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“Thanks for putting me in touch with Amore. I’ve wanted a tattoo for ages.” She’d already told him this. Why was she babbling? “I already told you that.”
Well, she was babbling because it felt safer than telling him what was really on her mind: She was wondering when she would be back here with him—and she hadn’t even left yet. Which made her a stalker, didn’t it.
Okay, fine, a stalker-in-training.
“That’s okay, you can tell me anything all over again.” Nate’s smile was lazy and relaxed, even though his eyes were intense. “Or maybe I can ask you something.”
“Absolutely. Let me have it.” She propped her head on her hand. “Just not math. I suck at math, and that’s what they make calculators for.”
“Are you staying at Luchas House permanently?”
Nalla was aware of her heart skipping a beat. In a casual tone, she said, “Why do you ask that?”
What she wanted to say was—Are you looking for a roommate?
Except that was insane.
“Just wondering,” he hedged.
As she felt a minor letdown, she knew that was ridiculous. She wasn’t living in some kind of romantic comedy where the hero asked the heroine to move in because she had nowhere else to go—and they ended up pulling a happily-ever-after following a series of zany adventures.
Yeah, that was a movie, not anything that happened in real life. And besides, if you were a vampire in Caldwell, New York, the zany adventures were likely to kill you.
She pushed her hair out of the way. “I’m just crashing in that room for a little while. I pull a lot of hours so it’s a convenience.”
Unlike her two-second, dematerializing commute. Phew, what a time-saver.
When he didn’t say anything, the silence made her feel like they were on two boats, floating off in opposite directions, and as she guessedwhat it was all about, she wondered when—fuckingwhen—her father would cease to be a shadow over her life.
“Okay, fine,” she muttered. “I don’t want to be around my parents right now. I’m taking a break from them.”
Was this his opening to address the black dagger in the room? Namely that promise he’d made to her sire, which he’d clearly remembered and come to the very reasonable conclusion that it put a target on his chest?
After all, even if Nate was immortal, he could still feel physical pain. She’d seen more than enough proof of that.
“The relocation has nothing to do with you,” she lied.
Although that wasn’t exactly false. She and her parents had plenty of other problems. Nate was just one of a number of them.
“I’m not sure I believe that,” he said. But then he shrugged. “I’m not getting along with my own very well, either.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “So I can understand how a little distance might help. But unlike with your situation, I’m the asshole in the crowd. Always have been. Honestly, Murhder and Sarah are good people, and I’ve just been…”
“Tell me.” She smoothed a hand over his tattooed chest. “Please. You’re like a ghost sometimes, even as I can feel you next to me.”
Nate’s expression got dark, real dark. “The two of them took me in when I had nothing and nobody in this world. And to pay them back, I haven’t treated them well. I’ve pushed them away, pushed everybody the fuck away—including the Brotherhood. I’ve just been pissed off at the world, and taking that shit out on anybody who crossed my path.”
She thought back to seeing him in the middle of the street, outside of Bathe, that glower, that aggression. “You’re not like that at the moment.”
“Yeah, well, I think you’re good for me.” He nodded as if he were talking to himself. “For the first time in a long time, the future has… something in it for me. And that changes things. When the past is ugly, and there’s nothing but time in front of you, the present meansnothing, gives you… nothing. The nights are a void, the days are full of bad dreams, and you just trudge through it all, lashing out because you can’t stand yourself.”
He turned his head to her and focused properly. “But when I’m with you, I don’t feel like that. You change me.”
“I do?” she whispered.
“Yeah, you do.”
