Page 32 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“You’ll stay.”

“If that is acceptable.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not putting you out on the porch.”

“I would survive.”

“That’s not the point.”

His eyes settle on me, and I suddenly feel as though I have said something much larger than I intended. So naturally I feed him.

I know. I know he doesn’t eat. We’ve established this so thoroughly that Theo is probably taking odds on whether Julian Volkov has functioning teeth. But the power is out and the wind is screaming and I am, at my core, a woman incapable of having someone in her house without putting something in front of them.

I heat milk on the gas stove. Cocoa, cinnamon, a little vanilla. Nothing complicated.

I pour two mugs, and I put one in front of Julian knowing perfectly well he won’t drink it. He looks down at it, then at me.

“I know,” I say. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

He wraps both hands around the mug. That’s all. He doesn’t lift it. He just holds it. And suddenly I understand something I should have understood weeks ago.

The untouched plates. The full wine glasses. The soup he never tasted. The chowder he never tried. They weren’t rejections. They were company. Julian Volkov doesn’t eat, but he wants to be at the table, and these polite refusals are the price he’s willing to pay.

I put my own mug down, because my hands have stopped being trustworthy.

We end up in the front room. The chairs are pulled away from the windows, and the warmest place is the braided rug in front of the hearth, so I sit on the floor with my back against the sofa and my knees under a blanket.

Julian builds a fire with astonishing speed, then sits beside me. Not close, but not far either. His long legs stretch towards the fireplace, his cocoa cooling between his hands.

We’ve been alone before, but there was always a reason for it, something we were ostensibly doing. A book to discuss. A house to tour. A basket of pastry sitting between us like evidence.

Tonight there’s nothing.

No invitation. No errand. No next thing to do and no polite point at which one of us goes home. The roads are gone, the power is out, and the whole night has narrowed to this room. Julian and me and a mug of cocoa he won’t drink.

For once, I don’t have anyone to feed or anywhere else to be. And neither does he. There’s just Julian and me and a room full of candlelight.

“Tell me something,” he says.

“About what?”

“You.”

I glance over.

“You know a great deal about this town. Everyone in it. You make room for people before they ask you to.” His thumb moves once against the side of the mug. “I’ve wondered where you learned to do that.”

Nobody has ever asked me that. Not really. My eyes drift towards the kitchen doorway.

“That’s my grandmother’s table in there.”

Julian follows my gaze.

“Every important event in my life happened at that table. My parents got engaged at that table. Twice.”

His attention comes back to me.