Page 8 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

“I didn’t send that,” Cole said after a moment, one hand to his chest, all scout’s honor. “And I didn’t tell anyone about you. I promise.”

“What about Mari? She saw me earlier outside Michaelson—”

“Mari didn’t even notice any blood missing. Besides, if she had a problem with you, she wouldn’t send weird texts about it. She’d tell it to your face.”

Cole offered a smile but concern pinched his brow.

Just like that, Brennan felt ashamed for even thinking it could possibly be Cole.

The balloons in Brennan’s stomach popped and deflated and he was left with empty, guilty aftershocks.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. He wished he could collapse into bed and sleep for eight years, but then, he couldn’t sleep at all anymore.

“I’m sorry for coming off as a total dick, like, all the time,” Brennan said.

Cole snorted, waved his pack of cigarettes toward where Brennan was blocking his way.

“Not a total dick,” Cole corrected, “and not all the time.”

Brennan stepped aside to let Cole out of the doorway, but let the door click shut behind him. Suddenly, returning to his room with his tail between his legs wasn’t good enough.

“I’m serious,” Brennan said again, while Cole sprawled out on the cobbled porch steps and lit the cigarette. “You were trying to help. I was an asshole.”

The smell of the smoke turned rancid up close with his stronger senses. It was kind of gross.

“You obviously needed to be alone,” Cole said.

“That’s, uh. Valid.” He took a long drag, looking up at Brennan, and Brennan wanted to sit with him.

Instead he pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned against a column next to the porch, keeping a careful distance from Cole but making it clear he wasn’t running away.

Cole asked, “That was a panic attack?”

Of course Cole was going to be, like, cool about it. Cole was the Cute Library Blanket Guy; he probably volunteered with the elderly and rescued kittens from trees in his spare time. It made Brennan feel more like complete shit.

Brennan always felt like he was on display when he was around Cole. It was like being naked, and unfortunately, not in a sexy way. Cole saw Brennan’s worst parts, and Brennan barely knew Cole beyond the perfect, glorified meme version of him.

“Yeah,” Brennan said finally. “I’ve basically been on the verge all week.”

“Do you get them often?”

Brennan gave in and sat on the steps, below Cole and with two feet between them.

He took in the night sky. It was a nice night, all things considered.

The first traces of autumn painted the leaves with red and brown and gold, intercepting clear skies and bright stars.

Ursa major, he greeted, Orion. When he was younger he had loved astronomy, but the vastness of the universe had long since brought Brennan panic instead of comfort.

“No,” Brennan said. If nothing else, Cole deserved an explanation. “Only when things are really bad. I almost had one earlier today so this was kind of—inevitable. Like, built up.” He turned his head, trying to sneak a glance at Cole. “Do you?”

Cole didn’t seem bothered. “I have friends who do. It’s normal.”

“More normal than vampirism,” Brennan guessed.

This, surprisingly, made Cole’s face twitch from its relaxed mask, but Brennan couldn’t for the life of him identify the quirk of his mouth around the cigarette.

Until Cole said, “Oh, so we’re addressing this now?”

Brennan blinked. “You’re acting like you want to.”

“Of course I want to!” Cole burst, like he’d been waiting for the opportunity, lowering the cigarette as he shifted to face Brennan. “How is it more weird for me to talk to you about your life than to keep acting like I don’t know you’re literally a vampire?”

It was a decent point, but Brennan was more taken aback by the outburst, that Cole was even capable of it.

“I didn’t mean for anyone to find out,” Brennan tried. “You weren’t supposed to know.”

“But I do know. I can’t un know,” Cole said. “So tell me. Who’d you kill? What vampire curses have you unearthed? Whatever’s bugging you, you don’t have to keep it a secret. Not from me.”

“It’s not a big secret or anything! It’s that text, and the meetup. I had a whole breakdown about it, but I’m feeling much better after expressing myself and would love it if we could move on.”

“Yeah?” Cole said. “Well, I’ve been hearing these rumors.”

Brennan’s stomach dropped.

“About?”

“There’s this freshman girl missing. People are getting all up in a tizzy about it. Does this have something to do with your vampire stuff?”

