Page 7 of Moonlight Hearts

He stacked the ice cream tubs one atop the other.“Did you want that?”

I did.The world down there had been magical, even if I’d only seen a sliver of it, and even if it hadn’t been the best of experiences.But there were people down there, supernaturals, that I’d never known existed.And Soyer, in his way, was offering to take me.

I crossed my arms.“Is that your apology for making me not work?”

He snorted.“Didn’t realize making you take a vacation was something I needed to apologize for, but sure.Trip to the underground for some time off.Lorenzo?We need some spoons for these.”

Chapter Three

Soyerwasextremelydevious.I realized this when we’d opened our ice cream and stepped onto the long, long escalator down.

“You want some of mine?”I asked when he frowned at his.

“That depends.Will you feed me?”

The cherry ice cream was a perfect swirl of dark, purplish red.I scooped some out with one of the wooden spoons the young Lorenzo had given us, holding it up to Soyer.“Open wide.”

He did, watching me intently as I fed him.“Hmm.Delicious.”

I narrowed my eyes.“You totally knew I was going to get the cherry.Because you wanted the cherry.”

“That’s some mental gymnastics, Amory.Why would I do such a thing?Can I have some more, please?”

And Soyer, my Soyer, enjoyed that, his mouth open, his eyes twinkling with humor as he waited to be fed his favorite ice cream flavor.

“It’s because you didn’t get your cherry pie.”I fed him another spoonful.“Can I try the roasted hazelnut though?”

“Yeah, but you’re right.I had a thought about the cherry pie too.”

“What thought?”

He shrugged.“I’ll tell you later.Maybe after looking into the ice cream parlor.”

He scooped some of the cherry while I was trying his roasted hazelnut, which was really good.

“That was a joke.You can’t—hey, can vampires eat ice cream?”

Soyer was one step above me, which meant he had a great angle to look down at me, very much unimpressed.“Oh, I see.You’re making me buy a business for you and Elias so you two can hang out even more.Is that what you’re planning to do with all this free time I just forced on you?Spend it with other people?”

I frowned.“Elias isn’t other people.He’s a friend.And he keeps texting about me coming to his studio and getting photos done.For the website?The website I don’t need but that he apparently built for me.”

“Greedy little fucker.”

“Ssh!Soyer, don’t say that.Elias isn’t like that at all.He built a whole website for me.”

Soyer groaned.“He’s exactly like that, and you are clearly powerless to resist him.To answer your question, vampires’re probably fine with sherbet, but it’s not like I’ve ever considered their dietary preferences.Don’t see much point in feeding them.They might be like strays and come back for more.”

“Right, sherbet is just frozen fruit juice.Also, Elias definitely isn’t a stray.If he were a dog, I think he’d be some prized fluffy one—one of the small white ones that go to shows.”

“Like a Maltese.”He nodded.“Mouthy little fuckers, those.I can see the resemblance.”

“Don’t be mean.I can’t share my ice cream with you if you’re mean.”

Soyer raised an eyebrow at me just as the escalator ended, leading us to the next one.The ice cream had distracted me from looking at all the framed ads and colorful artwork surrounding our descent, but that was fine.I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be the last time we came here.This was… It was still foreign to me, but it was more part of my world now than it had been before.

I tilted my head up to look at Soyer.“So, Lorenzo…didn’t die?He’s okay?”

He licked his spoon clean.“You saw.He looked pretty okay, didn’t he?”