Page 27 of Fall into Place

“Do you want to eat?” Nantale touched Callum’s arm gently. “We’ve missed you at Sunday dinner. You’d be welcome company.”

“Think I’ll pass.” Callum eyed the rest of the vampires at the table, who’d mostly returned to their own conversations. Then he leaned down to murmur directly into Tess’s ear. “If I find out you’re lying about my sister, I’ll be eating well soon enough.”

Chapter 6

#TeamFelix vs. #TeamCallum: One Reporter Investigates

by Sonia Kramer, posted on vanityfair.com

If one wishes to understand the intricacies of the most heated vampire controversy of our times, one need only look at the fan cams.

On TikTok, they number in the thousands, with view counts in the millions. Video after video with titles like “POV: Your summer romance with Felix,” and “Toxic, chaotic, tantalizing Callum.” They refer, of course, to the two main love interests in the Blood Feud series by August Lirio: Felix Hawthorn, the gallant romantic hero, and Callum Yoo, the devastatingly attractive bad boy. Both teams offer photo montages and video clips set over romantic music, but the tone and timbre could hardly be more different.

On #TeamFelix, the colors are soft and the music is dreamy. Fans imagine Felix taking them for a post-sunset picnic (not pre-, lest the object of their desire burst into flames and perish), a moonlit swim, a ride on horseback under the stars. They wear flowing gowns and flower crowns, and Felix gently grazes his fingers against their cheeks. In the videos, Felix is usually portrayed by male models with Raphaelite features—Timothée Chalamet has featured prominently since news broke that he’ll be playing the character onscreen. Felix fans are self-designated “soft girls,” and they long for a man as sweetly sensitive as they are.

The Callum girlies, not so much.

The #TeamCallum cams are grittier stuff, underscored with aching rock music, set in dark alleyways and moody hotels, featuring players clad in mesh and leather. There’s no need for an itinerary of romantic activities in these cams; one gets the sense that there’s really only one activity on the menu, and all it requires is a bed (or a chair, or a desk, or a wall).

An easy way to summarize the teams would be to say that #TeamFelix wants to be loved, while #TeamCallum wants to get fucked. But this reporter thinks there’s something slightly more interesting at play: #TeamFelix wants permission to experience every emotion in the world. But #TeamCallum? They don’t want to feel anything at all—except ecstasy. But hey, doesn’t everyone want to feel that?

Transcript of unheard voicemails from the inbox of Tess Rosenbloom

Voicemail from Joni Chaudhari [August 11, 11:24 a.m.]: Hey, it’s me. I figured you wouldn’t pick up, and I guess you’re never gonna respond to my texts, so I’m just trying this because…I don’t know! Because you showed up at my birthday party after not seeing you for three years, and then just ghosted again? Why did you come at all? And why won’t you tell me what’s going on? I hate this, Tess. I can’t believe you’re doing this again. Please just call me, okay?

Voicemail from Mika Cox [August 11, 9:41 p.m.]: Hey, hope you’re feeling better! I’m calling because Taylor said you haven’t been answering your texts—I covered for you, but do you know when you’ll be back? Not that I think they’d really fire you or anything, but like, you know, probably a good idea to keep in touch? Hope you’re doing okay, babe!!

As a rule, Octavia Yoo did not care for human men. She detested their natural stench almost as much as the noxious products they used to mask it (she felt so-called body sprays ought to be banned as an act of law or god, whichever went higher), she found their opinions on politics and literature to be reductive and dull, and their utter lack of emotional awareness (and tendency to turn to acts of violence rather than identify one feeling) was tedious in the extreme. Octavia had always avoided men whenever possible—unless she needed something from them. Which was the only reason, at this particularly strange and lonely moment of her life, Octavia’s favorite person in the world was a human man named Nicky Galanis.

Nicky was a night watchman at Bergdorf Goodman, and he gave Octavia everything she needed.

The problem with having lost her powers in the dead of summer was that the sun set too late for Octavia to visit most of her favorite stores. On the rare occasion that she could make it in somewhere by eight, the places were usually pretty empty, making it much more difficult to slip into a fitting room and steal anything she fancied—a process she disliked in the best of circumstances. Octavia had hoped Tess would be back with Callum within a few hours of having gone into Bar Between, but it had been an entire day, and Octavia was getting restless. What was she supposed to do, hole up in that hotel forever? Repeat outfits? Certainly not!

So Octavia went to Bergdorf’s just after sunset and watched who came and went. When she saw Nicky, middle-aged and pudgy with a kind face and a hip flask, she knew she’d struck gold. She sold him some sob story about having lost her grandmother’s necklace in the fitting room a couple of hours earlier, and he let her right in to try to find it.

“Oh, sir—what was your name?” Octavia asked, smiling through her tears.

“It’s Nicky, Nicky Galanis.” He doffed his little night watchman cap like a character in a Frank Capra movie. His face was flushed and he smelled like cinnamon and rye—as far as male scents went, not bad at all.

“Thank you, Nicky.” Octavia took his hands. “You have no idea what this means to me—oh, I could just kiss you!”

And then, without waiting for any sort of a response, she leaned down and did exactly that. It wasn’t a fast kiss, either; Octavia had seduced thousands of lovers, and she knew exactly how to make someone’s knees weak. When she felt Nicky go woozy beneath her touch, she moved to his neck and sunk her fangs into his flesh.

It wasn’t the best blood she’d tasted—it didn’t even come close—but after a decade of animal blood, the warm stuff in Nicky’s veins might as well have been the steak omakase at COTE. Octavia drank deeply, indulgently, until Nicky lost consciousness. She didn’t want to kill him; he’d wake up later with a bit of a headache and probably think he drank too much, maybe wonder if Octavia had been real at all, convince himself the wound on his neck was a spider bite. By then, she’d be long gone, and the empty shopping bags she’d brought with her would be filled with dozens of gorgeous new outfits—enough to last at least a week, maybe even two? Surely Tess would be back by then. How long could it possibly take to deliver one simple message?

“I just can’t figure it out. It doesn’t make any sense!”

Joni was pacing her living room, which still bore some scars of the previous night’s party—a cigarette burn here, a sticky patch there—but was mostly back to normal.

“No, this doesn’t make any sense.” Nasser flopped back onto the couch and gestured toward Joni’s outfit. He looked fabulous in a purple silk caftan; she was still in her cutoffs and a threadbare Columbia tee she often slept in. “The concert starts at midnight, it’s after eleven, and you look like you got in a fight with your closet and lost.”

“I can’t dress up twice in one weekend, it’s against dyke code,” Joni grumbled. “Give me some of that.”

Nasser handed over his joint, and Joni inhaled deeply.

“Okay,” she said, trying to let the pot open her mind, to invite new possibilities she hadn’t yet considered. “Let’s think this through. Why would Tess come to my party?”

“Because she loves you, stupid,” Nasser replied, his voice thin as he held in a hit of his own.