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Danny used the eggs and milk along with a new loaf of bread he found in the pantry to make himself French toast, slicing up strawberries and bananas to go on top.

He knew how to cook the basics—he’d made meals for himself and his mom before she’d had to move to the facility—he just hated grocery shopping, hated going to the store and searching for ingredients for just himself.

It felt like a cruel reminder of how alone he really was these days.

So he’d been getting by with infrequent trips, stocking up on frozen meals and canned goods that wouldn’t go bad.

He took a picture of the finished product, thinking he’d text it to Roman, and then paused.

He didn’t have the vampire’s phone number.

He glanced at the note again, at the sweet message and promise to see him soon. But that was it. No phone number. No way to contact him. And when is soon? Danny thought, a hopeless feeling replacing the warmth in his chest. Tomorrow? Two weeks from now?

Eating his breakfast—or really, lunch at this point—Danny couldn’t decide what to think about it all. Roman had rescued him, cooked for him, spent the night, and given him the most amazing orgasm of his life.

And he’d called Danny his mate.

Or… maybe his mate. He hadn’t exactly said for sure that was what Danny was. He’d actually been quite cagey around the subject, now that Danny thought about it. And then he’d gone off without a way for Danny to contact him.

The groceries were sweet and all, but what if Roman just got off, literally, on taking care of helpless little human men and then disappearing into the sunset?

Maybe the mate thing was just a weird pickup line vampires liked to use on unsuspecting humans. Hey, baby, you so fine. You must be my mate.

Danny was unsettled by just how much the thought upset him. What did it even matter? He hardly knew the guy, no matter how safe his vampire pheromones or whatever made Danny feel. So why did the thought of Roman leaving after just one night make it suddenly hard to breathe?

He supposed that what he should be freaking out about was the fact that vampires existed at all, not whether one of them wanted to date him.

But even though Danny generally considered himself a man who believed in science—he was in healthcare, after all—he’d also seen plenty of just…

weird shit. Unexplainable things happened sometimes in the hospital, and he had always believed there was more to this world than anyone knew.

And he had meant what he said to Roman—his time as a nurse had taught him to trust his instincts, to roll with the punches, and to keep his mind and eyes open.

So—vampires existed. And Roman was one. And he possibly, maybe wanted Danny to one day be one as well.

Could Danny do that? Agree to exchange his humanity for eternal (or at least, he assumed eternal) life and a chance at some sort of demonic true love?

He scoffed at himself as he took his last bite of French toast. Way to get ahead of yourself, dummy.

Was he really stressing out about whether he would agree to turn into a vampire when Roman had never even asked him to?

Danny had only known him for a day and didn’t even have his phone number, for fuck’s sake.

He could already tell he was going to be turning endless anxious circles in his own brain unless he got some distraction. Or a new perspective.

He couldn’t tell anyone everything about what was going on, but he could tell someone some things.

He grabbed his phone and called Chloe.

“Danny Boy!”

“Hey, Chlo. This isn’t too early, is it?” He knew she’d worked the full shift last night, but he also knew she didn’t like to sleep in too late on the days when she had a night off.

“Not at all, baby boy. I’ve even had my coffee and everything. Is everything okay? A phone call instead of a text makes me think someone died.”

“No, everything’s okay. Just don’t have the patience to type everything out. I…um…met someone?”

The shriek that crossed the phone line was just a decibel below deafening. “Oh! My! God! This is huge. Who is he? Where did you meet him? What dirty things has he done to your virgin body?”

Danny couldn’t help but laugh. “Chloe, honey, you know I’m not a virgin.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But I’m pretty sure you qualify as some type of born-again bearer of a V-card, I’m afraid. You definitely haven’t hooked up with anyone in the time I’ve known you, and I have been keeping my eyes peeled for that shit.”

Danny huffed into the phone. “Maybe I have and I just didn’t tell you.”

“Please. Like you could keep that from me. You’ve had a case of what I’ve secretly diagnosed as stress-induced chastity.”

“Nurses aren’t allowed to diagnose,” he retorted in a know-it-all voice. “You’re going beyond your scope of practice.”

“Bite me,” she replied evenly. “Now tell me more about this someone.”

The thing was, Chloe wasn’t exactly wrong.

Danny wasn’t a virgin—he’d crossed that bridge in nursing school, with a sweet guy he’d shared a bed with a few times but no real connection—but he hadn’t exactly been getting any regular action.

