Chapter 11
?
I suppose it makes sense for it to be hot in here. It is summer, after all.
August
Me: So? What do you think? Is there a chance this guy is actually in love with me?
December: Of course. I also fell in love at first sight, so it makes perfect sense to me.
Figures December isn’t at all a sane point of contact, but it was either talk to her…or my brother…so. Here I am. Chitchatting with the most hopelessly romantic person I have ever met—when it involves storybook characters or other people.
Never when it involves herself.
But that’s something else entirely, and to tackle it tonight would mean asking her how she feels about my brother and possibly suggesting that he likes her, based on little more than an offhanded comment from someone who’s barely met any of us.
One thing at a time.
Me: Isn’t love meant to be a little bit deeper than a moment?
December: Love is a choice. If he’s telling the truth, it doesn’t really matter if he fell in love with you because he’s attracted to you so long as all his actions prove he’s choosing to align with loving you, doesn’t it?
There’s a point, for sure. It’s not exactly an incorrect one, either.
It’s just…
I don’t know.
It’s hard to trust in something that hits like a lightning strike.
I’m more a fan of the days, and the weeks, and the months it might take to forge a solid foundation.
There’s a reason my books center around slow burns so often.
I’m very invested in the process of someone proving that they’re going to stay through anything because they worked so hard for so long.
Me: Okay. So let’s say he did fall in love with me at first sight. How do I know he’ll keep choosing to?
December: You’re making it sound like you’d like him to.
Me: He’s very pretty, and…so far…he has potential.
That is to say, he’s actually playing along with me and my nonsense. He’s sleeping in a casket. He’s making notes on his character sheet. He’s taking my insanity seriously. And he’s…looking at me. Like I’m everything to him.
Every single time I catch his eye, he’s entranced.
What girl wouldn’t be at least a little curious about what might come of this?
He’s not boring yet.
So I want to know more.
I want to know what secrets he was referring to.
Even if he seems like the kind of person who would make up secrets for me, just so my attention-deficit mind might have something to chase.
On the overall, does it work in his favor for me to know that he’s been here a few days and his space has been kept immaculate? Sure. Am I also aware that he might not treat his own home in the same way he’d treat a house he’s a guest in? Yeah.
Am I losing myself to what ifs when I barely know the guy at all?
Ha ha…
Man.
If only he weren’t half so pretty.
It’s surely the prettiness that has me fantasizing all sorts of dangerous, life-altering decisions.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
December: You LIKE him.
Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Me: Our kinds are at war.
Me: My job is to put a stake through his heart.
December: You like him. You like him. You want to kiss him (to kiss him).
Me: Stop singing.
December: M-A-R-R-I-A-G-E, you’re getting married before me!
My eyes roll.
Me: He has potential, and as a person, he seems kind. Which, it should be noted, is the opposite of my type.
December: Uh-huh.
Me: You know that better than anyone. You helped me put together my perfect male lead binder for Granee.
December: I sure did! Because the bland document you were planning to give her would have been sooo sad.
December: Is now a good time to tell you that I filled your microtrope section with a dozen kiss scenes when you weren’t looking?
I gasp. This little scamp!
Me: As if it matters. It’s not like Dominic is ever going to see it.
December: Right. Yes. Of course. Your grandmother is not known for showing up unannounced at all ever, and she would never (ever) give a guy, who seems to have potential, access to the cheat codes after discovering that you’re letting him live with you all forced-proximity style. That does not sound like her at all.
My, my. Look at that. My dear, dear friend has gifted me a brand new anxiety! I shall tuck it away with all the others and care for it well.
Me: Do you remember anything else in that stupid book that might be my undoing?
December: Pretty much…the entire thing?
Right. Yeah. That’s what I remember, too.
Oh, the regrets I have… They sure are plentiful.
Sighing, I drag my attention off my phone and find my laptop.
I wonder if Ali would have a better, more grounded angle to offer in this dilemma.
I wonder if she’s married… Maybe she knows all about the real world of romance and could give me some pointers?
I think, after we spent all last night talking about anime, we’ve well and completely eroded anything remotely professional between us.
We were up well past two in the morning.
Still.
