sparked with gold just as Ryker’s eyes were sparked with silver.
“Here she is,” Senna said, and the velvet melody in her voice held a pleasant husky undertone. She abandoned the cake, beelined to Leslie, and took both her hands. “Hi, Leslie. I’m Senna. I’m thrilled to meet you.”
“Thrilled? You already sound like you’re conspiring,” Ryker said from behind her.
With a final squeeze Senna released Leslie’s hands and wrapped her son in her arms. “You’re too thin, honey. You’ve been working too hard.”
“Now, Mama. You know I’m fine.”
Senna pressed her hands to his back as if to hold him tighter in defiance of his words. “I know how you drop weight like it’s nothing, and I know how you get when you’re on a tough case, and I get to worry about my child whenever I want. Quit forgetting to slake, son.”
His arms around his mother tightened for a moment, and Ryker rested his chin on top of her head. “I’m working on it.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“And don’t you ignore me far too often when your cases have you tied up in knots.”
“Not like I can ignore y’all when all y’all fuss at me constantly.”
Leslie held back a laugh even as her love for him grew. Her boyfriend could get downright Southern around his mama.
Senna said, “The folks who care fuss at you about this one topic, and you know we’re right.”
“Yes, ma’am. And you’ll be happy to hear I found what I needed today on the case that’s been turning me into a waste of a vampire.”
“Good for you, son,” Laurence said. To Leslie, “I guess you know by now how good he is at his job.”
“I think I do,” Leslie said. “He’s not the false humility type.”
Ryker laughed. “I’m really not.”
“His brain for numbers.” Laurence shook his head. “He memorized the first fifty digits of pi when he was eight. And he can do mental math faster than anyone I’ve ever met, human or vampire. And he sees patterns in data that most people miss.”
“In summary,” Ryker said, “Dad is convinced I’m an actual genius.”
Laurence crossed his arms over his broad chest as if to argue the point, but before he could, Senna stepped in.
“Leslie, I hope you’re in the mood for caramel cake. I wanted something sweet waiting for you.”
“That’s extra kind of you,” Leslie said. “Really, putting me up at all is incredibly kind.”
“It’s our pleasure,” Laurence said.
Senna motioned her toward the cake. “I made this just today.”
Made it…? It could have come from a bakery. Apparently Senna was much more than the stereotype of a prosecutor walking up and down a courtroom a la Law and Order , the only real reference Leslie had. She took a slice of cake and breathed the lovely aroma of caramel and cinnamon before she took a small bite…and delight itself seemed to explode on her tongue.
She let out a groan. “Oh, this is delicious. Thank you, Senna.”
Gold shimmered in Senna’s eyes. “I’m so glad you like it.”
Turned out talking to Ryker’s parents was easy. After about half an hour, Leslie found the music in her own voice emerging, and when she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, her eyes flashed with a pastel opalescence.
She had never questioned how her family functioned in their town full of humans and wolves. She had thought every vampire muted herself out of habit, that for every vampire, existing in the fullness of her nature was a rare occurrence. But now she had seen a bar full of vampires displaying their full selves in public. Now here were Laurence, Senna, and Ryker doing the same from the moment Laurence opened the front door. Oh, how she wished she could talk to Mom and Dad about this, but Mom wouldn’t even acknowledge whether or not she’d been to a blood bar.
Senna and Laurence finished taking turns telling a story of their early dating days, and Laurence announced as if concluding a speech, “Well, that’s it. When you’ve found the one for you, you just know.”
Maybe the ease among everyone was the force that loosened her lips. Without pausing to weigh her words, Leslie said, “Is that what the visions are about?”
Ryker’s parents went momentarily still with surprise; then both of them broke out in a smile.
Ryker, on the other hand, remained too still. His wide eyes threw silver sparks. “The what ?”
“The glimpses of future us.”
“Glimpses of the future? Am I dating the world’s only magical vampire?”