Brennan bounced his knee anxiously.

“I might have overheard you in the library the other day.”

“No shit,” Cole said.

“But I swear, I had nothing to do with it! That I know of. And I know that’s not extremely convincing but just know I’m trying to figure it out. I’m going to figure it out.”

Cole tilted his head, studying Brennan, and hummed. Brennan couldn’t handle waiting for him to form a response so he kept talking.

“If you thought I could be involved, why didn’t you tell anyone about me?” Brennan asked, crossing his arms. “That was my end of the deal.”

“Oh. Well.” Cole reached into his pocket with his free hand and emerged with a fidget toy that he focused his attention on. “I didn’t really think you were involved. You don’t mean any harm.”

Brennan’s mouth opened and closed again. The first time the thirst had hit, even he hadn’t been sure he wasn’t going to hurt someone. He settled on asking, “How do you know?”

“That night we met? The first time in the library last year?” Fidget toy forgotten, Cole’s piercing attention was back on him, and Brennan didn’t know what to do with it. He waited a beat too long before realizing that was the end of Cole’s answer.

“When I whined to you for hours about all my stupid problems?” Brennan finished. That didn’t seem like a good reason to trust someone.

Cole’s eyebrows raised in such disbelief that Brennan wondered if his own memory was betraying him. That night only came to him in flashes. His own emotions and depression were his strongest memory, far more than what he actually said, or what Cole had said, for that matter.

“You mean when you talked to me about all the people you cared about and all the ways you wished the world were better?” Cole corrected. “It was the kindest and most thoughtful rant I ever heard, and that’s saying something.”

Brennan blinked and tried to absorb that information, almost expecting Cole to fizzle away as a half-baked fever dream. But Cole stayed, shadows cloaking his face.

“I don’t think I remember our conversation the way you do,” Brennan said.

“You don’t have to. But that’s why I… trusted you to do the right things, I guess.”

“That’s a pretty big leap.”

“I was right, wasn’t I? You’re doing pretty good from what I’ve seen.”

Brennan resisted the urge to laugh out loud. He didn’t feel like he was doing well. It felt like he was one misstep away from crashing and burning.

“Why do you want to get involved?” Brennan said in a rush. “It would be easier for everyone if you stayed away from this.”

“Because, well—” Cole’s cheeks flushed pink, which was all sorts of interesting, and he said, “It’s kind of cool, obviously.”

Brennan repeated, “It’s cool ?”

Cole rolled his eyes, like he thought Brennan was fishing for compliments. “Come on, man, it’s objectively freakin’ cool.”

Brennan gaped at him. Cole offered Brennan his cigarette and Brennan was dying to ask him questions.

Because maybe Brennan wanted to even the playing field. If he learned about Cole—if he could know as much about Cole as Cole did about him—maybe that sharp feeling in Brennan’s stomach whenever Cole was around would soften. Maybe it’d be easier to look him in the (soft, warm, chocolate-brown) eyes.

“Smoking’s bad for you,” Brennan said weakly. He made a mental note for the future— Vampires and smoking? Vampires and cancer? God, each question had grounds for a dozen books, hundreds of academic research papers, and Brennan would never scratch the surface.

Cole gave him an amused smile, lifted his cigarette in a cheers motion and said, “Yeah, but I look so mysterious and cool doing it.” And his eyes crinkled all bright and carefree and Brennan didn’t understand him, not at all. But he wanted to.

He shouldn’t, he knew, because it would be easier not to be friends. He had a lot to figure out, and his life was growing increasingly complicated by the day. And Brennan still didn’t get what Cole wanted out of this.

But it could be nice, Brennan’s traitorous brain said, to have someone who knows. Someone to talk to.

“What about this is cool, then?” Brennan asked, and his mouth kept going without his go-ahead. “I mean, you did recommend Twilight , so if it’s like, a thing for you I’m gonna have to let you down easy.…”

Cole gasped, then let out a sharp, delighted laugh and shoved Brennan’s shoulder with his fist in a way that sent a warm spike up Brennan’s stomach.

“Oh my god,” he sputtered, still laughing, “I told you, it was for the cultural experience!”

