Page 17 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

“You still keep Band-Aids in your back pocket?” Brennan asked.

Cole was bracing himself, pinching his forefinger with his other hand, a smudge of blood on his fingertips. And Brennan never thought he’d be into fingers, or blood, but there he was, wanting to lick them clean.

“Um, yep. Yeah, I do,” Cole said, eyeing Brennan like he still wasn’t convinced Brennan wasn’t going to eat him.

Fuck, Brennan wasn’t convinced himself. Heat rushed to his cheeks.

He still wasn’t sure how vampire blood worked, so he wasn’t sure if he should be worried about blushing.

He ducked his head and crossed behind Cole to dig in the back pocket of his backpack, where Cole seemingly had a small over-the-counter drugstore: painkillers, cold medicine, allergy medicine, lactose relief, menstrual relief, even a few multivitamins.

Brennan laughed at the extent of it, grabbing the variety pack of Band-Aids and zipping the pocket closed again. “Is this some sort of small business?”

“No, but I like to be prepared.”

“You’re not even lactose intolerant.”

Cole whirled around, still holding the paper-cut finger. “I don’t menstruate either, hon, and I don’t take women’s multivitamins.” He blinked, then amended, “Well, not all the time. They do wonders for your nails and hair.”

Brennan stepped closer to Cole, tugging his hand toward him.

“I guess I like being the person who can help when someone’s like, ‘Does anyone have an Advil?’ Or, a pen, or a charger, you know?

” Cole trailed off as Brennan cradled Cole’s hand in his own and unwrapped the Band-Aid.

He couldn’t have been bleeding that much, but blood was still smeared across the tips of his fingers.

Cole’s hands were smaller than Brennan’s, delicate with long fingers, like a pianist’s.

Fuck. Brennan still wanted to lick them, and not even in a vampire way.

Brennan put the Band-Aid on, and when he finally tore his eyes away from Cole’s fingers, Cole was watching him intently, head tilted like Brennan was one of his calculus homework questions.

“What?” Brennan asked.

He was still holding Cole’s hand, standing too close to him.

He dropped Cole’s newly bandaged hand and stepped back, face burning, then circled back behind Cole to return the pack of Band-Aids.

Why hadn’t he passed Cole a Band-Aid to put on himself, like a normal person?

God, he got one badly timed crush and completely forgot how to act like a person.

“Nothing, just…” Cole shrugged, the backpack shifting with the movement. “You blush blue.”

Brennan’s whirlwind of self-deprecating thoughts slammed to a stop. “What?”

“Well, I mean, I think…? It kinda makes you look sickly, to be honest, but I think that’s what it is?” He paused. Turned around to face Brennan again. “Am I making you blush?”

Brennan slapped a hand over his cheek, as if he might feel evidence of the traitorous color.

“Shit, how noticeable is it?” His brain shuffled through all the times he may have blushed in front of someone in the last few weeks and whether they may have noticed something weird about him.

But then, he’d only blushed recently around Cole.

“Would you see it and be like, ‘That guy’s a vampire’?

Or would people just think I’m about to puke? ”

Cole giggled. Giggled. “Not noticeable, unless you’re looking for it.”

They resumed walking, side by side, and Brennan felt like he could think again once Cole’s unwavering gaze was off him. They left the crowded quad behind them, the path narrowing. But then—

“So you’ve been looking for it?” Brennan asked.

“I’ve gotta take the clues I can get.”

They turned down the street toward Brennan’s place down the block.

“You make it sound like I’m some sort of mystery.”

“I feel like,” Cole started, and that was another one of his things. He added these qualifiers to his statements, watering things down with I feel s and I think, maybe s. “I don’t know, you can be kind of hard to read, sometimes.”

Brennan had been told the same thing by his mom, two teachers, and three therapists.

Dr. Morris traced it back to his mom and his childhood, as therapists often did, and said he was too used to being independent.

It was a nice way of saying he started being depressed and lonely when he was ten years old and hadn’t stopped since.

