Page 27 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

A rising clamor from the kitchen had the whole party peering over to see Tony starting the keg stands, hoisted up with help from two guys and soaking himself with beer when the hose got loose. The guys set him down and he stripped his beer-soaked shirt off, grinning and taking a bow.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, this night, ” Mari said, throwing up her hands, then turned on her heels and stalked away.

“Good talk,” said Brennan.

Brennan scanned the party and caught sight of Cole and Nellie sitting on the kitchen counter, leaned together in a hushed conversation with serious expressions on both their faces.

It took everything in Brennan not to either barge over or run away screaming.

He could listen, if he really tried, despite the music and chatter.

He’d gotten quite good at it, actually. But that was the point of inviting the vampires: he trusted Cole and Nellie enough to allow these parts of his life he’d wanted to keep separate to collide.

Tony and Sunny waved him back over to the game table. Brennan let himself stop thinking for a change, and the night went back to the pleasant haze it had been before.

At one point the makeshift dance floor that had formed in the living room found Tony, shirt still off, with Mari grinding up next to him.

“Good for her,” Sunny said absently.

Cole and Nellie found them again, and a half-formed list of questions popped into Brennan’s head— What did you ask her?

What did she say? Are you afraid of me? What’s going on in your brain, please and thank you?

But Cole didn’t hesitate to press into Brennan’s side, throwing an arm around his shoulder.

The anxiety melted out of Brennan’s mind, replaced by embarrassingly sappy thoughts about how well they fit together.

Another round of drinks, and somehow, Nellie started on the topic of modern poetry. Brennan was drunk enough to end up on a rant, with Cole, Tony, and Sunny watching in amusement.

“Listen! I get it! I love that she made poetry feel more accessible! She was a gateway drug to poetry for a lot of people and I love that for them! But you cannot look at me and tell me honestly that Milk and Honey was good poetry so help me god —”

“Alright, Mr. Know-It-All,” Nellie challenged. “What accessible entry-level poetry do you have up your sleeve?”

“You mock me,” Brennan said, because they probably thought he was too cool to have limericks memorized for no reason at all but, in fact, he did.

And, well, maybe Brennan was drunker than he thought—it had been awhile, with all his vampire stuff, since he’d really relaxed—because he ended up pushing himself to stand on the kitchen island, cackled, and started loudly and dramatically shouting limericks.

“There was a young lass of Madras

Who had a magnificent ass

Not rounded and pink

As you’d probably think

But was gray, had long ears, and ate grass.”

Cole was giggling and moving to spot Brennan so he didn’t fall and die, until Nellie pulled him down.

Another hour later, Cole started to sober up and resume the role of mom-friend, pushing water on everyone, until eventually Brennan sobered up, too, which had the effect of making the party seem a lot more gross, sticky, and anxiety-inducing.

Cole was flourishing a couple of pre-rolled joints—god bless the legal state of Massachusetts—and getting a group of people to start a circle outside.

When that properly distracted most of Brennan’s friends, he made his way to the bathroom for that late-party breakdown moment when you stared at yourself in the mirror and contemplated existence.

Or was that a Brennan thing? But the door was locked, and continued to be for ten minutes, even after he banged on the door and finally got a pointed moan in response.

Oh. Oops. There were definitely people hooking up in there.

“Sorry!” he called through the door and paused his crisis for later. The party was winding down, people beginning to leave, either too drunk or too sober to be there.

Down the hallway from the bathroom, Nellie and Sunny were talking in urgent whispers. Brennan didn’t have any qualms using his spidey senses to eavesdrop this time, catching the end of a sentence—

“—if there’s new turns that we don’t know about.”

—before Sunny stiffened and turned to look directly at Brennan.

Nellie rushed forward with a smile. “Oh good, Brennan!” she said. “We wanted to find you, we were about to head out.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s super. We’ve got some business to deal with, so don’t let us interrupt your party.”

“Oh,” Brennan said. “Can I help, or—?”

“No, no,” Nellie insisted immediately, putting a companionable arm around Brennan and steering him toward the door. She found her bomber jacket within the jumble on the coat hooks and shrugged it on while giving Brennan a teasing smile. “Cole’s great, by the way.”

“Right,” said Brennan. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

Nellie opened the door and Cole was on the other side, pink-nosed from the late-night autumn air, a few people behind him with various levels of the giggles. Cole’s hair was especially tousled, and Brennan wanted to reach out and fix it, tug the jacket around his neck tighter against the wind.

The sound of a throat clearing pulled Brennan’s gaze from his weed-scented love interest, and Nellie was watching him with a completely unsubtle grin.

“What you can do,” Nellie said, “is text me the details tomorrow.”

Sunny said, “Retweet.” And then they both disappeared into the night.

“What was that about?” Cole asked, stepping inside and into Brennan’s space, the length of their arms pressed together.

“Don’t worry about it,” Brennan said.

The party crowd continued to thin as the morning hours crept in, and Brennan and Cole were continually in each other’s orbit, catching each other’s eyes throughout the night in a weird, soft tension Brennan had never experienced before.

The quiet confidence that he wanted Cole, and the tentative amazement that Cole could want him back.

Mari had disappeared at some point in the night.

Cole was mostly sober, helping those who weren’t order Ubers home, telling everyone to have a good night and drink water and eat a big breakfast tomorrow in that disgustingly charming way of his, waving goodbye to girls carrying their high-heeled shoes and guys who smelled strongly of beer.

Then Cole was at his side again, a hand on his elbow, smiling conspiratorially.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Cole said.

“Yeah?” Brennan asked. “The Waffle Den’s the only place open.”

“Nah, I have a better idea,” Cole said. He smiled, and this one seemed a little brighter, a little more private. “Trust me?”

All Brennan could do was follow.