Brennan couldn’t help smiling under that warmth of you made him laugh and he doesn’t hate you.

“But, I guess you’re not totally far off,” Cole said, and this time it was Brennan’s turn to sputter and gape.

“Please enlighten me,” Brennan said.

“Well, I mean—I read.”

“Yes.”

“I read a lot. ”

“So, you have a kink for vampires…?”

“Shut up, oh my god, you’re so—” Cole said, but he was laughing even as he looked like he wanted to punch Brennan.

Then he shrugged, dropped the cigarette, and kicked out a foot to stomp it out.

“How do I explain this?” It was a true rhetorical question, thoughtful, to himself, and it was endlessly endearing.

Cole sat up, scooted so he was fully facing Brennan in a precarious balance on the stairs, tucking his feet under him. He reminded Brennan of a kid settling in for a bedtime story.

“When I was a kid and realized I wasn’t going to discover any hidden powers, I cried,” Cole said, all earnest eyes and conspiratorial smile.

“I didn’t get dragged away to Camp Half-Blood, or find a portal to another world in the back of a wardrobe.

” He started to move his hands while he talked, and Brennan tried to keep his eyes from tracking them.

“And then each year went by and I didn’t discover any developing magic powers, or some hidden underground world, or a dark history or— anything, any of the stuff that I thought would make me…

I don’t know, like, special, or whatever. ”

He rolled his eyes at the word, like it was embarrassing. Cole paused, and Brennan was watching him, breath caught in his throat. Brennan acutely understood that gut-wrenching feeling of realizing you weren’t special, and Cole had summed it up so succinctly.

“I mean, obviously, it’s not about me,” Cole said.

“But aside from the scary stuff, it’s kind of like…

proof that there is magic in the world. And then it’s like—you know, if vampires are real, then maybe ghosts are, or werewolves, or witches, anything.

” Cole smiled at Brennan as he concluded, “Like, I just met one person, but the world got a whole lot bigger. And that is cool.”

As Brennan processed, Cole poked at a particular divot in the steps with too much interest. And Brennan realized, with a resounding internal Duh, that Cole was putting himself out there, too, wasn’t he? He was, at least, trying to.

Brennan grinned and extended friendship in the best way he knew how.

“I’m happy to aid in fulfilling your middle school vampire fantasies.”

Cole had fire in his eyes but a smile on his lips, his shoulders relaxing from where they’d been set in a tense hunch. “Oh my god, as if you don’t get off on the whole broody, tortured soul aesthetic!”

Brennan jolted out a laugh that was equal parts offended and delighted, because Cole was fast, wasn’t he?

There were probably real reasons, somewhere, for Brennan to shut down on the interest that was building. But for the life of him, he couldn’t find a good excuse.

By the time Brennan and Cole went back inside, Tony was dozing with his head on Mari’s shoulder, snoring softly while Mari sat perfectly still, focusing on the TV despite it being on the Netflix home screen. Mari seemed somewhere between annoyed and charmed.

She looked up when they arrived and glowered. “Not a word.”

After Tony crawled off to bed, the last of the pie was wrapped up in their fridge on Cole’s insistence, and Mari and Cole left to walk home.

Brennan wasn’t thirsty again yet but he still wanted to check that the freezer in his closet was undisturbed.

It was small but not cheap, but thanks to his mom’s credit card and overnight shipping, he had a place to keep the blood.

He’d even added a heavy lock to keep the freezer shut.

When he went to close his bedroom door, something blocked it from closing. There was something tucked against the doorframe that he hadn’t put there.

Cold seeped into his skin. Someone had been in his room. Or at least at the door. The person sending the text? Could this be another threat?

The anxiety deflated instantly when he turned back and saw a tattered paperback book just inside the door. He reached for it and laughed.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

A sticky note was on the cover, next to the classic pale-hands-holding-an-apple visual:

A VITAL CULTURAL EXPERIENCE, it said in neat block letters, BUT MAYBE RESEARCH?

It didn’t need a signature for Brennan to know who it was from.

And. Like.

Goddammit. He was really going to read Twilight .