“Well, that’s awkward,” Brennan said. “Because at this point you know more about me than my mom does.”

“I really doubt that. Because she doesn’t know about the vampire thing?”

“It’s a pretty big thing, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah, sure, of course, but…” They approached the porch entrance to Brennan’s apartment, nestled in a row of cozy brownstones.

Cole stopped in front of the door and shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

“I mean, I know you’re a vampire, I know you read angsty poetry, I know you’re a nerd for systems and organization and that you like Twilight even though you won’t admit it—”

“Okay, that’s blatantly untrue—”

“But I don’t know what goes through that head of yours. I don’t know how you feel. ”

Brennan hesitated, lingering a few steps behind Cole, still on the ground in front of the stone stairs to the door. “About what?”

He had a hypothesis.

Cole shuffled his feet, facing the door. Brennan took in the curls on the back of his head, the headphones around his neck, his short, lean frame.

Brennan desperately wanted Cole to address the elephant in the room that was their flirtation, but more than that, he needed Cole not to.

Because if Cole asked Brennan how he felt about him, he might just be honest, and he might just do something reckless like kiss Cole’s perfect face.

Which was getting harder and harder to view as a Bad Idea.

Brennan took the two steps up and stood next to Cole in front of the door. Brennan traced the curve of his jawline with his eyes while Cole stared forward, mouth twisted in thought.

Their shoulders brushed when Brennan moved past him to unlock the door.

He pulled it open as Cole said, “I mean, I don’t know, I guess…”

They stepped into the apartment and Cole trailed off into silence at the sight of Mari and Tony sitting on opposite ends of the couch, arms crossed over their chests, both looking straight ahead where the TV was dark and lifeless. The ice in the room was tangible.

“Don’t you guys have class?” Cole asked, and for a second he almost seemed disappointed.

Like he’d expected them to be alone, too.

Like he wanted to say whatever he’d been about to say half as much as Brennan had wanted to hear it.

But it was gone in an instant, evaporating into concern. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Tony opened his mouth to respond but Mari shot him a glare so cold he slumped back into silence immediately.

“I fell asleep while we were studying. Well, I was studying, Tony was playing Call of Duty. And Anthony here didn’t wake me up for my four thirty class because he wants to ruin my life—”

“I just thought you could take a sick day and rest—”

“—and sabotage my perfect attendance, my scholarships, my career —”

To Cole and Brennan, Tony said, “She already emailed the teacher and got an alternate assignment.”

“And now we’re sitting in silence until it’s Bachelorette time so I don’t commit manslaughter before I can graduate summa cum laude,” Mari finished, and offered an unhinged smile. “Does anyone want wine?”

No one dared accept the offer as she stormed toward the kitchen. Cole caught Brennan’s eye with an apologetic look before following Mari.

Tony queued up their trashy reality show of choice on the Xbox. He was deflated and noticeably quiet, so Brennan shuffled farther into the living room.

“That seemed… tough?” Brennan tried.

Weeks of living together, and Brennan still didn’t quite know how to communicate with Tony.

Cole was easy, and with Mari, he could talk academics, but Tony’s brand of broeyness wasn’t something he knew how to approach.

He half feared Tony saying something misogynistic along the lines of bitches be crazy. But Tony surprised him.

“Look, I know she cares a lot about school and the rules and stuff, but she’s been working herself to death. She needed to sleep.”

Brennan had gotten the impression Tony was interested in Mari, but he hadn’t realized Tony actually cared about her.

Before he could figure out what to say, Mari’s voice spoke up, distant but clear even through the kitchen walls.

He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but his hearing, bolstered by a refreshed drinking regimen under Nellie’s instruction, tuned from Tony to Mari like changing radio stations.

“It’s not even about that. I get that he cares, it’s just, the irresponsibility. The lack of accountability. You know?”

Brennan blinked and refocused on Tony, whose expression was that of a kicked puppy.

