Chapter 19
It was extremely annoying just how quickly Bella got over it.
Yasmine had been hoping to piss her off even a little, but no.
Miss Vampire Cool Girl just stared into space for half a second, collected herself, then shook Aster’s hand.
“Splendid to meet you,” she said, like this was a Zoom call between two politicians. “Although I have to confess I already know who you are. I’m a big admirer of your work.”
Aster’s face rarely ever revealed much, but Yasmine could tell she was surprised from the way she loosened her grip on Rafael, letting him float out of her hands.
“Nice to meet you… too,” she enunciated slowly. Her eyes slid over to Yasmine. “I feel like I missed a few episodes. Isn’t this your coffee girl?”
Yasmine’s cheeks reddened at the highly unnecessary usage of the word your. Bella, not missing a beat, flashed her a wild smirk.
“Is that really how you’ve pitched me to your friends?” she asked, sliding her hand around Yasmine’s waist in a way that had to be retribution. “A bit of a shallow description. I’m also the mold girl.”
“So you two are together,” Aster said.
“Absolutely,” Bella said.
“Not in any way, shape, or form,” Yasmine scoffed simultaneously.
Bella barked out a laugh; Yasmine looked at her in astonishment.
“Not in any way, shape, or form? I mean, that’s just a lie,” Bella said.
Yasmine stared at her—confused, aghast. What the hell was she saying?
Was this her attempt at wresting back control of the situation?
It didn’t feel like she’d lost any ground to begin with; she was sitting there like she owned the place, last night's charred outfit substituted for a pair of Aster’s black jeans and a Linkin Park hoodie, blonde hair methodically brushed and swept back behind her ears.
She knew this was just Bella toying with her, but still…
Bella being a vampire changed nothing about their non-arrangement.
If anything, it made their relationship even more untenable.
At least when she was a human, she was harmless.
She could be Yasmine’s coworker and her fling, and the worst fallout they could have would be a screaming match at Yasmine’s apartment.
Vampire breakups were a lot more like eighteenth century duels. Two gentlemen enter the ring, one leaves.
Not that any of that really mattered. She was a pathological liar, and despite her age, completely petulant; Yasmine was stable, and organized, and a mother.
And yet, Yasmine’s stomach couldn’t stop doing flips.
“It’s not a lie,” she hissed. Aster didn’t seem convinced. Even Rafael had stopped babbling to crook his head down and listen. “We slept together twice. Before I knew she was immortal. That does not constitute a relationship.”
Aster nearly spit out the wine she was drinking. She recovered with a deep cough, blinking several times in disbelief. “Oh my god, Sylvia is going to be so pissed that she missed this.”
Yasmine sat there in mortification as she realized just how much private information she’d readily divulged.
She and Aster had a relationship that usually belonged exclusively to two husbands whose wives were friends: they talked about the weather, politics, occasionally they went to a basketball game together and wore matching jerseys.
Nothing personal. This was all Bella’s fault.
Groaning, she decided to pivot.
“Where is Sylvia, anyway? Because I know she’s not working.”
Aster’s smirk dissolved. She looked like she was weighing something. Ultimately, she set down her glass with a huff, and rummaged for something in her pocket.
She offered Yasmine her phone. “Take a look for yourself.”
Confused, Yasmine took it. The device was open to a gallery of images—all photos Sylvia had sent Aster in the last week.
In sequential order: Sylvia on a plane, drinking wine; Sylvia on a sailboat, drinking wine; Sylvia posing with an older Italian woman, with a vineyard full of ripe grapes in the background, presumably to be harvested and then ingested in the form of wine.
“That’s Lillian,” Aster commented dryly, pointing at the older woman. “Her Enchanting instructor. She’s the one who made us these rings.”
Aster flashed the serpent ring around her finger, and it slithered slightly in the light.
While Sylvia and Aster had never had an official ceremony, they’d started wearing the rings ever since they arrived back from Iceland.
If they were any other couple, Yasmine might describe it as cute.
But knowing that they probably proposed to each other with bloodstains on their clothes, it was less so.
“Enchanting… instructor,” Yasmine repeated aloud, just to be sure she hadn’t lost her hearing. “What?”
“It’s her new Mommy-hobby,” Aster said, then bit down on her lip. “Me referring to it as that is potentially why she left in the first place.”
Yasmine’s mind refused to process this information. “I’m sorry, Sylvia stuck you with a toddler while she fucked off to Sicily to learn how to turn baby books into heavier baby books?”