Hopping from talking about an insane reincarnated child who just wants to play with magic to talking about my not-exactly-existent love life seems like a stretch. A leap, even. Not a hop at all if we’re being technical.
Before I can make bad decisions in spite of their leaping nature, a knock sounds at my door, so I peer in its direction, through the snaking lines of bookshelves obscuring the way there. “Yes?”
Silence responds—then a swear, and I decode that Dominic has opened the door to behold my labyrinth decorated in fairy lights.
He makes his way through and stops at the foot of my bed.
Eyes wide, he looks at me, then around me, at the way I’ve set up all my many shelves that they might leave me in a cocoon broken only by my window and my bathroom door, which are crowned by small shelves and small books, so that the wall might not be seen around them.
The fairy lights gleam across all my many weathered spines, and I nudge my glasses higher up on my nose.
Breath escapes Dominic, and he swears again when his attention returns to me—seated primly upon my bright yellow comforter, the skirt of my white dress from this afternoon splayed around my legs.
I know how this scene looks in my head.
It’s very cinematic. Very pretty. Very covered in fantasy edges.
It’s the kind of painting you nestle into the pages of a special edition, the kind of moment that could change everything.
Okay, Dominic.
You’re in my room.
And I told you to be more aggressive earlier.
Where are you going to take this story now?
One hand closes tightly into a fist as the other reaches—palm open—toward me.
Eyes simmering, he silently beckons. And, if we’re honest, I’m really quite susceptible to the silent beckoning.
Abandoning my phone, I let my warm flesh meet his, and he draws me from the plush yellow bed, whispering, “Little lotus…”
I flutter, like wingbeats. “Yes?”
“Is there any particular reason your bedroom is set up like a tower defense game?”
I laugh. “It’s obviously so I’ll have time to shoot down attackers before they can reach me. It’s tactical defense.”
His hold around my hand solidifies. “Your aim must be poor if I’ve made it all the way here by myself.”
“Ahh. I see. So…you have come to attack me.”
“It would be in character as far as you, my sweet little saint, believe, wouldn’t it?” When he dips his head, his lips greet my knuckles, grazing them. Then he silently pulls me through the maze and out of my room.
The next thing I know, we’re outside, and he’s settled me onto the hanging swing on my back porch. Balmy summer air teases my hair in a breeze as the scent of the night mingles with the sounds of cicadas. Lightning bugs trace into the air, heading toward a sky yet to be filled with stars.
It’s dusk.
With its slices of navy sky.
And it’s summer.
With its warmth that clings to my flesh and coaxes away the bite my AC has left behind.
My eyes close as the peace saturates my limbs.
I love the night.
I love the summer.
When the heat subsides and leaves a hug behind, I don’t know that anything else can compare.
My lips part. “Wh—”
Something touches my shoulder, and I look to discover a lightning bug.
Dominic catches another, this time settling it carefully in my hair.
I blink as he dresses me in little faerie glows, then I ask, “What are you doing?”
“Indulging.” He sets the tip of his finger against my cheek and lets another bug walk off. I close my eye against the sensation of it.
Indulging in what? Driving me mad, one sensory nightmare at a time?
How villainous of him.
Truly, my family’s animosity toward the vampires is well-grounded.
A swear whispers from his lips as the creatures glow against my skin. Blessedly the one on my cheek takes flight when he cups my chin and forces me to behold him. Backdropped by navy and hundreds of blinking lights, he says, “I’ve given what you said earlier some thought.”
“Oh?” I fold my hands together in my lap. “Have you now? And what have you concluded?”
“I’ve been needlessly anxious. I work in sales.
I understand how to sell products and people.
Making you love me isn’t impossible. I’m the only one standing in my own way, because this sell isn’t as emotionless as the ones I usually deal with.
You’re reasonable, and you’ve already proven willing to give me the tools I need to become what you desire.
You say take chances, but I cannot picture you condemning me for a mistake so long as you know I’m acting earnestly.
You want things to work out. You wouldn’t be entertaining this at all if there wasn’t any hope in your mind that more could come of it.
I’ve run the numbers. I’ve done the calculations. And you know what I’ve discovered?”
“I’m on the edge of my seat. Tell me.”
“We are already inevitable.”
My brows rise. “Are we now?”