Page 10 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Five

Two months earlier

While traveling, Peter only brought things he wouldn’t be able to easily find wherever he was going.

His preferred mouthwash always came with him, as did a few bags from a blood bank just in case. He loathed drinking from plastic bags, hating the depraved, desperate way it made him feel. Sometimes, though, on long, isolated assignments, he had no choice.

His journal always came with him, too, wherever he went.

It served two functions.

The first was to help him keep track of his jobs.

He was good at what he did, which meant his services were highly sought after.

Seventy years ago, he’d remembered everything without jotting any of it down, but he was no longer a young man.

Without a place to write down where and when he was supposed to be, Peter would never keep it all straight.

The journal’s second function was for his designs.

In a different lifetime he’d dreamed of becoming an architect.

While most of his human memories were distant and murky, he still remembered the pleasure he’d found designing birdhouses for his mother and innovative pens for his father’s animals.

He’d even designed the house he’d lived in when he’d come of age and moved out of his childhood home.

When time allowed and inspiration struck, he still enjoyed designing.

It wasn’t something he discussed. Who would he tell?

He had no close friends. It had been decades since a lover had stuck around long enough for him to confide in them.

Designing and building pretty things was the stuff of dreamers, of humans. Not of people like him.

He enjoyed making his sketches nonetheless. And imagining what might have been.

Peter walked into the Walnut Room at six the following evening for my post-work Fit Flow.

“You came,” I said, surprised.

He shrugged. “I said I would.”

He’d traded his black T-shirt and jeans for one of the muscle shirts we sold in the lobby and a pair of tight-fitting running shorts that did incredible things for his thighs. His eyes were clear, and he seemed much more relaxed than when he’d shown up unexpectedly the other night.

That meant he’d eaten recently. Good. That meant he’d be less tempted to snack on another student during Savasana.

“This isn’t a beginner class,” I warned as he unrolled one of the studio’s loaner mats. Peter was the last student to arrive, so he was forced to take the only remaining spot in the room. Right up front by me.

Once he was situated, he stood again, facing me. Walnut was our smallest room, and there were a dozen other people in there with us, so less than a foot separated us. Up close like this, I was reminded again of just how tall he was.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s not a beginner class,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

Fit Flow’s after-work time slot made it popular among the millennial crowd.

With his Yoga Magic workout gear, Peter looked like he fit right in with the thirtysomethings taking the class with him.

None of the other students had vampire teeth, though.

They also didn’t stand on their mats with the grim-faced determination one might see on the front lines of battle the way he did.

“Finally, some good fucking food,” Sarah Cheng murmured sotto voce to Sarah Anderson, the woman beside her. They were both positioned directly behind Peter and staring directly at his butt.

“Do I need to separate you two?” Hands on my hips, I channeled my best disappointed teacher and stared them down. To the extent this class had troublemakers, the Sarahs, as their friends called them, were it.

“We’ll be good,” Sarah said, giggling.

“Promise,” Sarah agreed.

If Peter noticed any of this, he showed no sign of it. All his attention was on trying to force his legs into crisscross applesauce, the way everyone else in the room was sitting.

It wasn’t going well.

In the years since becoming a yogi, I’d learned that some people with athletic builds struggled with flexibility. Yoga could be humbling and frustrating for people who were generally used to their bodies doing what they told them to.

“You can stand up for now,” I said to Peter as the other students situated themselves. “No need to hurt yourself just yet.”

Peter shot me a relieved glance. “Thanks,” he said. Wincing, he untucked his legs and stood up. “People actually find that relaxing?”

I smiled at the disbelief I heard in his voice. “Yes. Though it takes some people a while to get there.”

“Hmm.” Peter grabbed his right ankle and pulled it behind him, stretching his quad. I had to look away from the flex and bunch of his thigh muscles as he moved or else risk becoming as shameless as the Sarahs. “I might be one of the slower studies.”

“It’s not a race,” I said. “Yoga is a personal journey, one involving only your body and your mind. There’s no right way to do yoga, no one-size-fits-all.” I smiled. “However long it takes you to work your way into these poses is the correct length of time.”

“Hmm,” he said again. His skepticism wasn’t uncommon among new students.

