Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
FLORENCE
This, I think, tucking the skirt of my sage-green maxi dress underneath my feet to conceal the last bit of visible skin, is surely hell.
I knew when Quinn told me what his plans were for the day that it would be my personal nightmare, but in his defence, I did say that I wanted him to explore the things he’d miss about his human life, and apparently this is one of the things on the list.
So, I’m here, on a public beach in full sun, hating every second. At least I haven’t burst into flames. Not yet, anyway.
The legends say vampires can’t be exposed to sunlight. They say the smallest contact with it will make us burn to a pile of ashes. But that’s not quite true.
The reality is much more mundane.
In practice, I have roughly the sun tolerance of a redhead in the Sahara.
It’s pretty bad, but not nearly as inhuman as you might think.
I religiously wear the highest factor of SPF available on any exposed skin, and that usually keeps me from burning.
And by ‘available’, I mean available through my network of contacts.
You can’t just go and pick up SPF 500 in Boots, though as I was picking my way through the crowds in my floor-length dress and enormous hat, I felt like it maybe should be an option.
Do humans know that they need not burn their bodies to a crisp?
Anyway, all that aside, hot days are pretty rare in this part of the world, and with the constant vague threat of death looming over him, Quinn asked if we could spend his day off soaking up the sun on the beach.
So here we are.
We’ve been here about fifteen minutes and I’ve already hit my limit. My eyes are itchy and my skin is sore and I’m trying to be supportive, but honestly? I’m hating every second.
I fumble with my bag, pull out the oversized cotton throw that I packed for entirely this purpose, and drape it over my head and body until it covers me completely.
It’s a few minutes before I hear Quinn’s deep chuckle beside me.
‘Florence, what the hell?’
A few moments pass. I can almost feel his eyes on me through the cotton.
‘Over the face, too? People are going to think you’re dead.’
I scoff. ‘I am dead.’
There’s that laugh again, the one that’s halfway to a wheeze. It makes something tug at my chest, down deep in a place I thought was lost.
‘You hate it,’ he says gently.
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘But I’m showing solidarity. I mean, I do wish you’d roped in your human friends for this one, but I’m here now.’
Another soft laugh. ‘I thought you were supposed to be reliving your lost human years?’
‘I didn’t do this then either.’ Something lands on my face – a seagull maybe – and I hear him shoo it away through the cotton. ‘This may shock you, but I was an indoor pursuit kind of girl.’
‘Needlework and reading?’ he teases.
I huff a laugh. ‘More like potions and dissection.’
‘You’re a weird one, Florence,’ he says and I can tell by his voice that he’s smiling.
The funny thing is, even in this fiery hell, I am too.
* * *
It must be half an hour later when I hear him clear his throat beside me.
‘Um, Florence,’ he says, a little panicked. ‘I think we need to go.’
That makes me sit bolt upright, the throw pooling at my waist. A few of the people near us on the beach look over, light concern on their faces. I probably look like a re-animated corpse. I suppose, in essence, I am.
Quinn looks at me wide-eyed and thrusts his forearm towards me. His skin there is flushed pink, angry patches with obvious hives starting to form in the centre. ‘This is what happened before,’ he says quietly. ‘But it was never this bad.’
I trail the gentlest of touches over his skin and snatch my fingers away when he winces. ‘It’s sore to the touch?’
He nods.
‘Sorry.’ It looks similar to the burns I get from the sun, but it isn’t exactly the same. There’s a chance that it’s presenting differently because the systems in his body are still largely human. ‘Have you got sun cream on?’
‘Of course,’ he says, lowering his voice. ‘That’s vampires 101. I borrowed Emmy’s factor thirty.’
‘Thirty?’ I honk out a laugh before I can stop myself. ‘That’s about as much use as throwing an ice cube onto a wildfire.’
The look on his face is downright heartbroken and I’m about to apologise for my thoughtless remark when he suddenly grabs my wrist, his eyes widening.
‘What if it’s already happening?’ There’s real hurt in his voice and it affects me more than I would have expected. ‘What if this is my last ever day on the beach. How many lasts have already happened without me even realising?’
My heart leaps into action – a single beat that shakes me to my core. But it also gives me an idea. I jump up, stuffing my things into his backpack so I can entirely fill my own canvas bag with sand.
‘Come on,’ I say, holding a hand out to him. ‘Let’s go.’
