Page 15 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Eight

Two months earlier

Peter hated flying.

It was a necessary evil, of course. His job required travel, and while Peter could repair any car, could even rebuild one from the ground up if necessary, he hadn’t driven in decades. He doubted he was even safe behind the wheel anymore.

But being in a confined airplane cabin with more than a hundred other humans for any length of time tested the limits of his self-restraint.

He’d had a snack before boarding, hoping it would help.

But his flight had begun boarding just as he’d gotten started on that young woman with brunette hair and O-positive blood who’d been too preoccupied with scrolling social media to notice the apex predator lurking behind her.

Now that his plane had taken off, Peter was hyperaware of how many people were on this flight, how cramped he was in his too-small seat.

The close, rich scent of blood pumping through the veins of every person on this airplane was a forbidden torment.

He tried to distract himself with the in-flight entertainment, but he’d never much enjoyed sitcoms from the 1990s.

He closed his eyes. Only three more hours until he landed.

He really ought to relearn how to drive a car.

Peter was sitting on the wooden bench behind the studio once Lindsay and Becky were finished with me, his duffel bag on the ground by his feet.

“You could have waited in the car,” I said.

He looked at me. “I thought it would be more polite to wait for you.”

An awkward silence fell between us as we stared at each other. Suddenly, the realization that I’d be traveling alone with an attractive vampire I barely knew hit me with the force of a hurricane. Aside from establishing logistics, we’d barely spoken since agreeing to travel together.

Not that we’d spoken much before then, either.

This was about to be the most uncomfortable two weeks of my life.

“Let’s play Two Truths and a Lie,” I blurted before I could think better of it. If that silly game had worked as an icebreaker at that awful party in Luxembourg back in 1922, it could work here.

He frowned in a way that I was coming to realize signaled his total confusion. “What is Two Truths and a Lie?”

“It’s a game,” I explained. “I tell you three things about myself. Two will be true; one will be a lie. You try to guess what the lie is. After I’ve gone, it’ll be your turn.”

His frown deepened. “Why are we doing this?”

I sat on the bench beside him. The bench was small, and our thighs nearly touched. I forced myself to ignore that. “It’s an icebreaker.”

“A what?”

“A way to get to know each other a little better before we’re traveling together all day, every day, for a while.”

“An icebreaker,” he repeated.

“Exactly.” When he didn’t respond and simply continued staring at me in confusion, I said, “I’ll go first. One: I love romance novels.

Two: I’ve known I was a witch since I was five years old.

And three”—I paused for dramatic effect before I trotted out my lie—“I was once a backup dancer for Beyoncé.”

His mouth twitched in amusement. Good. My brilliant idea that I’d only just come up with thirty seconds ago was working.

“I don’t know who Beyoncé is,” he said, “but I do know you have never been a dancer.”

That surprised me. Not the part where he didn’t know who Beyoncé was—vampires, even those who didn’t suffer from amnesia, tended to be oblivious about pop culture—but rather the certainty with which he knew I’d never danced.

“How did you know that?” I probably shouldn’t have already confirmed that he’d guessed correctly, but I was too curious to remember we were playing a game.

A one-shouldered shrug. “It’s obvious,” he said.

He pointed first at my feet, then to the leg separated from his by less than an inch of wooden bench.

“Your feet, while not objectively large, are disproportionately long relative to the length of your legs. They’re also comparatively narrow, which wouldn’t necessarily prevent you from being an accomplished yogi but would likely make you somewhat clumsy when you walk.

You are likely prone to tripping and such. ”

It was by far the longest speech I’d ever heard him give. Too bad the words made me want to disinvite him from this trip.

“You are right. I’ve never been a dancer,” I muttered. “But you don’t have to insult me.”

His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “I didn’t insult you.”

“You said my feet are weird and my legs are short.”

“I never said your feet were weird,” Peter said, his forehead creasing in confusion. “And your legs are short. But there’s nothing wrong with them. Nothing at all. In fact, I think your legs are—”

He’d clearly been about to say more, but snapped his mouth shut before he could. He shook his head and cleared his throat. I could sense he wanted to change the subject as much as I did. “Er. Shall we go?”

