Page 46 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“I didn’t ask.”

“Your face did.”

“My face asked several questions. That’s only one of them.”

“We’re kissing. That’s where we are.”

“Repeatedly?”

I put my face back in my hands.

“Excellent,” Lucy says.

“Can we talk about literally anything else?”

“Absolutely not.”

Julian and I have kept kissing. This feels worth mentioning. Not constantly. We are adults with jobs and responsibilities and a town that considers privacy an interesting theoretical concept.

But he kisses me when he walks me home. I kiss him in the loading doorway at the Salt & Sage. Once, while I’m putting away sheet pans, he comes up behind me and I turn around and kiss him simply because I can. I am becoming extremely fond of being able to do that.

We don’t go any further. Not because I don’t want to. That is very definitely not the problem. There’s simply never been a moment when not tonight has become tonight, and neither of us seems inclined to manufacture one just to get there faster.

In the meantime, Julian starts showing up. Not for dinner. Not because I’ve invited him. Not because Black Harbor has been partially dismantled by weather. He just comes to the Salt & Sage.

The first time is Monday at five. There is no event on Monday, no delivery he needs to make, no elderly resident in need of rescue and no known structural emergency. I’m alone in the kitchen breaking down eleven chickens when the loading door opens and Julian walks in with a book.

“Good afternoon.”

I look at him.

“Hi.”

“Are you busy?”

I look down at the chicken. Then at the other ten chickens.

“Not remotely.”

“Good.”

He takes off his coat, hangs it on the hook by the door, takes the stool at the end of my prep counter, opens his book and starts reading. So that’s what we’re doing.

I go back to the chicken, but the stool is a problem. I want to be honest about the stool. It’s an ordinary bar stool that has held ordinary men for nine years, and when Julian Volkov sits on it he makes it look like a throne.

I break down eleven chickens facing away from him, the back of my neck aware of him the entire time. Eventually I turn around, and he’s looking at me.

“You’re supposed to be reading.”

“I was.”

“Were you?”

“Mostly.”

I wipe my hands and walk over to him. His book closes around one finger.

“Hi,” I say again.