Chapter Fifteen Reginald Amelia

FIFTEEN

Memo from George, Secretary of The Collective, to John, President of The Collective

To: John

From: George

Subject: Reginald Cleaves

Dear John,

New plan needed. R.C. saw me in the lobby of the hotel where he’s been staying, recognized I was a vampire, and fled.

At our next meeting we should discuss strategies that don’t involve sneaking up on him in places where he lives. All attempts to apprehend him that way have failed. He’s a wily one!

George

Reginald

Taking Amelia Collins out for a drink had been a bad idea.

On the scale of bad ideas I’d had over the past three hundred years, placing my hand at the small of her back and guiding her into the seedy bar a few blocks from her office probably ranked somewhere between Mardi Gras, 1989, and that thing I did that one time in Paris.

But there I was, taking her out for a drink anyway.

I probably could have blamed my poor decision-making on having just run into someone who might have been a member of The Collective. He’d worn the same generic business-type clothes anyone staying in a hotel in the Loop might wear, so I almost hadn’t spotted him for what he was.

But I knew he wasn’t human the second he flashed his fangs at me on my way to the lobby to get a complimentary toothbrush and the day’s edition of USA Today .

The man could see my fangs, too, if the way his eyes zeroed in on my mouth was any guide. Another dead giveaway. The glamour that disguised our fangs from humans and let us hide in plain sight didn’t work on other vampires. I’d have said this lapse in glamour functionality would one day be my villain origin story if I didn’t already have at least four of those.

In either event, once I knew he knew that I knew he was a vampire, I’d sprinted out of the hotel lobby before I could find out if it was just happy coincidence that another vampire was staying at the Marriott, or whether The Collective had tracked me down again.

I’d wandered the Loop aimlessly after that, dressed in a suit Frederick lent me a week ago. My only plan had been to go on a walk to clear my head, and to possibly find a new hotel since the Marriott was now obviously out.

But the next thing I’d known, I was in front of Amelia’s building, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of her. After that it had been the easiest thing in the world to sweet talk the security officer on duty into letting me inside.

And then…

Well, she’d just looked so stressed when I found her that I’d invited her out for a drink before I could remind myself this couldn’t end well.

“It’s loud in here,” Amelia said right in my ear, presumably so I could hear her above the noisy music. Her warm breath against my skin, tickling the little hairs at my nape, should not have excited me as much as it did. She kept close by me, smelling like lilacs and sunlight, and looking like a dream—back when my dreams were still good. She was all buttoned-up and stern and accountanty, and Hades, I wanted to un button her, wanted to mess up that pristine desk of hers and lay her down on it, papers and books scattering to the floor.

Could she tell just by looking at me how badly I wanted to bury my face in her hair? To bury my teeth in her neck, too—if she would allow it?

I could all but taste the way her blood would coat my tongue. Delicious, and so pure.

The truth was, I wanted to do a lot of things with Amelia that she hadn’t signed up for when we started this arrangement, and had given no indication she wanted with me now.

It didn’t matter that our kiss had felt like all the good things the centuries had taken from me. Companionship, and warmth. Closeness with another person. My role in her life was limited in duration and scope. And that was how it had to stay, unless and until she said otherwise.

“Yeah this bar is noisy,” I agreed, loudly enough for her to hear me. Forcing myself to snap out of the haze of want her proximity seemed to bring out in me, I quipped, “I wouldn’t have thought all these lawyer- and banker-types had it in them.”

She laughed. I couldn’t hear it over the shitty bar music, but I could see it in the way her eyes crinkled at the corners and how her shoulders relaxed. And I could feel it, when she slipped her hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Let’s find a table,” she suggested.

I wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to come out with me. I’d been completely evasive in my reasons for dropping by.

And I still couldn’t understand why she was so unconcerned about me being a vampire.

But I wasn’t strong enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. Now she was leading me by the hand to a table in the back, her palm pressed against mine so warm and soft it took all my self-restraint not to moan in pleasure.

