Page 6 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

BACHELORETTE NIGHT

brENNAN’S PHONE

[Unknown Number]

We know about you.

Brennan

Who is this?

[Unknown Number]

111 North Elm St. Saturday 11 a.m. Be there. Ask for Sunny.

brENNAN’S JOURNAL

ENHANCED STRENGTH I’m terrible at being a vampire.

I put in a work request for the door breaking. Sorry to the underpaid staff that will have to fix that.

Test

Use light bulbs or fragile things to train down passive strength? Like those dogs who hold eggs in their mouths???

Buy stress ball??

It had to be Cole.

Or, Cole had told someone else.

Sure, Brennan had been a little sloppy with a few incidents of sudden thirst, but sloppy enough that someone else had found out so soon? Sloppy enough for that person to have blackmail material?

He spent all day riling himself up about all the ways his undead life was going to come to an abrupt end, wasting another day’s tuition and disappointing his mother by paying absolutely no attention in class yet again.

He analyzed every encounter he’d ever had with Cole.

Why would he act all innocent if this was the end goal? It didn’t add up.

He worried and scribbled furious notes in his notebook and worked himself near a panic attack once or twice until finally, it was time.

It was Bachelorette Night.

His new roommate Tony had invited him to watch, of all things, The Bachelorette with him and his friends.

It was some sort of weekly ritual of semesters past, and this was the kickoff for that fall.

Apparently, they drank wine and made bets and took it pretty seriously.

Tony didn’t seem like the kind of guy who watched The Bachelorette, but Brennan was desperate enough for potential friends that he had been clinging to the polite invitation as a social life raft for the semester.

Brennan emerged from his room only after he heard the TV switching on and Tony’s friends catching up and settling in.

He had been holed up all day researching how to buy blood on the black market and exactly how unethical was it, in the grand scheme of capitalism?

So he wasn’t exactly on high alert when he shuffled out and peered into the living room.

“Okay, Nick has absolutely no banter,” Tony said around a mouthful of popcorn.

He had a half-full bottle of Tito’s on the coffee table in front of him, and he still seemed stone-cold sober.

He was the only one avidly paying attention to the TV, which was playing a show that was not The Bachelorette —it was brightly colored and everyone had ridiculous accents that sounded more like people making fun of British people than actual British people.

On the coffee table, missing a few slices, was an intricately latticed apple pie.

“If she even looks at Jake T. I will set myself on fire,” announced a girl from beside Tony, shaking her head. She was Latina, her frame slight, wavy dark hair cut at her chin. She held a glass of wine primly by the stem, the flush on her face betraying that it was not her first.

Draped across the couch next to the girl was a boy with his head in the girl’s lap, legs sprawled over the arm of the couch. One hand was fiddling with one of those cube fidget toys.

It took Brennan a solid minute to process that the boy on the couch was Cole.

Before he had time to about-face out of that situation, they all seemed to notice Brennan’s appearance at once, and he winced as their heads swiveled toward him.

Well. Shit.

Cole’s eyes fell on him and his mouth quirked in a silent, almost amused greeting.

“Ayyyy!” cheered Tony.

“You’re late!” said the girl. He recognized her voice now, the slight accent—she was Marisela. From the blood drive. Fuck . She didn’t seem to recognize him, or at least didn’t let on if she did.

Cole stayed quiet, but he pushed up to sit like a normal person and watched Brennan. His hair was a mess, flat from where he’d been lying and sticking up in all other directions. Brennan didn’t allow himself to find it charming, but it was a near thing.

“Late joiner’s fee is… two shots? What do you think, Mari?” Tony asked, and Mari gave a nod of approval before throwing back the remnants of her wine.

“You gotta get on our level,” Mari agreed.

Cole defended weakly, “It’s a Monday, go easy—”

“It’s the rules, dude,” Tony said, and then he pushed off the couch to thrust a plastic Star Wars cup toward Brennan. Brennan didn’t need vampire senses to smell the vodka.

The liquid sloshed around in the cup, and Tony’s defiant expression said he was serious about enforcing the rules.

And, well, Brennan had been wanting to figure out if vampires could get drunk.

“This is peer pressure,” Cole pointed out.

Not to mention that he still needed to get a read on whether Cole was a lying traitor or not.

Two birds, one stone.

Brennan swiped the cup from Tony’s hand and threw it back while Tony and Mari whooped.

It barely burned going down, which was new.

“Peer pressure claims another innocent soul,” Brennan announced, and offered a bow before joining the party in the living room.

