Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
SANTA
I loved this time of year. We were getting closer to the winter solstice, when darkness occupied more hours than sunlight. That meant I could spend more time with Boz before I left for work.
I wasn't spending time with him, though. I didn't want to be that needy vampire. Instead, I'd been ordering things he would need from online stores and having them delivered to his address.
Oh, and food delivery. Lots and lots of food delivery. I loved the smell of good food. I couldn't eat it, but I often bribed my human tenants and coworkers to taste-test food that smelled good to me. They agreed I still had decent taste.
I hoped Boz agreed. I wanted him to know what was good around here, so he could fend for himself during the summer months .
If he was human come summer. He was still undecided on becoming a vampire. I hoped he had enough time to come to terms with it before the empress forced his hand.
I'd never felt this protective of anyone before. Boz was different. Special. I should have stayed far away from him, not to mention Empress Marcella. Maybe I had a death wish. Perhaps that was the reason I didn't mind walking into the lion's den with both eyes wide open.
The thing about the empress was, she didn't forget anything with her steel-trap mind. She knew I'd murdered my sire, yet she had never come after me. I wasn't foolish enough to think changing my name had worked.
She knew where I was and what I'd done with my life since then, but I wasn't as valuable as Key. I didn't get a special summons or a party in my honor.
The last time she was in Boston, she didn't notify me at all. Part of me wished she had, but I was also glad she didn't. She'd contacted Dobbins's associates, and now they were all dead. Two of my favorite Fanglory coworkers now worked for the council after her visit.
I pulled up Key's text with his address. Everyone knew where the council building stood. The address he gave me was down the street, within walking distance of his workplace and my favorite Blood Drive .
I didn't envy my friends. I didn't. I loved my job. It got me out of the house, away from sitting around thinking lovesick thoughts about a human I had no business liking.
My friends' new location reminded me of a little restaurant I'd frequented for years. Before work Saturday, I called them and was immediately put on hold. I waited several minutes, and the young woman sounded relieved I wanted a reservation for Monday, not the weekend.
Too soon, the sun set on Monday afternoon just after 5 p.m. The moment I'd been waiting for. I took my time with ablutions, scrubbing the leftover gel from my hair and washing between my toes, behind my ears, and scouring everything from my treasure trail to the top of my ass crack and back again. I liked to be prepared for anything, and I didn't want to smell like sex after three full days of working the VIP room at Fanglory.
Twenty minutes later, I knocked on Boz's door.
"Swear to God, if this is another fucking food delivery—" Boz swung the door open and his eyes dilated on contact with my tuxedo. The fabric was a deep purple that looked black until I stood beneath a spotlight like the one in the hallway outside his door.
"Hello." He dragged a couple more syllables than necessary from the word. "You clean up nice."
"This is just another costume." It was true. I could play Santa one month and Lucifer Morningstar the next, all before breaking out a Cupid diaper or an Easter Bunny suit.
"Is that what you're wearing to dinner?" I asked. He was dressed in faded jeans with wear spots behind his knees.
"Dinner?"
"It's Monday. Did you forget about our date?"
"You asked what I wanted to do," he reminded me. "I suggested ordering a pizza."
"You did, but I already made reservations."
"Is this going to be one of those situations where you order dinner for me, too, and tell me what I can and can't eat?"
"You can eat whatever the fuck you want." I frowned at him. "Seriously, who are these people you've been dating?"
He scoffed. "No one, believe me."
"Let me indulge." I swept into the room and closed the door behind me. His eyes dilated even more when I invaded his space, forcing him a step back. "I haven't eaten a decent human meal in almost 200 years. I want to live vicariously through you."
"Me?" Boz squeaked. "I'm a picky eater."
I grinned. "Thought so, but you've liked everything I sent you." I checked the garbage after his deliveries. Every good landlord should. So far, he'd only thrown away an extra-spicy batch of wonton soup from the Korean market down the street.
"You've been testing me." He took another step back. "All these food deliveries. Did I pass?"
"Tonight's the final test. Go put on your best suit, and I'll handle the rest."