I try not to make eye contact with anyone as we hurry off the beach together, but it’s mid-afternoon on the hottest day of the year so there are people everywhere. I can feel their eyes on us, and it makes me squirm. The quicker we’re off this beach, the better.
Quinn’s breathing hard by the time we get back up to Flowergate.
He seemed like a pretty healthy guy when we first met, but I can already tell that this new condition is taking a toll on him.
There are small changes, subtle signs that perhaps someone who isn’t supernaturally observant might not pick up on, but I do.
‘Come on,’ I say, hurrying him through the alley and out into the courtyard. And then I stop dead, right where I always do.
Quinn, oblivious to the invisible force that holds me back, rushes right on to the back door of the flat. He doesn’t even turn around until he feels my hand slip from his.
‘What are you…?’ He turns, concern on his face. ‘Are you coming in?’
‘I, umm…’ This bit never gets less awkward, no matter how many decades have passed. But an invitation is like consent for me. It has to be freely given. If I have to ask to be invited in, I may as well not be invited at all.
Luckily, Quinn’s experience with our kind clues him in pretty quickly.
‘Oh shit,’ he says, suddenly realising. ‘I always forget this bit.’ His mouth curls a little, not quite a smile. ‘Florence, I’d like to invite you into my flat.’
And, just like that, I’m freed.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper. And then I follow him up the two stone steps and into his home.
I don’t know what I was expecting from Quinn’s flat, but it wasn’t this.
Maybe I thought it would be haphazard – strewn with clothes and used cutlery and video games and whatever else.
It’s busy, for sure, but it’s pretty clean and mostly tidy.
Band posters for a group I don’t recognise line the walls, next to what I think are monochromatic photos until I realise that everyone’s just wearing black.
Quinn appears in a few of them, those distinctive eyes and that sandy-coloured hair leaping out of the greyscale.
A huge olive-green sofa sits in the corner, adorned with a collection of mostly black scatter cushions.
On the far wall are two doors: an open door that clearly leads to the kitchen, and a closed door off to the left that must be his bedroom.
A warm shiver runs through me as I think of him stripping off his clothes at the end of a long day, tipping his head back under the stream of the shower and slipping into his bed.
I’m having these thoughts more and more.
At first it was just an occasional flash of heat when our eyes met, or a hitch in my breath when he smiled so wide his dimple popped.
Small moments I could put down to hunger, or the weather, or his similarity to Josiah.
Small moments that made me remind myself I don’t date humans.
I shake the thoughts away and look back at Quinn, who’s watching me with a puzzled expression on his face. It’s then I realise I’m still holding the bag of sand, and my plan comes rushing back.
‘Do you have a cellar?’ I ask. The old house that was here in the 1860s certainly did – I remember going down into it to help nurse infant twins with scarlet fever.
Quinn nods. ‘It’s technically the bar’s cellar, but you can access it from here. We used to store kegs down there until we realised what a hassle it was getting them back up the stairs. That’s when we converted the flat’s second bedroom into ground floor storage.’
This ridiculous idea may just work.
‘What’s down there now?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘Not a lot. No one really uses it. Probably just some half-full paint tins and a few old beach chairs.’
‘Perfect!’ I almost chirp. ‘Show me.’
He looks at me with an expression of faint concern for a moment, but then he shakes it away, leading the way across his living space. There are two doors on the back wall too, and he heads for the slightly smaller door on the right. The handle squeals as he turns it.
I follow him down the step in the dark, and I’m just making plans for how the lighting might work when he flips a switch on the wall next to him and a dozen incandescent bulbs flicker to life, casting a soft glow on the dusty red-brick walls.
The room we’re in is completely empty, but there’s an archway on one side that leads to a second room. I can just about see the distinctive blue and white stripes of a folded deckchair propped against the wall there, and I make a beeline for it, leaving a bewildered Quinn in the dust.
The second room is smaller, empty but for the deckchair I spotted, plus a second one a bit further down. An alcove to the right is stacked with paint tins, all filled with what looks like various shades of black.
This is perfect.
I haul the deckchairs out into the middle of the floor and then grab my bag. Reaching a hand in, I scatter a thin layer of sand around the chairs, making sure the area directly in front of them is more deeply covered.
When I look back up, Quinn is watching me intently. If my circulatory system were still working, I would have blushed.
‘If you can’t go to the beach,’ I explain, sinking into one of the deckchairs, ‘then the beach will have to come to you.’