He must be teasing her, except…he wasn’t. Unease slithered down her spine as her boyfriend continued to gape at her. “Um. I know you’ve never mentioned the glimpses, but I’ve never mentioned mine either. But that’s because you haven’t mentioned yours.”
“I haven’t mentioned them because I don’t get them.”
“A lot of the time, I see our hands. We have the tattooed rings.”
“Leslie, this is incredible.”
Laurence cleared his throat. Leslie’s gaze darted to his, and he hadn’t stopped smiling.
Senna’s eyes held both warmth and knowledge. “If you’d be interested in the expertise of two eternally bonded vampires…”
“Yes, please,” Leslie said.
“Wait,” Ryker said. “Y’all know what this is? I’m the only one in the dark?”
“Hush, son,” Laurence said kindly. “Your mama has the floor.”
Senna shook her head. “Not me, not yet. Leslie, why don’t you give us a few more details so Ryker can catch up.”
“Well…” She laced her fingers together in front of her and tried not to shrink against the back of the upholstered chair. Somehow she felt as if she were being inspected, though Laurence and Senna remained calm and accepting. “Since the first week Ryker came to Tennessee, I get these glimpses in my mind’s eye. They’re really vivid. They last only one or two seconds, but I think they’re…us. In the future. Our ring fingers are tattooed.”
Both elders nodded.
“Is it something bad? If it’s never happened to Ryker…”
“Not bad at all,” Senna said. “It’s a vampire gift. Not too rare, but less than half of us have it. It shows up mostly in women, less commonly in men.”
“Why?”
“No one really knows. Apex genes are still far less understood than human genes.” Senna shrugged. “Maybe the probability of future-sighted vampires being female is something like the probability of wolves being male.”
“Except female wolves are less than five percent of their population.”
Ryker shook his head. “One of these days it won’t surprise me anymore when you rattle off wolf trivia with more confidence than you have discussing vampires.”
Leslie couldn’t tolerate further detour from the topic, kept her focus on Senna, who knew . Senna knew what it was to see a flash of a thing that hadn’t happened yet. And Senna was sharing that knowledge with Leslie, trusting Leslie, watering a parched flower in her soul that lapped up every drop of open honesty from Ryker’s mom, a vampire woman like herself. Senna looked back at her, deep understanding in her eyes, because…because Leslie should already have known.
She hardly heard Ryker when he said, “But if y’all have this future-sight thing, why don’t I know about it?”
“I haven’t got it,” Laurence said. “This is your mama’s territory.”
Senna smiled, and Leslie felt it deep inside.
Ryker roughed one hand down his face. “Mama, for real? You’ve seen the future?”
“It’s been much less frequent for me,” Senna said. “Only a few times in my life. Sounds like Leslie is more in tune with the gift. But yes, everything I’ve seen has happened eventually.”
Everything she had seen. Ring tattoos. Hands entwined. Years in the future. No, decades. Leslie got to keep him.
“Then…” Her throat tightened around the words, though she wasn’t sure why. “Ryker…we’re going to be together a long, long time. And we’re going to be really happy.”
With his parents watching, Ryker wrapped his arms around her, swept her off her feet, and spun a circle. Then he kissed her. They kept it light, but Leslie felt his kiss all the way to her fingertips, to the ends of her hair. Electricity and ice. When they pulled apart, Laurence and Senna’s eyes were shining too.
“No more two-hour breakups,” Leslie said.
Ryker rested his forehead against hers, and a smirk pulled his mouth. “Or two-minute breakups, or two-second breakups.”
“No point. I’ll just end up happily ever after with you.”
Laurence gave a cheer as though he were watching a basketball game, and laughter from all four of them filled the room.
Around ten thirty, Leslie walked Ryker out to his car.
“How am I doing?” she said. Of course his parents could hear her from inside, but she felt no need to keep her question from them.
“As I predicted, you’re amazing.”
Ryker wrapped one arm around her, pulled her close, and kissed her. Not for long, but he didn’t need more than a few seconds to make her toes curl. She leaned into him, her hands flat on his chest.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
“Do you have to check in at work first? Because of that big case?”
