Page 72 of My Vampire Plus-One

TACOCATTUESDAY:how far did you push things??? Like what base

TACOCATTUESDAY:like did you ask to eat her out or smthg? right after kissing her for the first time? Because if so no wonder she’s spooked

REGINALD_THE_V:I mean, I didn’t ask to eat her out

REGINALD_THE_V:at least not technically

REGINALD_THE_V:More like…I proposed blood play. Sort of?

BRAYDENSMOM:OMG

TACOCATTUESDAY:DAMN SON

LYDIASGOALS:Listen I’m as invested in this as the rest of y’all but can we please move this convo to #off-topic?

REGINALD_THE_V:oooh yes sorry sorry, won’t happen again

Amelia

I spent another two hoursgoing down a vampire research rabbit hole. Most of what I found ranged from unhelpful to downright bizarre, but after devoting much of my career to researching niche Internal Revenue Code provisions, I was used to leaving no stone unturned.

Just when I’d finalized the questions I wanted Reggie to answer when we talked, I heard a very soft knock on my door.

I froze.

“Amelia?” Reggie’s voice was more tentative than I’d ever heard it. “It’s me.”

What did I do? I told Sophie I’d talk to him, but now that he was here, I was freaking out again. But then, could I really just pretend he wasn’t here until the snowplows came?

Probably not.

“Yeah?” My heart was racing. Could he sense that? Could hesmellit when my blood was pumping extra hard through my veins? I shuddered at the thought, even as the idea of it fascinated me.

“Can I come in?”

I thought of the vampire self-defense tricks I’d just read about online. I could probably break off one of the legs of my desk chair and use it as a wooden stake. I sucked at fighting, but if I really had to defend myself, I could probably do it.

I bit my lip and opened the door.

Reggie looked as though he’d spent the past two hours trying to pull his hair out by the roots. His expression turned hopeful when he saw my face, as though he hadn’t expected me to acknowledge his knock.

I thought back to Aunt Sue’s party, and his insistence that either she or Uncle Bill invite us in. And when we’d gotten to this house, it hadn’t been enough for me to open the front door for him. He’d needed my explicit permission before coming inside.

“You need an invitation before you can come in my bedroom,” I said. “Right?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I need express permission from an owner or primary occupant before entering someone’s home. Once I’m inside, though, I can go wherever I like. But I’d feel better about coming in if you give consent first.” He paused and looked at the floor. “I know you must be scared.”

My heart melted a little at his kind, patient tone, even as the idea that he’d have had to stand outside this house all night if I hadn’t invited him in sent a strange, powerful thrill through me. That swimmy, shifting-sands-beneath-my-feet feeling that I’d come to associate with conversations with him washed over me again.

When I didn’t say anything, he cleared his throat and tried again. “May I come in, please?”

A smart person would have said no. The person I was two weeks ago certainly would have. Then again, what was one more questionable decision, considering the sheer number of them I’d been making lately?

“You can come in,” I said.

He entered right away and looked between my bed and the desk chair. The only two places to sit in the room. After only a moment’s hesitation, he went for the chair. He sat forward in it, elbows on his knees. I remained standing, watching him as he stared down at his hands.

“One of the very few times in my life I thought I was beingcompletely honest with someone, and you thought I was playing a prank.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I suppose it’s only fitting, in a way. Given everything.Hades, I should have known you didn’t believe me when you took it so calmly. I just thought,well, she knows Frederick, she must already know that vampires are out there and not all of us are so bad.”