He hadn’t told me his two truths and a lie, but I was no longer in the mood for games.

“Sounds good to me,” I said. I walked over to my car, a classic old convertible I’d picked up when I left Chicago and came here.

I didn’t drive much and couldn’t remember the last time I’d put gas in the tank.

Hopefully it had enough to get us off the coast and into Central California, where gas would be cheaper.

I opened the driver’s-side door and slid inside.

When we’d discussed logistics, we’d agreed I’d handle driving during the day, and he’d take the night shifts.

Different vampires had different levels of tolerance for the sun and daylight generally, and Peter’s was on the lowish end of the spectrum.

We’d probably need to drive with the top up most of the way.

As I rummaged in my purse for my car keys, Peter slowly circled my car with an appraising eye. He took in every detail, from the hood to the taillights to the side paneling. “Fascinating,” he murmured, running a finger along the passenger-side door.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Only what I said.” His eyes were still on the car, not me. “Does it require a lot of maintenance?”

I bristled at the insinuation that my car was unsafe. “I know it looks old, but I’ve never had any problems with it.”

“Not worried,” he assured me. “It’s just that I think…I think I know how to fix this kind of car.” He looked at me, recognition dawning. “In fact, I know I know how to fix this kind of car.”

I was so surprised by this that I forgot I was annoyed with him. “Really?”

Instead of answering me, he opened the passenger-side door and slid into the too-small seat.

The last person to ride shotgun had been Becky, who was easily a foot shorter than Peter.

He fumbled awkwardly beneath his seat, then manually moved it back enough to accommodate his long legs.

In hindsight, I probably should have disclosed how small my car was before inviting him to ride with me—but if he was irritated by this lack of disclosure, he said nothing.

I turned the key in the ignition—and with that, our adventure had officially begun.

“What do you like to listen to?” I asked, fishing one-handed in my purse for my phone.

Hopefully Peter wasn’t into podcasts. While I knew on some level that there were podcasts worth listening to, I’d met way too many douchebags who thought having a podcast was a sufficient substitute for having a personality.

It was enough for me to swear off them altogether.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have strong feelings about the music I hear now, so I suspect I’ve never cared much about music.”

“If I had a road trip playlist, I’d put that on,” I mused. “But I haven’t been on a road trip since before Spotify existed, so I don’t.” I thought a moment. “Can I put on my cleaning playlist?”

Peter looked puzzled. “Are we about to do some cleaning?”

“Of course not,” I said. “But my cleaning playlist is upbeat. It’ll help keep me focused while I’m driving.”

He shrugged. “Listen to whatever you like. You’re the one driving.”

I pulled up my cleaning playlist. Wannabe from the Spice Girls started playing immediately. I grinned, thinking back to all the times I’d danced on tables to this song when it had originally come out.

“ I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want ,” I crooned. The first traffic light we came to turned green, and I pressed the gas pedal with a little more force than was strictly necessary as we sped off through the intersection.

“ This is what you listen to?” Peter asked, dismayed.

“What’s wrong with the Spice Girls?”

“Is that a serious question?”

I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’re a music snob? I can’t believe it.”

He pointed an accusatory finger at my phone by way of answer, then made to grab it. “How do I make it stop?”

I swatted his hand away. “It’s rude to touch another person’s cell phone without their permission.”

“You made that up.”

“I didn’t,” I lied. “What happened to me getting to pick the music because I’m driving?”

“That was before I knew how bad your taste in music was.”

Honestly. “When it’s your turn to drive, you can listen to whatever you want. For now, though, Mr.Music Snob…”

I trailed off and let Mel C and the other Spice Girls tell us what it was they really, really wanted.

Peter folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes on a melodramatic groan. “I may want it to be my turn to drive sooner than we’d planned.”

We drove for a while without speaking, the only sounds coming from my upbeat playlist and the hum of the engine.

We were making excellent time, and it took less than an hour for the beautiful coastal California scenery to morph into the flatter, less visually impressive fields and suburbs of the Central Valley.