He backed away from me, almost tripping over the corner of the couch before veering around it and running for his life. If I'd wanted to catch him, I could have, no problem.
He rustled around in his closet, probably thinking he was hurrying. "Where are we going?" he asked me.
"You'll see." I didn't want to spoil the moment.
Boz's suit was well tailored to fit him, but the cheap fabric worried me. In the blink of an eye, before he could finish asking the "How" in "How do I look?" I zipped down to my apartment and yanked a slipcover off a hanger from my tailor. The waxed paper triangle was stamped with their logo, address, and phone number.
" … Look?" Boz said as I rushed through the door.
I handed the information to him with a slight bow of apology.
"That good." Boz sounded defeated. "This suit's brand new, too. Colette's recommendation."
"I don't like how cheap fabric feels against my skin."
"You're not the one wearing it," he said .
"No, but I'm still touching it." I closed the gap between us, and this time, Boz didn't back away.
"Here," I took hold of his sleeve just above his wrist and held his arm out in a waltz pose. "And here." I rested my palm on his hip.
"Are we going dancing?" Boz's throat clicked as he swallowed.
"Depends on how well you like the food." I was surprised he picked it up so quickly. So few humans these days knew how to dance, really dance. I'd given up on them after the disco craze.
"We're going to Irena's?" he asked.
"You know of it?"
"Who doesn't?" He laughed. "My mom was just telling me I needed to find a girl and take her to Irena's. Russian cuisine and ballroom dancing. My mother was certain I could put my skills to some use."
"You dance?" I should have expected that. He was exceptionally light on his feet once he drank the awkwardness out of his gait.
"Trained in classical and ballroom until I was twelve. The other boys didn't like the way I kept getting boners when we danced together, like any of us could help it." He twirled out of my arms while I was distracted. "I quit."
He grabbed his wallet and keys from the kitchen counter. "What time are our reservations?"
"Six. "
"Shit. We're going to be late."
"We will not be late," I said. "They have a roof entrance."
"A what?"
"Do you trust me?"
He frowned at me for a few seconds, but then he nodded.
"We're going up on the roof. From there, it's a quick hop across the street, up six blocks, and over two."
"You're going to use your super speed to take us across the rooftops?"
I nodded. "I can't fly, but I'm just as fast when I run and leap."
His hand trembled when I led him from the room. He locked the apartment, and then I guided him to the fire escape exit. The old metal grate creaked, but she was sound. I'd checked earlier in the morning and replaced the rusted through bolts and damaged rungs.
"May I pick you up?" I asked.
"How?"
"Bridal carry results in fewer questions if anyone sees us on the other side." While it didn't take me any longer to drop someone from a fireman's carry, or even piggyback, people tended to think the first meant an injury and the second meant something kinky.
"Fine," Boz huffed.
I grabbed him behind the knees and braced his back. He felt so good cradled to my chest. He curled into me and grasped my neck, shielding his face from the wind by pressing against me.
I didn't have time to think about why he felt so damn good in my arms. We were almost late, as he said.
I raced across the rooftop, picking up enough speed to vault from my building to the next, and then across a row of connected brownstones. The peaks of their roofs were so close together, I hopped from one to the next before leaping across another street, changing direction, and sprinting across the flat roofs of the business district.
Many of the establishments near my home also had roof entrances for vampires. I found myself wanting to introduce Boz to all of them.
I dropped Boz to his feet as soon as I slowed to a complete stop. If anyone had been on Irena's roof when we arrived, we would have popped into existence together simultaneously. One of my human coworkers was a gamer. He'd once told me sprinting vampires seemed to materialize from nothing, like a teleportation spell.
Boz grabbed my lapels and pressed his face to my chest, still breathing harshly from the travel. "I had no idea you were so fast," he said when he could speak again. "I need a minute before I can think about eating."
To guide him to the door, I eased his hands from my suit and laced our fingers together. "You'll have plenty of time to catch your breath on the way down."