Before nursing school, he’d had a few awkward, mostly clandestine high school hookups. And really nothing since.

His life since adulthood had been work and taking care of his mom, and while her moving to the facility had freed up his time, the cost of it meant he had to work more hours to make ends meet.

He hadn’t had time to meet someone outside of the hospital, and he hadn’t been interested in meeting anyone inside the hospital.

And then Roman had walked in, all delicious and broody and saving-him-from-muggers-y.

He tried to figure out how to tell a sanitized, vamp-free version of the story to Chloe. “He came into the hospital the other night. Not as a patient. Just visiting. But then last night, someone tried to mug me—”

He heard Chloe gasp on the other end of the line. “Oh my God, Danny, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he reassured her. “He stepped in, fought them off. He’s fine too.”

Now that she was comforted in knowing Danny was unharmed, Chloe’s voice took on a teasing tone. “Exactly how fine is he?”

Danny gave an exaggerated sigh. “I can’t even tell you, Chlo. He’s the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Throw in these piercing blue eyes and a fantastic smell and freaking amazing body.”

Chloe gave a little squeal of delight. “And how up close and personal with this amazing body has my Danny Boy been?”

Danny blushed, grateful she wasn’t there in person to tease him over it. “I…took him home. After the mugging. He stayed the night last night.”

Chloe gave an actual whoop. “Yes! Yesss. Good work. Tell me more.”

“He made me food. We fell asleep. This morning we hooked up, and it was…mind-blowing, but when I woke up again this afternoon, he was gone. No phone number.”

She made a sympathetic sound. “Oof. That’s not ideal. You sure he didn’t put his number in your phone while you were sleeping or something?”

“No, he didn’t. I checked. And it wasn’t in the note.”

“So he left a note?”

“Yeah, he left a note to explain the groceries? He, um, he got me groceries.”

There was a pause on the other end, then, “I’m sorry. Hold up. The man got you groceries ? While you were sleeping?”

“He…um…seemed to think I wasn’t taking care of myself with quote, unquote, ‘proper food.’”

“No argument from me. I’ve never known anyone who was so good at taking care of others and so bad at taking care of himself.”

Danny made a noncommittal noise at that statement, not willing to jump into this familiar argument.

“Okay.” Chloe moved on. “Let me run this all together. You met a dreamy man at work. He rescues you from a mugger. Makes you postmugging dinner. Spends the night. Participates in a—mind-blowing, I believe you said?—hookup, buys you groceries, and leaves with a note but no number. I got it all?”

Well, clearly not all of it, but that was all Danny could share. “Yep, that’s the gist.”

“I don’t know, Danny. All signs point to a guy that’s super into you. You met him at the hospital. Maybe he’s expecting to see you again there?”

“But I don’t even work the next two nights.” Danny could hear the petulant whine in his voice, but he couldn’t help it.

“Ohhh.” Chloe sounded delighted. “I hear it. You’ve got a crush .”

“Mmph.” Maybe this phone call was a mistake.

“This is just such a lovely mix of heartwarming and pathetic.” Chloe laughed.

“All right, solution time. I’ve got you.

The key is distraction. I’m coming over tonight with trash movies and trash junk food.

Then tomorrow night you’re coming out with me.

It’s Marcus’s birthday celebration, and I know he would be both shocked and delighted if you actually came out.

We’ll distract you until work, and if you see him, you see him, and if you don’t, we throw an ‘all men are trash’ pity party. ”

“You can’t say all men are trash when you have a perfect husband, Chloe.”

“I can, and I will. Marcus would even bake us cookies for it.” Marcus was Chloe’s incredibly sweet, incredibly loving husband. He probably would too.

Okay. Distraction. That would work, right? He couldn’t obsess over unreachable vampire lovers if he was being sociable for once in his life.

After they had the details sorted, he ended the call, feeling unbearably appreciative of his friendship with Chloe.

He knew he could be an absentee friend, not around enough to hang out regularly or be a consistent presence—a fact that had prevented him from befriending the majority of his coworkers in any meaningful way—but Chloe met him where he was at, rejoicing when he was available and being incredibly understanding when he wasn’t.

Spending the next two nights with her would be the perfect distraction.

Now he just had to make it through the next five hours without obsessing over a certain vampire. He could handle that, right?