“How about here?” she asked.

I looked at the table. The floor beneath our feet was so tacky with spilt beer and devil only knew what else that my shoes stuck to it, but the table looked clean enough.

“Sure,” I said-shouted. “Do you want to sit here while I…” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards the bar.

Uncertainty was written all over her face. “I don’t really like beer.” Another point in her column. Even when I’d been able to drink beer, I remembered it tasting like unwashed asshole. “But maybe if they have some Chardonnay?”

The bar’s atmosphere suggested it didn’t carry things like Chardonnay. But then, a lot of the people there looked like they worked in fancy office buildings like Amelia’s. They probably had some sort of wine selection.

“I’ll investigate options,” I said.

She smiled at me, so warm and genuine it felt like the sun emerging after a century of slumber, and Hades help me, I was lost.

Amelia

Reggie came back carrying a bottle of white wine in one hand and two wineglasses in another. Even in this crowded bar, he moved with a kind of effortless self-confidence I didn’t think I’d ever seen outside of a movie. He gave the impression of a person so comfortable in his own skin that he legitimately couldn’t be bothered to care what other people thought of him.

Accountants didn’t move like that. Or at least, I didn’t. I think I was born worried about the impression I was making among the other babies at the hospital. My self-consciousness hadn’t lessened in the years since.

I refused to dwell on how hot Reggie’s self-confidence made him. Nothing good would come of that.

He placed everything on the table, then began to pour the wine. I watched the pale golden liquid fill the glasses, telling myself to focus on that rather than the large, capable hands doing the pouring.

“Here we are,” he said, handing me a glass and saving me from the direction of my thoughts. “One for you, and a decoy one for me.”

“Decoy?” I took a sip. The wine was actually pretty good.

“Decoy,” Reggie confirmed. “I can’t drink it.”

“Why not? It’s not that bad.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He raised an eyebrow. “My… diet doesn’t allow wine.”

He hadn’t wanted to eat anything at Aunt Sue’s house, either. Given my own food issues, I had no room to judge him for whatever his were, but now I was curious. “What is your diet?” Maybe I was prying, but I’d already told him about my own food limitations, so it only seemed fair.

He leaned in and pitched his voice lower. “Don’t make me say it in public, Amelia. Someone might hear me.”

His reluctance to go into more detail reminded me of a conversation I’d had with Sam a few years ago about a new diet he was trying in the weeks leading up to his wedding. Sam had been mortified that I’d found out about it. Maybe Reggie, like Sam, was more private and self-conscious about his eating than I was.

I had no problem letting it go. “All right,” I said. “Your diet is your business. I didn’t mean to be nosy.”

“Thank you,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’m not sure I deserve your understanding. Not just your understanding about this, but about…everything.” He gestured expansively to himself. “I appreciate it more than you know.” Then he turned so that he was facing me fully, his eyes so soft and full of what I could easily have let myself believe was genuine affection my heart stuttered. “And I appreciate you , for giving it to me.”

He leaned in, arms folded on the table in front of him. The look he gave me was so heated it could have sparked a flame.

I swallowed. The noisy bar was suddenly far too warm. I had to remind myself to keep breathing. “I haven’t done anything,” I managed.

“You’re wrong.” He’d seemed so distracted earlier, when we were making our way to this bar, but now he’d found his focus. It was me. “Anyone else would have run in the opposite direction the moment I shared anything about myself at all. But you aren’t running. Even if you’re only staying with me as part of a ruse, I’m grateful.”

My eyes fell to my hands, to the wineglass in front of me, on anything and everything but him. I could feel him looking at me no matter where I turned my attention, the warmth of his gaze as much a gentle caress as his hands had given last night when he’d kissed me.

I didn’t want him to keep looking at me like that. Not here. Not now.

I also wanted him to never stop.

How did a conversation about food become this in the blink of an eye? We were spiraling, the situation slipping out of my control way too fast.

I had to snap us out of it.

