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“Mmhmm, yes.” The mother responded, adding a bounce to her rocking that made her toddler’s pigtails flap. “Did you have a good day?” Her words came out bouncy from all the movement and were slightly slurred together—probably due to general exhaustion.

“Sorry, what was that?” my neighbor asked, not having the bonus of vampire hearing.

“Did you have a good day?” the mother repeated, her words a little stiff as her daughter patted her cheeks and giggled.

My chirpy neighbor seemed to shrink in on herself with the manner I’d normally associate with defeat. “Sorry, could you say that one more time?”

The toddler dropped a stuffed giraffe she’d been holding.

The mother started to bend her knees and my neighbor practically threw herself to the ground first so she could pick up the toy.

“Oh, thank you. Did you have a good day?” The mother repeated one last time, her voice quiet.

My neighbor, still crouched on the ground and holding the stuffed animal, stared wide eyed at the ground. “Ahh, hahahah,” she laughed—still, obviously, unable to hear the woman’s mumbled question.

I was in the process of slipping past the duo with the hope of avoiding attention—human niceties were almost as bad as vampire basic conversation—but I paused in the middle of the hallway in my confusion.

My neighbor turned red, so her freckles looked more like a blanket than a dusting and was still white knuckled, while the mother appeared slightly puzzled with the look of grizzled acceptance that frequently accompanied the perpetually exhausted.

I don’t understand. This is the same neighbor who greeted me with a frightening amount of perkiness despite knowing I was a vampire. What could she possibly find so frightening about an exhausted mother?

The mother glanced at me, and I could tell the moment my vampire pheromones—as much as I held them in check—brushed her because her eyes brightened and she watched me with a curiosity that I knew could turn into obsession.

As good as my control was over my powers, vampires were designed to draw humans—our prey and food source—in. It made it difficult to avoid being fawned over, which is why I typically moved quickly with the intention of avoiding notice.

My neighbor, still squatting on the ground, was apparently oblivious to vampire wiles. She steeled her shoulders as she stood up holding out the toy for the toddler, who took it with a giggle. “Would you like to come over for a cup of coffee—or tea?” My neighbor blurted out in a rush of words I could barely understand.

The mother smiled. “Thank you, but I’ll need to pass this time. I’m on my way out—Mia has play circle soon.”

My neighbor visibly wilted. “Oh. Um, well, h-have fun!”

“We will. Have a great day.” Since the toddler-toting woman lacked free appendages, she smiled at my next door neighbor, then started down the hallway pausing in front of the elevator. With no free hands, the woman was forced to balance on one leg and press the elevator call button with her knee.

My neighbor stared at her feet, a visible war flickering across her face. She didn’t notice the other woman’s struggle until the elevator dinged and opened, and the human mother and child got inside. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I should have—and she’s gone.” My neighbor heaved a deep sigh that made her entire body slump after the elevator doors shut.

Humans are odd, I concluded before crossing the remaining distance to my apartment.

“Oh, hey, Connor,” my neighbor said, her voice loose and relaxed—a stark difference from the uptight anxiety I’d witnessed just seconds ago.

So very odd.I slipped my keyring out of my pocket. “Good afternoon,” I said.

My neighbor leaned against the wall. “Did you have a good morning?” she asked—I’d say it was a predictable human greeting, but it still struck me as weird that she was so relaxed with avampireand treated her fellow human with fright.

I stuck my key in the lock—I had to be careful not to turn it too hard or I’d snap the key off in the lock. “It was productive. Tell me, do you find children terrifying?”

My neighbor had been in the process of taking a swig of her questionable swill, then she lowered the cup and confusion wrinkled her forehead. “What?”

“You looked as though you thought that woman or her child might eat you.”

She drooped. “Really? It was that bad?” She groaned and tilted her head back so it rested against the wall. “I’ve been working so hard—I thought I was getting better?”

“Better?”

She looked up and down the hallway as if she was about to reveal to me some great secret. “I’m bad in social situations,” she said. “I get so nervous. Small talk is terrifying to me.”

She was scared of…talking?

“It seems vampires and humans have differing definitions of small talk,” I said. “As I was under the impression that’s what we’re doing.”