“Um,” Brennan said.

This was so not his business. But they were, if not quite friends yet, then candidates for friendship, and maybe this was the kind of thing you did when you were maybe-almost-friends with someone.

“Like, he barely apologized. He just kept making excuses,” Mari was saying from the other room.

Brennan pinched his nose and exhaled. Maybe he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he didn’t need vampiric powers to tell Tony to apologize.

“Maybe,” Brennan started, “and I’m brainstorming here. But maybe it’s more about the accountability. I know you had good intentions, but you messed up her schedule, so… own up to it and apologize some more.” Brennan sighed. “You did apologize, right?”

Tony avoided his eyes. “She knows that I’m sorry, or whatever.”

“But did you say it ? The words? ‘I’m sorry’?”

“Possibly not,” Tony mumbled.

Brennan nodded toward Mari and Cole in a silent Then go. Tony looked like he’d been drafted to fight a war as he made his way to the kitchen.

Brennan stared at the TV screen, where another show that wasn’t The Bachelorette or Love Island sat ready to play. How many of these were there? Brennan feared he might find out.

He waited a few moments before Cole, Mari, and Tony emerged from the kitchen. Mari was taking a call, and lingered by the door muttering “yes” and “okay” into her phone. Cole and Tony took their now-designated spots on the couch.

Brennan searched both of them for evidence of carnage. “So? What happened?”

Tony shot a double thumbs-up as he kicked his feet onto the coffee table with a grin. “All good.”

Brennan looked to Cole for a second opinion. Cole shrugged like he didn’t believe it himself. “All good,” he agreed.

Brennan slid into his designated spot on the floor. Cole sat behind him, his knee brushing Brennan’s shoulder in a way that was too distracting. Maybe Brennan had done some good for once, solving problems instead of creating them.

The feeling lasted all of a second, and then Mari hung up her call and pocketed her phone, saying, “Well, that was fucking weird.”

“Me apologizing is not that weird,” Tony started.

“No, Dr. Huong called, and apparently we were missing a bunch of samples in the last batch from the blood drive,” Mari said.

Brennan’s breath caught in his chest. “Wait, what?” He tried to keep his curiosity casual, but he was anxious to get an idea of what exactly they knew.

“Yeah, seriously!” Mari said. “What kind of freak would steal blood from a university?”

“I’ll tell you who,” Tony said, with enough confidence that Brennan convinced himself for a millisecond that it was over, the jig was up. “Vampires.”

“Oh please,” Mari said. “It’s some shitty prank. Or something for rush week. Did your friends upgrade to blood sacrifices since you left the frat scene?”

Mari pocketed her phone and joined them on the couch with a bottle of wine, not bothering with glasses. Brennan feigned disinterest even as anxiety roiled in his stomach. Did they have suspicions? Or was this just gossip?

“Come on, vampires is the natural line of logic. My nonna always said she met vampires in her youth. Are you calling Grandma Esposito a liar?”

Mari sighed and took a swig of wine before passing it to Cole. “Cole, can you please tell Tony that vampires aren’t real?”

“I would never disrespect Grandma Esposito like that,” Cole said, accepting the bottle of wine. “Speaking of vampires, if Josh C. doesn’t get kicked off this episode I’m giving the fuck up.”

Cole caught Brennan’s eye and tilted his head back as he took a drink. Brennan followed the motion with his eyes—the arch of his neck, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple. Tony clicked play and Brennan tried not to blush blue when Cole shot him a smile.

Brennan was endlessly grateful for Cole’s help, but anxiety lingered in the back of his mind even as conversation devolved into discussion of the show .

Even if they didn’t know when exactly the samples went missing, Mari had seen Brennan the morning he’d stolen them.

He had to hope she wouldn’t connect those dots.

But when he cast a glance in her direction, he caught Mari studying him with narrowed eyes and a tilt to her head for a split second before she averted her gaze.

Brennan stayed quiet the rest of the night.