Page 81 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

Brennan offered a wry smile. “It will be, once I carve this sigil into all your doors and window frames.”

Mari stared at him for a beat, unimpressed. “Well, we probably weren’t getting our deposit back anyway.”

She moved from the doorway and Brennan followed her. Tony was in the bedroom, and Mari offered to distract him while Brennan got to work, which was the closest thing to supportive Mari had been of Brennan’s secret.

He set right to it, digging through his backpack to find the pamphlet for reference. There were a few different sigils he wanted to try out, and the only reason he had to believe they worked was that they were in the pamphlets, but it seemed far-fetched. Somehow, the idea of a few stray symbols being able to ward off vampires seemed more unbelievable than the existence of vampires in the first place.

As he set to work, Mari returned from the bedroom and studied him, and he felt like measly cells under a microscope with the intensity of her scrutiny. He tried to ignore her. There was one door, a few windows, and a few sigils for each, so it didn’t take more than a few minutes before he was returning to his backpack to put the knife away.

Then he put on the oven mitts he brought so he could dig out another knife and a bag with a few bulbs of garlic. He handed both to Mari, who accepted them warily, squinting at Brennan.

“This is a silver knife,” Brennan said. “It’s the only thing that can break skin for vampires, I think, and it burns to touch, so it’d be good to have on hand. And, garlic—it stinks enough that I wouldn’t want to drink anything if it were in the vicinity, so, I don’t know, keep a bulb in your room or something?”

Mari turned the knife over in her hands. It was a small thing, barely sharp, because apparently silver made for shitty weapons outside of vampire hunting. She curled her fingers around the knife and nodded.

She said, “You actually really care about him, huh?”

Brennan stilled. It was wild to him that there could be any doubts. He was sure the way he felt was stamped on his forehead.

“I do,” Brennan confirmed.

Mari studied him until she finally sighed. “Just,” she said, with the air of giving in, “try to deserve him, okay?”

He would. He was.

Brennan nodded once, a dip of the head. When he gathered his things and passed through the warded front door, pins and needles surged over his skin.

15CONFESSIONS OF A VAMPIRE

BRENNAN’S PHONE

Dr. Mom

Happy thanksgiving love! Wish you could be here!

Tony

GOBBLE GOBBLEto all myFILTHYNASTYTURKEYS

! I’m thankful to have all youSLUTTYPILGRIMBITCHESin my life!!! Send this toTHIRSTYTHOTSwho deserve to getSTUFFEDlike a TURKEYthis HOE-vember!!!

Brennan

Thanks Tony, happy thanksgiving to you too.

BRENNAN’S JOURNAL, THE BACK PAGE

Cole Apology

I really like you and liked kissing you and want to date you. You’re beautiful and kind and deserve better than me but

But I’m a vampire and that entails weird things sometimes and you need to know that and be… not okay with it, maybe, but at least, willing to understand.

Waiting for Thanksgiving break to tick by on a mostly empty campus felt like agony, but once Sturbridge was back in full swing and on the downward path toward midterms hell, Brennan steeled himself and headed to the library, which felt like neutral ground, with no (or, less) danger of sucking blood or sucking face.

He paced in front of the library, trying to convince himself to go in. With the background chatter of stressed students and people entering and exiting in droves, it was still busy with midterm season. Brennan was, admittedly, nervous. Not the usual weighty anxiety, but the old-fashioned, middle-school-crush, store-bought variety. Wondering if Cole still liked him back seemed silly in the wake of everything else, but it mattered.SeeingCole felt like theonlything that mattered.

God, what was wrong with him? He liked Cole so much it felt unreasonable, and he needed to know if Cole felt it, too. If Cole could see Brennan’s whole picture and still feel it.