Particularly those who were coming to the practice of yoga from a lifetime of fitness.

Based on his muscular build, I suspected Peter fit into that category.

Given that he was a vampire, he’d likely fit into that category for a very long time.

As it turned out, he had little difficulty with poses requiring strength, like Warrior II.

Poses that required flexibility or balance, though, were a struggle.

To his credit, he didn’t give up. He followed my instructions as best he could with gritted teeth and a tenacity that made me wonder, again, what his life had been like prior to meeting me.

In the end, it was the Tree Pose that broke him.

“ Shit! ” he shouted as he toppled over and landed in a heap on his mat.

“Do you need help?” I asked, going to him.

He’d placed his right foot too high on his left leg for someone new to this.

Falling out of the pose had been a foregone conclusion.

But I believed in a student-directed yoga practice.

I would never insert myself into a situation where my guidance was not wanted.

“No,” he muttered darkly. “I’ve got it.”

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing at his obstinacy. “Try putting the ball of your foot at your ankle rather than above your knee,” I suggested. “Like a kickstand.”

He glared at me as if I were the reason he was struggling with his balance. Then he ignored my instructions, placed his right foot above his left knee again, and toppled over a second time.

“Here,” I said, biting my lip. “Let me.”

I pulled him to his feet, then knelt on his mat before him. He stood ramrod straight as I placed my hand on the cool flesh of his lower calf then slid it down until it rested lightly on his ankle. His muscles tensed beneath my palm, and a slight tremor went through him.

I looked up to find him gazing down at me with an expression that nearly set me on fire. Too late, I realized just how suggestive this position—me kneeling at his feet, touching his bare legs—would be in any other context.

I forced myself to look at my hands, reminding myself that I was a professional.

“Now what?” Peter asked, voice strained.

I swallowed. “Relax,” I instructed.

He let out a huff of frustration. “I am relaxed.”

“If you were any more tense, you’d combust,” I quipped. “ Relax. And put the ball of your right foot here.” I gave his ankle a gentle tap for good measure.

“Everyone else in this class has their foot above their knee.”

“They’ve been practicing yoga for years,” I explained. “Ignore them. This is between you and your body and your mind. No one else’s.” When he let out a huff of frustration, I added, “This isn’t a competition.”

“Everything is a competition.”

I thought he was joking until I saw the firm set of his jaw and the way he glared at his legs like they’d murdered his dog.

“I don’t know if letting go of that mindset will bring back what you’re looking for,” I said quietly, so the other students wouldn’t hear. “But it can’t hurt.”

His jaw worked. “Fine.”

Following my advice, he managed to hold the pose for a full thirty seconds. But during Savasana at the end of class, I had never seen anyone less able to lie still for five minutes than he was.

After class ended, Peter hung back to talk to me as the others filed out of the room. “I’d like to come back tomorrow.”

I hesitated. While he’d shown remarkable restraint during class, and while I hated the idea of gatekeeping yoga, continuing to expose my students to a vampire felt like a bad idea.

“You sure?” I asked. “It didn’t seem like you enjoyed this at all.”

“I’m sure,” he confirmed. “I…get antsy when I have nothing to do. It’s part of why I came today.

Why I want to come back tomorrow.” He leaned in close enough for me to count the flecks of hazel in his dark eyes.

The others were gone now, leaving us very much alone.

“I must have been someone who kept very busy before.”

Based on what little I’d observed of him so far, Peter’s need to keep busy didn’t surprise me. But yoga would only fill so much of his time.

“Have you thought of finding a job?” I suggested.

He shook his head. “I don’t need money.”

“I know,” I said, thinking of all that cash he’d shown me. “But a job would give your days structure.” An idea hit me. “The gluten-free vegan bakery downtown is looking for someone to join their early shift.”

He stared at me. “I’m a vampire.”

“So?”

“So,” he continued, “I know nothing about food meant for human consumption.” He paused. “Well. Except for Diet Coke.”

That caught me off guard. “Diet Coke?”

“After I woke up with amnesia but before I understood my dietary limitations, I did some experimenting.” He grimaced. “Most of it went terribly. Diet Coke was different. It…gets me drunk.”