Tony poured Brennan another drink, the TV went to commercial break, and Brennan took a spot on the floor instead of squeezing onto the couch.

Everything was sharper with fresh blood in his system, like his world had come into focus or switched to high definition.

But it wasn’t overwhelming. The sounds of the neighboring apartments—a blender on high, a radio playing Nicki Minaj, a group playing Dungeons & Dragons—were still there in the background, but he could tune them out like turning dials on a radio.

Brennan suffered through the last fifteen minutes of the show, the unidentifiable sexy singles “recoupling,” while Tony periodically announced that something one of them said meant everyone had to drink.

Finally, Brennan took a chance on a half-baked idea, just as he realized with utter certainty that vampires could, indeed, get drunk.

“Never have I ever,” Brennan said, “unironically enjoyed the Bachelor franchise.”

“This isn’t even The Bachelor, ” Tony protested.

“My sincerest apologies,” Brennan deadpanned. “What are we watching?”

“ Love Island ! Have you not been paying attention—”

“Um, Tony, you’d better drink,” Mari pointed out, taking a gulp of her wine.

Cole had summoned a glass from somewhere and drank, too.

“Oh, so we’re doing this?” Tony asked. “I can smoke all you bitches.”

He took a pull from the Tito’s bottle. Then, “Never have I ever gone to therapy,” Tony said.

Brennan’s stomach swooped until he saw both Mari and Cole taking sips. He took his own and avoided eye contact.

“Way to be emotionally well-adjusted,” Cole said.

“Oh, I am not, ” Tony said.

“Maybe you should, I don’t know,” Mari said, “ try therapy ?”

“Never have I ever…” Cole started, “pulled an all-nighter for school.”

“Boring,” said Tony.

Mari and Brennan both drank.

“Um, how have you not ?” Brennan asked. Getting caught up in a project and realizing six hours had passed was a typical Tuesday night for him in high school.

“If it isn’t done by ten o’clock, it doesn’t need to get done until tomorrow,” Tony said. “I need my beauty sleep.”

“Same here,” said Cole.

“Yeah, so you can bake up a bribe and get the professor to give you an extension,” Mari said.

“There’s nothing wrong with forming a good relationship with your professors,” Cole said. “I can’t help it if my brownies are worth giving extensions for.”

Mari cleared her throat and said, “Never have I ever…” She paused, eyes cutting to Tony in a failed attempt at discretion, then continued, “cheated on someone.”

Tony drank. “In my defense, it was high school. I was a little boy then.”

“You’re a little boy now,” Mari countered. She was squinting at Tony like she had given him a test, and he’d failed.

Brennan’s turn. Okay. Cool. Casual.

“Never have I ever”—he pointedly didn’t look at Cole—“blackmailed someone.”

A beat passed that seemed like forever, the TV blasting a commercial. Then Mari drank. Her eyes locked with Brennan as she took a long sip.

Brennan risked a glance at Cole. He was watching Brennan with a pinch at his brows, but his gaze jerked away as soon as Brennan looked. Cole focused on Mari instead and, mercifully, did the asking for Brennan.

“Who did you blackmail?” he challenged. “And why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Mari examined her fingernails. “It was nothing, really.”

“Well, now we definitely need to know,” Tony said.

Brennan kept silent. His heart was in his throat and if he opened his mouth they’d surely hear it.

“I found this guy selling test answers in high school,” she said. “But he was an office aide, so I held it over him to get unlimited hall passes and late passes.”

“Bro, I am quaking,” Tony said. “You’re the baddest bitch. You’ve girlbossed all the way to the sun—”

“I have one,” Cole interrupted, and it was the loudest and most present he’d been all night. Brennan got the impression he didn’t interrupt much, and it made Mari and Tony quiet. “Never have I ever stolen university property.”

Brennan clenched his jaw so hard he thought he might break it. Cole was being discreet and looking at everyone, but it was clear he was watching for Brennan’s answer. He gave it honestly, taking a sip. Tony and Mari drank, too.

“Damn, Mari!” said Tony. “Here I thought you were, like, a law-abiding citizen.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Mari rolled her eyes. “I stole a couple of blue books last semester for finals week.” She shrugged, then jutted her chin out. “I’m not at all surprised that you have a story, though.”

“Obviously, me and the boys stole the Lucky the Bulldog statue before finals week freshman year.”

“No way,” Cole said.

“That was you ?” Mari gasped. “Administration was pissed! I was pissed. I got a B on my bio exam and I always thought it was ’cause I didn’t get to rub his nose before class.”