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Her crimson eyes flicked up to mine in surprise before moving to take in the three coffees and bag.

“Oh!” she said with an awkward little laugh, seemingly at herself. “I thought… um...” She rubbed the back of her neck with embarrassment, chewing her lip.

“That I ditched?” I offered with a raised eyebrow. “As if. I do have, like, some sense, you know?”

Elsie sighed. “Yeah… I know. Sorry.”

“I thought maybe you’d like some coffee. And I burn toast, so… it was safer to find you something to eat instead of embarrassing myself with my lack of cooking skills,” I explained with a little shrug.

Rustling from the living room warned me that Kaylee was stirring.

“Oh!” Elsie said again. “That’s really thoughtful, actually.”

I grabbed the tray of coffees as Elsie kicked off her shoes again to move to take them from me. Our fingers grazed.

“I like you, Elsie,” I assured her, catching her forearm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank god,” Kaylee moaned from the couch. “I’d die without you. And that better be a cheese bagel I smell, Vi, or so help me god?—”

I pulled a foil-wrapped bagel from the bag and lobbed it at her head, mostly obscured by a blanket, her blonde hair sticking up all over the place. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

“Ow!” she protested as my glutenous projectile found its mark, thudding off her skull to drop onto the couch, but my focus was stolen as Elsie brushed against me on her way to the kitchen.

I trailed after her, ignoring Kaylee’s moans of pleasure and the sound of crinkling foil.

“Can we start over?” she asked. “I thought… I don’t know?—”

“I’d love to,” I murmured, brushing my front against her back and boxing her against the counter, my hands resting on the treated wood on either side of her hips. “Good morning, Elsie. Sleep well?”

“G-G-Good morning!” she stammered, turning her head to look at me over her shoulder.

“You didn’t think I was skipping out on you, did you?” I asked in a low voice that wouldn’t carry.

“I… Kind of, yeah.”

“Elsie, I meant what I said.” I pressed a soft kiss to her temple, arms wrapping around her to drag her closer against my chest. “I like you. Honestly.” I sighed. “If I didn’t have plans with Ren and Danny today, the only thing in your future would be a bath with me.”

She giggled, turning in my arms to press a kiss to my mouth, teasing my lips apart with the soft graze of her fangs. “Stupid baseball, never been a fan.”

“Even worse now?” I laughed.

“Much, much worse,” she confirmed. “Though, to be fair, I hate sports.” She made a face, eyes screwing up and lips slanting into a grimace that I gave in to the impulse to kiss away immediately. “But?—”

“Is there coffee to go with this?” Kaylee interrupted around a mouthful of bagel.

I glared at her openly, earning an overly self-satisfied smirk.

Someday, when she was trying to flirt with a cute blonde vampire in the kitchen, I was going to make her life absolute hell. Worse than hell.

“Buuuut, what?” I prompted.

“What kind of girlfriend would I be if I hogged all your time from your other girlfriend?” Elsie said, tugging me closer by the shirt as she leaned back against the counter, taking soft sips from my mouth that I returned with interest, chasing her lips as they trailed to my jaw.

“My girlfriend, are you?” I asked, my voice raspier than usual, heat snaking up the back of my neck with excitement.

Elsie pulled back enough to meet my eye, covering my lips with two fingers as she grinned. “I’vebeenyour girlfriend, Vi. You’re just too stubborn to say so.”

I nipped at her fingers playfully, thinking of Valentine's Day, before everything went to hell. Buying matching lingerie and screwing like desperate teenagers in a not-so-empty office was a hell of a first date, I’d have to give her that.