“Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“Okay.” His arm slides around my waist, taking more of my weight than I realized I needed him to. “Slowly. We’re close.”
We make it another twenty feet before I have to stop again. This time, the cramp doubles me over, and I grip Julian’s arm hard enough that it should hurt. It doesn’t, of course. He’s made of sterner stuff than regular human muscle and bone.
This is not happening, I tell myself. This is not happening. I did not just learn that my boyfriend is an immortal creature of the night, choose to stay with him anyway, and then get struck down by questionable shrimp puffs. The universe is not this cruel. I refuse to believe the universe is this cruel.
The universe doesn’t care what I believe.
“Poppy.” Julian’s voice is steady. Calm. The voice of someone who has handled crisis before—many crises, across many lifetimes. “I’m going to carry you.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.”
He lifts me like I weigh nothing—because to him, I probably do. Superhuman strength. I add it to the mental list of vampire abilities I’m now aware of.
He moves toward the suite with a speed that should feel jarring but somehow doesn’t. Faster than any normal person could carry someone without jostling them.
I would find this romantic if I weren’t trying not to throw up on his shirt.
The suite door opens. Closes. We barely make it into the bathroom before the first wave hits.
It feels like death itself... wait, I guess now that I have a dead boyfriend I might want to reconsider that.
Hunkered over the toilet bowl, I realize there are so many things I’d rather be doing right now, like, for instance, being struck by lightning. Or having my mother critique my life choices for three consecutive hours. Or reliving middle school, including the braces and the unfortunate haircut. I’d even rather be watching Preston and Serenity’s couples content on repeat. Literally anything other than kneeling on a bathroom floor while my vampire boyfriend holds my hair back.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, between waves of nausea. “I’m so sorry. This is not—this wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Julian’s voice comes from somewhere behind me, steady and close. His fingers are cool against the back of my neck, gathering my hair away from my face with a gentleness that makes my eyes sting for reasons that have nothing to do with being sick.
“I had plans,” I say. “Good plans. Plans that involved less vomiting and more—” I wave a hand, unable to finish the sentence.
“There will be other nights.”
“Easy for you to say,” I smirk. “You have all of eternity.” The joke tumbles out before I can stop it, and my smirk vanishes. “Sorry. Too soon?”
His laugh is quiet but real. “Not too soon. I appreciate that you can joke about it.”
“Humor is my coping mechanism. You’ll learn that about me.”
“I look forward to learning everything about you.”
Another wave cuts off my response. When I can breathe again, Julian is there with a glass of water. Cold. Perfect. He must have moved while I was occupied, but I didn’t hear him. Vampire speed, I guess.
I rinse my mouth, spit, and lean back against the bathroom wall.
“This is mortifying,” I inform him.
“It’s called being human.”
“Same thing.”
I wonder how often he’s watched humans be sick, be weak, be fragile in all the ways he isn’t anymore. I wonder if it disgusts him, or if it just reminds him of what he lost.
“You’re thinking something,” I say.