“Look, she’s having post-partum… something,” Aster said, leaning back in her chair to glance up at Rafael, who was twirling himself in a circle and giggling. “I’m just letting it run its course.”
Yasmine sighed. “You don’t have to take her shit, you know.”
Aster tilted her head back towards her, her slick black bangs falling over brown eyes. She smiled; it had a warmth there that Yasmine couldn’t quite grasp.
“I think I like taking her shit, though. And anyway, what’s the saying? The pot is calling the kettle black?”
The clunkiness of the phrase only drew further attention to the slight color of her accent that still hadn’t eroded over the years.
“Now,” Aster continued. “I want to talk about the actual gossip. Your whole… house fire. Please. I’m desperate for entertainment.”
“Our budding relationship isn’t good enough gossip?” Bella interjected, pushing at Yasmine’s arm. “Honey, say something.”
Yasmine’s heart hammered in her chest, and not in a pleasant way. She stared at the skin on her arm that Bella had just touched for a half second too long. What is wrong with her?
She studied Bella’s face, but she couldn’t pierce through whatever dumb bit she was doing. The pathological liar was apparently also a method actress.
“Please have your maladaptive daydreams in a different corner of the apartment,” Yasmine finally muttered, blushing as she turned her full attention to Aster. She put a hand up to keep Bella out of her peripheral vision. “So what, Sylvia thinks the arsonists are vampires?”
Aster snorted at Yasmine’s quickly thinning patience, then nodded.
“What’s her basis for that?” Yasmine continued. “I have every vampire family in New England documented in my online database—the Smiths, the Kumars, the Wangs. We’re all relatively friendly.”
Yasmine sent annual holiday postcards to all the significant vampire families in the Eastern Seaboard; it was a good way to establish dominance.
“She thinks they’re out-of-townies,” Aster said. “Overseas.”
Yasmine shrugged. That made no difference. “I pretty much get an alert every time a vampire anywhere in this world takes a plane.”
Aster looked skeptical. “You didn’t even know that Sylvia was out of town.”
Yasmine’s shoulders dipped slightly. That was true; why did Rebecca not tell her?
Probably because she didn’t deem it important enough. Yasmine had hired her for her discretion, after all. She only floated the most vital information up the chain.
“I don’t need to keep tabs on my friends.” They were usually the ones she needed the most tabs on. But anyways. “Rebecca would tell me if anyone notable had come to Manhattan. She hasn’t.”
“What if it’s someone she didn’t consider notable?
” Aster proposed with a shrug. Fresh out of blood, she got up from the chair and started walking to the fridge.
“Also, how do you know that every vampire is in your catalog? I know for a fact you weren’t able to track my movements. I ate all your spies.”
“Yeah, but Sylvia didn’t. So I bundled the two of you together.”
“That’s not very precise,” Aster teased. “There were about three times per century that we took a day off from each other. What if I chose then to come kill you?”
“I’d love to see you try.”
“Me too,” Aster said, smiling broadly as she took a blood bottle out of the top shelf of the fridge. “But I wouldn’t want your girlfriend to be mad.”
Yasmine was not ready for the overwhelming pulling feeling in her stomach hearing that word being directed at her and Bella.
“Don’t call her that,” Yasmine said. It was much weaker than she intended it to be.
To Yasmine’s surprise, Bella wasn’t glowing from the attention.
In fact, since the conversation shifted, she looked a lot less comfortable than she did a moment before. She had her head ducked down, scrolling through her phone.
Yasmine couldn’t resist spying, especially when she spotted the familiar iMessage screen. She saw it for only a fraction of a second before Bella clicked the lock button, but she’d had enough time to read the name off—Sabina.
“Who’s Sabina?” Yasmine asked, because fuck it. “Friend? Secret lover?”
“Just a coworker,” Bella said briskly, looking distraught that Yasmine had noticed.
“Sylvia met a woman named Sabina at the department store across the street from the Nightingale the other day. Apparently they nearly got in a fistfight in the dressing room,” said Aster simultaneously, then she joked, “Maybe it’s the same one.”
Yasmine fell silent as Aster closed the fridge and started beckoning Rafael from the ceiling, waving the bottle around in the air like it was a fishing lure.
As amusing as that display was, Yasmine couldn’t help but trail her eyes slowly back to Bella, watching her face very carefully. Her lips were schooled in a straight line, and her gaze was fixed on the floor, studying the carpet.
“Yes…” Yasmine trailed off. “What a coincidence.”
But she didn’t push the topic.