“I might get a phone call or two throughout the day, but everyone knows I’m off on a long weekend. I was thinking tomorrow I could show you my gym.”
“I brought athletic clothes for climbing your rock wall.”
“It won’t measure up to your mountain. But it’s a lot of fun, and you’ll meet Tai. We spar.”
She leaned back to gape at him. “Spar? You mean fight?”
“Sure. He’s faster. I’m stronger.” He flashed a grin that looked every inch the predatory vampire. “It’s mostly a contest of who can pin who and get them to say uncle.”
He’d never mentioned this pastime before, but it fit seamlessly into the image she had of his friendship with Tai. “What about me? Do I get to spar?”
“Sure, if you want to. Have any experience?” The tilt of his eyebrow suggested he knew the answer.
“Not a bit,” she said, and he laughed.
“I’m not at the instructor level, but I can take you through the basics. I’ve never met a vampire that didn’t pick it up super-fast. It’s mostly about coordination and reading the other person’s moves before they make them.”
Sudden anticipation hummed through her. She wanted to test herself, wanted to experience the rush. She wouldn’t likely beat him unless he let her, and Ryker wasn’t likely to let her. But unlike her boyfriend, she didn’t love competition for its own sake. She wrapped one hand around his neck and pulled his head down to kiss him one final time tonight.
When the kiss ended, she said, “I’m looking forward to losing to you.”
He gave a low chuckle.
“But for real—it sounds like fun. And I’m definitely looking forward to meeting Tai. Is this one of Claire’s hangouts too?”
“Not so much,” he said. “As far as physical pastimes go, Claire would rather swim or ride a horse. Can I pick you up at six?”
“That depends. Will you promise to get a full night’s sleep after all the skipping you’ve been doing?”
“Hey, don’t talk like that. Mama’s got the best hearing in Virginia.”
“Easy solution: go to bed. And I’ll see you at six.”
Ryker was sliding behind the wheel when a sudden worry hit her. She needed to ask him without being overheard. “Can I have your phone for a second?”
A crinkle formed between his eyes as he handed it over. Leslie opened his Notes app and tapped a quick message, then held it out to him.
Do your parents know Tai’s secret?
Ryker shook his head. She typed some more.
I feel weird knowing about it without him knowing I know. But I don’t want to bring it up and make things awkward. To be fair to him, would you tell him before we meet tomorrow?
When Ryker read her second message, he nodded. “Already did, a couple weeks ago.”
“Oh… Was he okay with it?”
“Not at first.”
Leslie bit her lip. Getting along with Ryker’s best friend was so important, long-term. If only Ryker hadn’t clued her in. If only she hadn’t guessed—or at the very least, kept her guess to herself.
“Hey.” Ryker gave her free hand a quick squeeze. “I’m the one he wasn’t happy with. Not you. And after a day he said, ‘if you two work out, it’ll be fine.’ So…” His smile held equal parts mischief and sincerity. “It’ll be fine.”
They could have talked forever, but she made sure not to introduce any new topics so he could go home and sleep. After he drove away, she tapped a missed text message from Hannah, which she’d noticed when typing the note to Ryker.
Hannah: This is a reminder that you owe your bestie an update, and unlike you, said bestie has a bedtime. Have you met the parents yet?
Leslie smiled as she typed her response.
They’re super cool and super kind. Senna fed me caramel cake.
Hannah’s response was almost immediate.
Hannah: I’m so glad. You deserve the best in-laws.
You know what, I’m not eye-rolling that. He’s the one. Ryker is my one.
A row of party emojis came even faster than Hannah’s last reply. Then another row, then another row, then another row.
Laughing, Leslie typed while party emojis continued to pop up on her screen.
Woman, stop. Go to bed.
Hannah: I AM SOOOOO HAPPY FOR YOU MY AMAZING FRIENDDDDD
I’m happy for me too. Love you, friend.
