Page 124 of My Vampire Plus-One

Then he kissed me.

I’d seen movies that ended where the main couple kissed at someone else’s wedding. Mostly at Sophie’s behest. The swelling music, the romantic crescendo had always seemed overdone and cheesy. Here, though, with family I knew and people I didn’t flapping their arms and laughing all around us, kissing Reggie felt like the most perfect, romantic thing to have ever happened.

“Promise you will never leave me,” he said, a minute or an hour later. He’d told me recently that he didn’t technically need oxygen, but he was breathing hard all the same. “I told myself I wouldn’t ask anything of you that you weren’t willing to give, and I meant that. But here, at this wedding, with your cousin and herhusband promising to love each other forever, and your sister-in-law asking if we might be next…”

The music to the Chicken Dance ended. People were swaying where they stood as a waltz began playing. Reggie and I didn’t move, his arms still around me as my entire world tilted sharply on its axis.

“Reggie…” I began, then trailed off because I had no idea how to finish my thought.I need to think this throughandfalling for a vampire was never the plan I had for my lifewere locked in fierce battle in my mind withI always want to laugh as much as I do when I’m with youandI think I might be in love with youandyes, yes, yes.

When I didn’t reply, Reggie began fidgeting. “All I’ve been able to think about this whole time,” he said, “this entire day, is how I never want to let you go.”

“Me, too.” The words were out of my mouth before I could let my brain ruin this. “Me very too.”

He closed his eyes and pulled me close. Slowly, we began to sway in time with the swelling music. “Come home with me tonight,” he said. “We can figure out what ourforeverlooks like together.”

As I let him lead me through the steps of the dance, I knew there was nothing I wanted more.