Page 49 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

My hands stop. Forty years. I am thirty-two.

“That’s an unsettling thing to say.”

“Is it?”

“Extremely.”

He glances at me. Then, very deliberately, he picks up the crate again.

“How long seems long to you?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“Penny.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No.”

I wait, but he doesn’t give me anything else. I let him have it. Restraint is a muscle, and mine is finally getting some use. But I make a note of it anyway.

By nine it’s just the two of us and the radio. The garlic is roasted and shut away in the walk-in. I did that an hour ago without discussing it, and Julian has not thanked me for it out loud. Outside, the harbor has gone completely black. Somewhere down the row, a halyard knocks against a mast every four seconds.

I’m piping a hundred and ten small cheese things when Julian comes up behind me.

“Excuse me.”

He reaches past my shoulder for the mixing bowl on the shelf above my head. His chest doesn’t quite touch my back. I stop piping. Not because this is new. That’s the problem.

I know what his mouth feels like now. I know what his hands feel like at my waist. I know exactly how little distance there is between Julian standing behind me and Julian kissing me.

He takes down the bowl, and I turn around. He’s still there. Close. Very close.

“You could have asked me to move.”

“I could have.”

“You didn’t.”

“No.”

I set the piping bag down, and his eyes follow the movement before they come back to me. I smile up at him.

“This is usually the part where you kiss me.”

“You’re working,” he says, but he doesn’t move away.

“I was working.”

“There are a hundred and ten⁠—”

“A hundred and four.”

His gaze drops briefly to my mouth. “—unfinished things on that counter.”

“They’ll wait.”

“I am beginning to suspect you are a bad influence on yourself.”

“Probably.”