The Vampire Next Door (14 page)

I hesitated, not sure if I should follow him. I trusted Reeve, but walking into a man’s bedroom honestly just seemed like asking for trouble.

He noticed my reluctance right away, and turned to face me, his hand on the doorknob. “Relax. You’re going to like it, I promise. I can’t show you in the living room because of the ceiling fan, and it’s too light out here, anyway.”

“Too light?” It was barely light enough for me to see where I was going. But I followed him obediently.

When I stepped into the bedroom, it was completely dark. Reeve flipped the light switch, and a lamp in the corner turned on.

There wasn’t much furniture, and most of the space was occupied by a mattress shoved into one corner, its sheets and blankets neatly made up. I wouldn’t have expected any less from Reeve. Next to the mattress was a card table stacked high with books. I moved closer so that I could read the titles of the two books closest to me.
The Courtship of Princess Leia
and
Shadows of the Empire.

“Are you a
Star Wars
fan?” I asked, surprised. I glanced back at Reeve, who was kneeling next to a small round machine on the carpet.

He looked up at me. “Yeah. Some of the only movies I actually remember. I had a bunch of those books with me when I woke up. The rest I got from the bookstore uptown.” He grinned. “Don’t ever challenge me at
Star Wars
trivia. I’ll beat you every time.”

“I’ll remember that.” I hadn’t expected him to be much of a reader, especially since he’d admitted to being a mechanic. I had figured him for one of those super macho men who liked machines and gadgets and couldn’t be bothered with books. Especially
Star Wars
books.

“Was this room empty when you came here?” I looked around, noting the absence of any decoration. Just plain white walls.

“Mostly. That mattress was up against the wall. I think it was just a spare room they used for storage.” Reeve paused, and continued in a lower voice, “I guess I should have known this wasn’t my house. I knew the master bedroom couldn’t be mine. It just didn’t feel right. So I stayed in here. It’s the only place in the house where I don’t feel like I’m invading someone else’s space.”

I hadn’t considered how out of place Reeve must feel, knowing he was living in someone else’s home. It made sense that he would claim this room as his own.

“Okay, here we go,” he said, and glanced up at me. “Go ahead and sit down. I’m about to turn off the lights.”

I perched nervously on the edge of the mattress, scooting a little closer to the card table to put some distance between myself and Reeve. I wasn’t really all that worried about what he was planning, because he’d had plenty of opportunities to hurt me before now and hadn’t. But I couldn’t figure out what he was up to, and that made me uncomfortable.

He flipped the light switch, and we were plunged into darkness. A moment later, the little machine clicked on, and suddenly the entire ceiling was a mass of tiny green stars, moving slowly through a stunning blue nebula. The mass of constellations was shifting, dancing in slow motion above us, as if someone had extinguished the sun and torn the roof from the house in a single lightning-fast motion.

The projection above me was stunningly beautiful, prettier than any real sky I’d ever witnessed.

My mouth dropped open, and I couldn’t keep a smile from creeping onto my face. “Oh my gosh, Reeve. What is this?”

“It’s a star projector,” he said. His outline was a black shadow as he moved towards me, taking a seat beside me on the mattress. “I got it for you.”

I was captivated by the beauty of the night sky that surrounded us, so much so that I could hardly form a coherent thought. I did recall, numbly, that during our conversation on the first night we’d met, I had mentioned to Reeve that I missed the stars.

“This is gorgeous,” I breathed, leaning back on my elbows to get a better view.

The mattress indented as Reeve lay back, too. He hooked one hand behind his head, and pointed with the other one at the lighter outside corner of the nebula. “That part is almost exactly the same color as your eyes,” he said.

I put one hand behind my head, too, staring up at the shifting stars. “You remember the color of my eyes?” I asked softly.

Reeve chuckled. “Are you kidding? I’d have to be blind not to remember the color of your eyes.”

My cheeks heated, and I tried to ignore the warmth that blossomed in my chest at his words. “Thanks,” I muttered. “That means a lot.”

There was something inside me at that moment, a hopeless yearning, a deep regret that our situation had come to this. Perhaps Reeve and I would have been more than friends, in a different life, in a different time. Instead he was a vampire, and I was married to a man who, after four years of marriage, couldn’t remember the color of my eyes and didn’t care that his ignorance hurt my feelings.

We lay there in the darkness, watching the stars as they moved. Eventually I felt Reeve’s hand brush against mine, and I turned my head, looking down at where my hand lay on the mattress. When I looked up, Reeve had turned his head, too, and was staring at me. His hand hadn’t moved again.

This was something of a crossroads, and I knew it. The connection between us was undeniable, and I kept returning to Reeve like a moth to a flame, even though I knew that he could very well be the death of me.

I entwined my fingers with his, and his lips curved upward before he turned his head away again, looking up at the ceiling. Holding his hand tightly, I pushed all thoughts from my head and let the slow, soothing dance of the stars above ease my troubled mind.

