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Heroes smells like lemon oil and Windex. Everything smells just a little too clean, like someone tried to erase something messy.

Tuesdays are the bar’s ghost days. No live music rattling the windows. No trivia crowds shouting over pitchers of beers. Just the intermittent buzz of flickering neon lights and murmured conversations that die before they reach the ceiling.

Then the door sighs opens and she walks in.

My heart forgets how to beat.

She’s wearing dark jeans, boots, a fitted jacket. Hair pulled back, sharp and elegant. Her face is unreadable, but her eyes look… cautious.

Like she’s testing the air .

She takes her usual seat at the bar. It’s been a week since I’ve seen her and ten days since we chatted online. Hell, if you ask me.

Tonight, no words pass between us. My hands move on muscle memory: uncork, pour, slide. The wine glass whispers across polished oak.

She doesn’t thank me; doesn’t need to.

Her fingers wrap around the glass like she’s steadying herself.

I watch her without watching her.

Every flicker of her lashes and every small sigh is carved into my memory like scripture.

I know she hasn’t signed on in days. But she’s here now.

Real. Breathing. Well, I think she’s breathing.

I know vampires don’t need to breathe. Real vampires, that is.

And she is a real vampire. I’m sure of it.

I can’t speak to her, not like I do when I’m Fang950. I can’t break the fragile boundary of our two worlds. In this one, I’m just a quiet, unassuming bartender.

Still, I wonder what she’s thinking.

And if she misses our chats.

If she suspects that I miss them.

I step back to clean a glass that doesn’t need cleaning, just to keep my hands from doing something reckless. Like reaching out for her hand.

She stays for half an hour.

Drinks half her wine.

Then leaves a ten-dollar bill and disappears into the night.

Not a word spoken.

But it’s the loudest night of my life.