“So,” I began, staring intently at my wineglass. “Can we go through the people you’re likely to meet at the wedding?”

Reggie chuckled, the sound warm and inviting. If he recognized this for the diversion it was, he had the grace not to say anything. “Right,” he said. He cleared his throat. “That’s the reason why you agreed to come out with me tonight. So, yes. Sure. Why don’t you—” He cut off abruptly, eyes caught on something just beyond my right shoulder.

“What is it?”

He inclined his head in the direction he was looking. I turned to see what had gotten his attention and my stomach dropped.

My cousin Gretchen, wearing what might have been the prettiest green dress I’d ever seen, was making her way over to us.

“Shit,” I said, my panic mounting. She lived in the suburbs. What was she doing downtown? “She’s going to ask us all sorts of questions. She’ll assume—”

I turned to face Reggie. Pretending to be my boyfriend right now would be going above and beyond. But I didn’t see any other way around it. Not without either being rude to Gretchen or telling her the truth.

He must have guessed what I’d been about to ask him. “I’ve got this,” he assured me. Without another word, he grabbed my hand that was closest to him and pressed a lingering kiss to my palm.

It was a simple gesture, his breath cool against my skin and the touch of his lips almost achingly gentle. Compared to the spine-melting kiss we’d shared at Aunt Sue’s it was positively chaste. On some level, I was aware of that—but my racing heart didn’t get the memo. He held my hand like it was something precious, and looked into my eyes as though there were nowhere he’d rather be. My breath caught as I met his gaze, and at what I could almost believe was real adoration reflected there.

I was barely aware of it when Gretchen pulled out one of the extra seats at our table and sat down. Reggie seemed not to notice her, either. He wasn’t kissing my hand anymore, but he was still holding it, rubbing gentle circles on the back of it with his thumb. His touch was grounding. Exhilarating.

“Hey!” Gretchen greeted us.

I cleared my throat, hoping I wasn’t blushing too deeply, and willed myself to get it together. Gretchen was watching both of us with a knowing expression.

“Nice to see you,” I said, wincing at how breathy I sounded.

“Nice to see you, too,” Gretchen said. “How wild is it that we ran into each other here? I’m so exhausted right now I almost didn’t even come out with my coworkers tonight.” She took a long sip from a beer that I could tell was some kind of IPA from the way I could smell its hops from where I was sitting. Setting her glass back down again, she added, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to catch up with you at Mom’s party.”

“Oh my god, don’t worry about it,” I said. “You had, like, a million people to entertain.”

She nodded. “Yeah. You know how my mom can be. I’m just going to invite close friends and family , she told me.” Gretchen shook her head wearily before taking another long pull from her glass. “Amelia—she invited my friends from high school .”

I shuddered. I couldn’t even imagine being ooh ed and ahh ed over by people I hadn’t seen in twenty years. “That really sucks. I’m sorry.”

Gretchen shook her head. “Thanks. It was a bit stressful, but it’s fine. I know Mom’s intentions were good.” Her gaze shifted to Reggie, who’d been watching our conversation with rapt attention. “I didn’t get a chance to chat with you, either. It seems like you and my cousin are close?”

Gretchen kicked me under the table, in a way I one hundred percent interpreted as my mom totally told me y’all made out at my party .

Reggie, noticing this, slid an arm around me and pulled me and my chair over. On instinct, I slipped my arm beneath his suit jacket and wrapped it around his waist. The shirt he wore was so soft; it was only sheer force of will that prevented me from burrowing further into his side and breathing him in.

“We’re definitely close,” Reggie said. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, letting his lips linger. I closed my eyes reflexively, leaning into his touch before realizing I was doing it. “We’ve been dating six weeks.”

Gretchen gave me a knowing look. “I knew Josh was the one after six weeks.”

Oh, god. My face was on fire. Reggie’s hold on me tightened. “Is that so?” he asked, sounding genuinely interested.

“Yeah,” Gretchen said. “If it’s right, you just know. You know?”