Outside, the roof was a nondescript flat asphalt, but inside the plain metal door, the stairwell was a work of art, or several, depending how you viewed it. Each delicate image overlaid others with gradual color changes. What was a kangaroo leg for one image was a giant snail's shell for another. Cocking my head slightly at an angle changed the entire tapestry for me.
"This is beautiful." Boz tilted his head, and his glasses slid down his nose. "It's like a giant magic eye puzzle, only better because you can see something, even if you can't see all of it at once."
"I hate magic eye puzzles, for the record," I said. "It's really hard for a vampire to unfocus our eyes. It hurts like a motherfucker, too."
"Good to know." Boz's chuckle did things to my libido. I wanted to bend him over the stair railing and fuck him senseless, but that wasn't what tonight was about. No, I was supposed to be the perfect gentleman on this date. Boz deserved that much.
I didn't recognize my own thoughts. Since when did I think I was a gentleman, or that I could give Boz what he deserved? I wanted to be a better person, if only for tonight.
By the time we reached ground level, Boz's breathing had returned to normal. Our fingers were still linked together when we reached the sign asking us to wait to be seated. A passing server told us to hang on a minute and grabbed two menus, and then she led us to a corner booth close to the kitchen.
The smells … God. It had been forever since I'd smelled anything so close to my meat-and-potatoes upbringing. Irena served all manner of comfort food, from mutton to roast beef and shashlik.
Irena herself greeted us with two waters and a wine list.
"This one will try to tell you what is good, but he hasn't been here in months," she muttered with her thick accent. She jabbed the wine list at Boz. "You ask for specials."
He obeyed with a grin. "Erm…what are your specials?"
"Tonight is roast beef and vegetables."
The vegetables smelled especially delicious. I recognized potatoes and the tang of caramelized onion, but I couldn't tell what others she'd prepared. The longer I went without tasting human food, the harder it was for me to identify ingredients. My palate was more focused on "food" and "not food." I was either lucky or cursed to be a vampire who still enjoyed the smell of food I couldn't consume. Some vampires hated restaurant and food smells.
"Wine?" Irena handed Boz the laminated list.
"I'm still reeling from the ride here," Boz said. Color bloomed in his cheeks when she grinned knowingly at him.
"First time with bloodsucker?"
He nodded.
"You want drink to keep him off your neck."
I snorted. "I don't drink from humans. You know I get the good stuff from Blood Drive."
"Ah, yes. My smart vampire." She patted my hand. "Rare, but good for humans, eh?"
Boz blushed even harder when she returned her gaze to him. "Yeah."
"You look like good boy." She patted Boz's hand, too. "Dance! I'll be back with roast."
I'd almost forgotten the dancing. My mind was still reeling at Irena's cryptic answers. I must have hurt her feelings with my absence. I had to find a way to make it up to her.
Boz was just as good on the dance floor as he claimed. He knew every step and had perfect rhythm. I soon forgot my troubles with Irena as we whirled through two waltzes and a jazz number.
Boz was winded by the time Irena caught my eye. She and another server were on their way to our table.
"Food's here." I took Boz's hand and led him back to our candlelit corner. As we walked, Irena and the server moved on to another table to deliver their dessert.
"You seem close," Boz said .
"Irena's an old friend." I took a deep breath to ease the guilt lodged in my chest. "She's right, though. I haven't been here in a while."
"Why not?"
That was a good question, one I hadn't contemplated before now. I'd called the restaurant without thinking because it was my favorite place. Irena was a friend. I used to come here to shoot the shit every Monday night, but I'd stopped last Christmas, when they'd been closed for the holiday.
"He is depressed." Irena snuck up behind me, and once again shook her finger in my face. "Good to see him still alive, though," she added under her breath, more for my benefit, since her words were too soft for Boz to hear.
"This date?" she asked, pointing at Boz and then at me.
I nodded.
"Fine. I will not bother you. But next week, you come again, yes? Catch up on old times."
"Yes." How could I deny her anything? She had been my friend longer than Boz had been alive. "I'm sorry," I tacked on hastily as she turned to go. "I'll do better next year."
She snorted and walked away, taking the wine list with her.