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"I'm seventy-two," he offered, saving me the subtraction. "Not so old that it seems unreal enough to discount, and just old enough to think of me as . . . old."
"You don't look seventy-two. You certainly don't act seventy-two. Not that there's anything wrong with that," I belatedly added, a finger in the air to emphasize the point.
Morgan laughed. "Thanks, Mer. I don't feel a day over seventy-one."
"A spritely seventy-one."
"A spritely seventy-one," he agreed. "There's actually some pretty serious debate out there on the impact of looking young on how we act, on the age we pretend to be."
I smiled dubiously. "Vampire philosophers?"
He smiled back. "Immortality does pose its own set of quandaries."
Immortality was a quandary I hadn't fully considered yet, and I wondered what the rest of the vamps were thinking about. "Like?"
Morgan reached out and grabbed the bag of chips, our arms just brushing as he pulled it away. I ignored the little shock that spilt down my arm, reminding myself that I'd sworn off boys with unusually large canines.
"Vamps change identities every sixty years or so," Morgan responded, waving a chip in the air. "And yet, to stay under the radar, we've had to operate within the system. That means we fake our deaths. We have to lie to the friends and family we accumulate in each human lifetime. We forge social security numbers, drivers' licenses, passports. Is that ethical?" He shrugged. "We justify it by saying its necessary to protect ourselves. But it's still lying."
Thinking of my own hasty exit from academia, I wondered aloud, "Where do they work? These philosophers, I mean."
"They stay pretty cloistered. Some in academia, usually with enough tenure to get basement offices and night classes. You ever see those guys who hang out in coffeehouses - they've got their laptops and those little black notebooks? They're always there at night, scribbling furiously?"
I grinned. "I used to be one of those guys. Well, girls, anyway."
Morgan leaned forward conspiratorially and hooded his fingers into a claw, then pawed at the air. "You never know if they're vamps on the prowl."
"Good to know," I offered with a chuckle. Morgan smiled back at me. It was a nice smile, but it broke when he pulled an empty hand from the plastic chip bag, apparently realizing we'd finished it off. I took it away, crumpled it, and tossed it into the trash, a perfect arc on the shot.
"Nice," he said. "And speaking of hoops, you have something planned?"
I didn't know we'd been speaking of hoops, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. "What did you have in mind?"
He checked his watch. "It's one fifteen. SportsCenter's probably on."
"It's a date," I said with a firm nod, and led him back into the living room.
He was right. It was on. Even as late as it was, I shouldn't have doubted SportsCenter was rolling tape on ESPN. Was it ever not on in the wee hours of the morning? We settled back into the living room, watched forty-five minutes of sports-related sarcasm, and debated the this year's potential NFL draft picks. When the show was over, Morgan pushed up from the couch.
"I should get going. Couple things I need to check into before dawn, and I should run by Red."
I belatedly realized that it was Saturday night, surely a big night for the club, and that he'd opted to spend it here, eating sandwiches and watching ESPN. As he went for the door, stretching his arms above his head and revealing the curve of smooth skin at the small of his back, I found myself wishing that he wasn't a vampire. We'd reached a kind of comfortable rapport, and a quiet night with ESPN and lumpy sandwiches was a nice change from political intrigue, death threats, and supernatural revelations.
"Thanks for coming by to apologize," I said, rising to walk him to the door. "It would have been nicer if you hadn't been a jackass in the first place, but a girl always appreciates a nice dose of remorse."
Morgan laughed. "Does a girl?"
I smiled back and opened the door, and we stood next to it for a minute, watching each other. Then he leaned down, one hand at my hip, and pressed his lips to mine. Morgan kissed me in slow increments, meeting my lips, then pulling back and moving in again. It was teasing by kiss, and he was incredibly good at it. But I wasn't eager to repeat the mistake of kissing a vampire, so I pushed him back with the flat of my palm.
"Morgan."
He protested with a groan, then diverted his mouth to my neck, where he trailed a line of kisses from ear to collarbone. My eyes drifted shut, my body apparently as eager as his to push things forward.
"You're a hot single vampire," he breathily murmured. "I'm a hot single vampire. But for your unfathomable allegiance to the Bears, we should be together."
I pushed him back again, and this time he stayed upright. "I'm not up for a boyfriend right now."
Morgan's face furrowed into an exquisite frown, and he ran a hand through his hair. "Do you and Ethan have a thing?"
"Ethan? No," I replied, probably sounding a little more defensive than I should have. "God, no."
Still frowning, he nodded. "Okay."
"I don't do fang."
He pulled back, apparently shocked, and gazed at me. "You are fang."
I grinned at him. "Yeah, I get that a lot. Friends, though?" I offered a conciliatory hand.
"For now."
I rolled my eyes and pushed a hand against his chest again, pushing him over the threshold. "Good night, Morgan."
He turned and walked down the steps. When he got to the sidewalk, he turned around and began strolling backward. "I'm going to worm my way into your life, Merit."
I waggled my fingers at him. "Uh-huh. Let me know how that works out for you."
"Hey, you're missing out. I've got mad skills."
I rolled my eyes dramatically. "I'm sure you do. Find a nice, sweet Navarre girl. You're not ready for Cadogan."
He faked pulling a knife from his heart, but then winked, and crossed the street to his car - a convertible roadster. The car beeped cheerily as he approached, and in seconds he was inside and zooming down the street.
I was asleep when they came back at five thirty a.m. They fought at first - Mallory screaming at Catcher, Catcher yelling back. The topic was magic and control and whether Mallory was mature enough for Catcher to leave her to her own devices. Mallory rued his arrogance, and Catcher rued her na?vete. The argument woke me, but it was the making up that kept me awake. They slammed into her bedroom, and that was when the grunting and moaning began. I loved Mallory, and I was beginning to appreciate Catcher's sarcasm. But in no fathomable way was I interested in listening to the two of them engage in a rowdy bout of makeup sex. When she screamed out his name for the third time - Catcher was apparently a machine - I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and stumbled groggily through the still-dark house to the living room, where I swaddled myself and fell asleep again.