He peered down at me, his eyes giving nothing away. “Actually, Gretchen—it’s possible that maybe I do.”

Oh, he was good. Too good. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he actually meant it.

Gretchen stood from her chair. “Well, I better get back to my coworkers. They took me out tonight to celebrate. It would be rude of me to ditch them.” Before turning to leave, she said, “I’ll see you both at the couples’ trip to Wisconsin, though, right?”

My heart thundered inside my rib cage.

Reggie looked at me, a question in his eyes.

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no, no.

“See you then!” I chirped at Gretchen, before Reggie had a chance to ask any questions.

It wasn’t until she’d made it back to her friends at the other side of the bar that I risked a glance at Reggie. He was watching me carefully, clearly waiting for me to explain what Gretchen had meant.

“So, there’s a family get-together in Wisconsin this coming weekend,” I explained. “Sort of like a destination celebration for the happy couple, I guess? I’m not sure why Gretchen wants to take a vacation with extended family before the wedding, but apparently, she does.” I paused. “Adult family members and their partners and families are invited. If they have them, that is,” I added quickly.

“I assume you didn’t tell me about the trip because you weren’t planning to invite me?”

His tone was matter-of-fact, not accusatory. “When I got the invitation, we didn’t know each other,” I said, feeling defensive anyway. “We weren’t— aren’t —actually dating.”

He didn’t correct me. “And you would have thought it awkward to have a stranger along with you on this trip,” he said. “Posing as your boyfriend. Right?”

I hesitated. He was still practically a stranger. It would be awkward spending a whole weekend with him and my family. No matter how delicious that kiss last night had been, and no matter that he had turned what could’ve been an excruciating family event into something fun.

No matter how readily he’d been willing to go along with the farce just now in front of Gretchen, even though it hadn’t been in the script, simply because I’d needed him to.

But now there was a new worry. What if spending all that time in Wisconsin with him made me want to kiss him again? The last thing I needed was an actual relationship. Or an unrequited messy situation. That wasn’t what this was supposed to be about.

“Would you even want to come?” I asked. “This wasn’t part of the deal. And I’m sure you have better things to do than hang out with my family.”

“I think you overestimate how busy I am,” he said. “Will your father be there?”

What did Dad have to do with this? “I mean, yeah, I assume so.”

He slapped his palm down on the table, eyes alive with excitement. “That does it. I’m coming. I didn’t get a chance to stump him at your aunt’s party.” He was about to smack the table again, but a moment before his palm struck wood, he seemed to realize that while Gretchen had invited him to come, I hadn’t. “That is, of course, if you’re okay with my tagging along.”

Was I okay with it? Or was letting him come a terrible idea? An entire weekend in my family’s cabin, where we’d sit around and play games, and meet up with Aunt Sue, Gretchen, and the rest of the family during the day for hikes and trips to town?

Notwithstanding Reggie’s claims to be excited, he’d be bored out of his mind up there. Wouldn’t he?

On the other hand, it would be a way to further convince my family that what we had was real. And it wasn’t as though we’d have to share a bed. There were two twins in the room I slept in at the cabin. There’d be no need for any awkwardness at nighttime.

Reggie was still watching me expectantly when I made up my mind.

“I’m warning you,” I said. “If Dad finds out you’re excited to talk to him about history, you’ll be his favorite person ever.”

Reggie took that as the invitation it was. His smile grew. “His favorite person ever ? Wow. In that case, I’m absolutely coming. It’s been centuries since I was someone’s favorite person.”

I smiled back at him. “You are really fond of hyperbole, aren’t you.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, earnestly. “It’s my favorite word beginning with hyper .”

God, his sense of humor was disarming.

Dangerous.

Ignoring the warning klaxon going off in my head, I said, “If you’re sure, I’ll text you the details.”

“Marvelous.” Even if I hadn’t been able to see him grinning at me, I would have heard the smile in his voice. “I’m sincerely looking forward to it.”