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They made their way home, and he didn’t take his eyes off her for even a second.
***
Chapter 27 - Nick
Nick headed home. If Brett decided to show himself, the first place he would go was back to the house.
Probably. Nick sighed, knowing exactly how unlikely that was, but something caught his attention - the lights were on. Nick’s eyes widened, but after a moment, he noticed the car in the driveway.
His father’s car.
It wasn’t Brett, it was Henry, but Nick hurried up to the front door. He needed answers, he needed help, and Henry could give him both.
And Nick needed to warn him about the danger he was in.
Nick opened the front door, and he heard Henry in the kitchen. Pots and pans clanging against the counter, boiling water hissing, music playing from the speaker beside the window, and the scent of overpowering garlic filling the house.
Henry was making dinner.
“Nick? Is that you?” His voice came from the open doorway. “You hungry?”
Nick hesitated in the hallway. He’d been here a thousand times, coming home to his father, but this time, it was different. He couldn’t shake it off. Everything was different now. Everything had changed. Anxiety twisted through his stomach, and he felt the void lines rising to meet his emotions.
“Nick? There you are. What are you doing?”
Nick blinked and realised Henry was standing in the kitchen doorway.
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” Nick said, and he glanced down at his hands. His skin was clear. “I’m fine.”
“If you say so.”
Henry went back into the kitchen, and after a second, Nick followed him. Henry was chopping vegetables, and Nick could almost pretend that everything was back to normal.
“You should close the kitchen door,” Nick said, taking off his jacket. “The house will smell like garlic for hours.”
Henry laughed. “It’s fine. Who doesn’t like garlic?”
“Vampires, probably,” Nick muttered.
“Vampires?” Henry asked.
“Yeah,” Nick said, and he slowly sat down. “If vampires were real, they’d hate garlic, right?”
That would annoy Brett. He loved garlic, almost as much as Henry.
“I doubt it,” Henry said. He reached over to skip the current song, and he nodded to himself when the next song started. “Great voice.”
“Yeah, she’s good,” Nick said absently. “Why do you doubt it? Vampires hate garlic. That’s a whole myth, isn’t it? Maybe it’s true.”
Henry hummed along to the song for a minute while he stirred. “Probably not. Garlic’s a natural anticoagulant. Blood thinner,” he added, already anticipating Nick’s follow-up question. “It has a lot of other health benefits, too, but if I was a vampire, I’d want blood to be thinner, right?”
“You would?”
“Sure. It’s easier to drink. Flows faster.”
“So, what, you think vampires started the rumour about garlic so people would eat more of it? Trick people into thinking it will protect them, but actually it doesn’t?”