Hannah sent a final row of hearts and party favors, and Leslie returned inside to her future in-laws. Neither Laurence nor Senna asked about the portion of conversation they must have heard between her and Ryker, when she’d done her best to be vague about Tai’s struggle.
They offered to let her retire to the room where she’d stay tonight. She wouldn’t need to sleep this weekend, but when she’d learned Ryker had skipped last night, she knew the worst thing she could do for him was spend tonight at his place. They would end up talking and kissing while he ought to be sleeping. He’d protested at first, then agreed too quickly, more proof he was wiped out.
“If y’all need to sleep or get work done or anything,” she told his parents, “I can entertain myself until six.”
“It’s really up to you,” Laurence said. “No one in this family is an introvert, but we know some folks need social breaks.”
That was courteous. “I definitely qualify as an introvert, but I’d love to keep talking, if you want to.”
Senna gave Leslie the slightly mischievous, wholly sincere grin she had passed on to her son. “You’re in the right place, Leslie. Can I get you anything else? Tea, coffee, wine?”
“Oh, don’t go to any trouble.”
Senna pinned her with a gaze of motherly challenge, eyebrows arched and mouth briefly pressing into a line. “I wouldn’t describe pouring you a beverage as trouble .”
“Well, coffee is my preference, but I only drink it cold.”
Senna clasped her hands in satisfaction. “I have cold brew. How do you take it?”
“Black.”
“Good for you.” With a nod so firm she might have been solidifying some court strategy, Senna darted off to the kitchen.
“I did tell you,” Laurence said with a chuckle that managed to boom from his chest despite being low in volume.
“You did,” Leslie said.
Senna returned as quickly as she’d left, moving with speed and grace that didn’t spill a drop of Leslie’s coffee. She handed it over without acknowledging Laurence’s remark, and Leslie took a slow sip.
“Mmm. Colombian?”
“That’s right,” Senna said.
“No kidding, this is my favorite.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
No doubt she would. Leslie followed her and Laurence across the open lower level to the den, where she claimed a black leather chair and Ryker’s parents sat together on the matching love seat. Leslie sipped her cold brew and just…talked.
She told them about her art, shocked when they both said with enthusiasm they’d been following her creator accounts online since Ryker had told them he wanted to fly to Tennessee and meet his “true match.” Laurence proclaimed her recently sold winter-scape his favorite of her works, and Senna praised the creativity and variety of her pocket-sized overhead dioramas.
She told them about her life in Harmony Ridge and forgot to worry that it was too small for this state senator and prosecuting attorney. She forgot that Laurence held political office at all. He was simply Ryker’s dad, tuned in to her small-town stories, occasionally letting loose a booming laugh. Senna too committed her full attention whenever Leslie spoke. She laughed more often than her husband, an unrestrained sound of easy joy.
“Okay, that’s it,” Leslie finally said through her own laughter, after telling her side of the story from the day she first caught Ryker’s scent at the art fair. “I can’t talk about myself any more tonight. I want to know something new about Ryker.”
“Fair enough,” Laurence said. “But I need a minute to recover from ‘backup husband.’”
When they’d all sobered, Senna said, “Even for Ryker, this was a bold step. We cautioned him about how you might take it, but I’m not sure he really heard us.”
“He didn’t.” Leslie would never forget his surprise when she objected to his phrasing. “But it’s a great story now, and he course-corrected pretty fast once he realized.”
“You know him so well already,” Laurence said. “I wasn’t sure about this long-distance thing, but I guess it’s working for y’all.”
“It is for now,” Leslie said. “Someday we plan to split our time between the homes we love.”
“That’s a wonderful compromise,” Senna said.
“We make each other happy.”
Laurence and Senna were both nodding before she’d finished, and her heart felt the peace of that. This lovely couple made each other happy too. It was clear in every gesture, every warm look toward one another.
“Now,” Leslie said, “so I have some ammunition, because the dude does occasionally need some humbling… Do you have any childhood stories he doesn’t want me to know?”