CHAPTER 12

I could have stayed there all day, staring at the stars on the ceiling of Reeve’s bedroom, but unfortunately my stomach had other plans. It let me know by growling loudly, which had Reeve snickering and me groaning in embarrassment.

“I’d better go back to my house and let my dog out,” I said, sitting up. Reeve released my hand and I tucked a stray str
and of hair behind my ear. “I’ll eat something while I’m there.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?” Reeve asked. He turned off the projector and flipped the light switch, and we both blinked as the room was flooded with lamplight.

“What, you don’t want me to come back today? Sick of me already?” I teased, standing and stretching the kinks from my muscles.

“Can’t stand the sight of you,” he said, and his solemn delivery had me rolling my eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back. Is it okay if I bring Holloway with me?”

“Sure.” He opened the bedroom door, and we both walked out into the living room.

“Do you feel up to another board game?”

Reeve laughed. “If you’re not sick of them yet, sure, I’ll play.”

“The only board game I have is called Pandemic,” I said. “Someone accidentally left it at my house years ago after a party, but I’ve never played it. Do you want to help me figure it out?”

His dark eyes were glittering with amusement. “Go get your game,” he said. “I’ll clear off the coffee table.”

As I entered the foyer, my thoughts drifted briefly to the redheaded man, the guy who had attacked me. The man that Reeve had killed, and eaten afterwards.

A shudder ran through my body at that thought. I didn’t want to picture Reeve drinking someone’s blood. His personality was so easygoing, and our connection so immediate, that I found it very easy to forget that he was a vampire. Vampires murdered humans. The fact that Reeve wasn’t interested in murdering me didn’t immediately absolve him of his other sins.

As I opened Reeve’s front door, I immediately noticed an old Toyota Camry parked in front of my house, and someone standing outside the breezeway next door. I froze, terrified for a moment that the blonde woman had returned, before I realized that it was a man.

He was maybe two or three inches taller than me, and lean, with long legs and chestnut-brown hair that gleamed in the sunlight.

It was Eddie.

I closed the door quickly, trying to be as quiet as possible, and locked the deadbolt. My heart was pounding, and my knees suddenly felt weak. I placed both hands flat against the door, taking deep breaths to try to calm myself down.

Eddie was back.

If he hadn’t been standing outside in broad daylight, I would have thought he was a vampire, because that was the only reason I could think of that he would have returned to me after I’d shot down his last request for sex. 

“What’s wrong?”

My head whipped around. Reeve was standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised at my obvious state of distress.

I had to consciously force my lips to move. “Eddie’s back. He’s outside my house right now.”

Something flickered in Reeve’s eyes, and I couldn’t tell what it was, but as we stared at each other, I realized exactly what was happening. Reeve had saved me from certain death. He’d treated my injuries, brought me food- even returned my scooter to me. He’d agreed to help me find a car so that I could escape to Phoenix.

He was my friend.

But he was a vampire.

Eddie would never understand.

Granted, my friendship with Reeve was in its fledgling stages, but Eddie’s return, assuming he meant to stay and was not just stopping by because he’d forgotten his last can of Pringles or something, meant that Reeve and I were over.

I knew Eddie and his distaste for vampires- something I’d shared until very recently- quite well. He would never accept a vampire as his friend, or even my friend.

Reeve was aware of the shift in our situation. I could see it in his expression, which had suddenly turned very bleak.

“He might have just forgotten something,” I offered lamely. “He might not intend to stay.”

“Maybe,” Reeve answered.

We continued staring at each other, and my breathing was still too fast. It felt like someone was squeezing my lungs with their fist, making it difficult for me to inhale. I hadn’t realized until this moment how desperately I’d wanted Reeve to be a permanent fixture in my life.

“I won’t tell him you’re here,” I said. “He wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t…”

The end of that sentence, though unspoken, was clear.
He wouldn’t let you live.
That battle would result in the death of either Eddie or Reeve, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for either.

“I have to go to him,” I heard my voice say, and I sounded far away, like I wasn’t even in the same room with myself. “He’ll go looking for me if I don’t answer the door. Or he might try to break in. I have to make sure he knows I’m okay.”

“Go out the back,” Reeve said, stepping aside so that he no longer blocked the doorway to the hallway. “If you come around from the back, he won’t know where you’ve been.”

He was offering me a solution to my dilemma without a second thought, and my heart went out to this vampire that I’d grown to care about. I wanted to hug him, to thank him, but the words were stuck in my throat. I didn’t know what to say. We were virtual strangers pushed together by circumstance, and our beginning was ending so much sooner than I’d anticipated.

“Of course,” I said, and pushed away from the front door, following Reeve on shaky legs. It made sense. This was an uncomplicated situation. Reeve and I would go our separate ways, as if we’d never met, and things would go back to normal. There was no reason to make this weird.

Why did it
feel
so complicated, though? Why was my heart fluttering this way? I hadn’t felt this…this
empty
since my last disastrous phone call with Cole, eight months ago.