I find a bathroom and wash up. Jay’s still asleep when I return, so I walk out back to the pool area. My stomach clenches as I approach the spot where Myrtle struck me from behind. I make myself stand there and breathe through the anxiety, until I can move past it and think about the clear pink of the morning sky, the twitter of birds in the bushes, and the quiet gurgle of the fountain at the end of the pool. The concrete feels fresh and cool under my bare toes.

A whistled tune and a murmur of voices surprises me, and my heart starts to race—but it’s only a couple of guys in T-shirts that say, “Schrader’s Pool Maintenance,” carrying several pieces of equipment and a length of hose. One of them nods to me. “Morning, miss. This the pool you need cleaned?”

“Um…yes.” Because my vampire boyfriend bled into it yesterday. He must have called them to take care of the contamination. “Yes, thank you.”

“Right on.” They start setting up their equipment, and judging from what I can see, the pump’s going to get noisy, so I pad along the path leading into the garden and pull my phone from my pocket. It’s about time I talk to Jordan.

Luckily I have twenty percent battery left. I usually text her, but I think this conversation warrants an actual call. She’s probably still asleep, but frankly, I don’t give a damn.

She answers on the third ring. “Girl, you better be dying if you’re gonna call me this early.”

“Interesting choice of words. Jay died yesterday.”

She swears, loud and long, and I wait patiently until the string of f-bombs has ended.

“Yeah, Myrtle shot him through the chest. Nicked his heart. Funny thing—he didn’t stay dead.”

A long pause. Then Jordan says, “So you know.”

“I do. Apparently you now have a second stomach and heart, like a freaking cow-squid thingy. And the reason I didn’t see you much at the Met party is because you were off guzzling some unconscious person’s blood.”

“More or less. Look, I’m hearing a judgy tone and I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m not in the mood, okay? It’s way too early for you to be this morally upright.”

I sigh, touching the peach-colored petals of a rose. There’s a whole section of them in Jay’s gardens—fat ones as big as my fist in colors ranging from lush pink and velvety red to buttery yellow and creamy white. Their scent is a delicate swirl in the morning air.

“Daisy?” Jordan’s tone is sharp. It reminds me of my own special tone, and how Jay was about to tell me why he and Cody were more susceptible to my voice. It’s because they’re vampires, with extra-sensitive hearing. Which means Jordan should also be susceptible. I’ve never tried doing this over the phone before—but in the name of scientific research, I should probably try. Just to see how far my powers extend.

“I want you to tell me how it works.” My voice drifts low, rising and falling like a song. “Tell me what Gatsby’s special process is, the one he uses to turn people into vampires. Why can’t anyone else replicate it?”

Jordan answers immediately, in a curiously toneless voice. “It’s something he and Cody worked out together. The process used to be painful and clumsy, and the subject would be deathly sick for weeks while the new organs were growing. A lot of humans would die or give up and kill themselves to escape the pain before the change was complete. Gatsby found a way to ease the process, a special drug to help the subject’s body accept the genetic changes.”

“So Jay developed a safer, more comfortable transformation process. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“So people could theoretically become vampires without paying all that money, if they were willing to do it the old way, and go through the pain, and risk dying from the transition.”

“Yes.”

It changes things, knowing there’s another way for people to become vampires if they really want to, even if they don’t have enough money to pay Cody and Jay. Like any shrewd businessman, Jay is providing not just the product, but a premium service. An experience. A more comfortable transformation, plus the benefit of an orientation into the world, blood access at the parties, and an ongoing membership in a community of fellow vampires. It’s kind of genius, actually. He’s the vampire version of Steve Jobs. The thought makes me giggle, and that sound snaps Jordan out of her obedient mode.

“Did you hear me, Daisy? I don’t like being judged.”

“I’m not judging you. I’m a little mad you didn’t tell me, but I understand why.”

“Great. I’m so relieved,” she says dryly. “Now I can go back to sleep.”

“I have more questions. What’s a glutton?”

But she’s already hung up.

I guess that went about as well as could be expected.

I think about texting Mom, but I really don’t want to field her questions about what happened with me and Jay last night. The answer is pretty boring anyway; I fell asleep after dinner and nothing happened. I kind of wish something had happened. But with everything I went through yesterday, all the emotions and the headache, it wouldn’t have been a good idea. My head feels way better today, and my neck is only a little stiff. There’s still a sore lump on my skull, though.

The sun is rising, casting nets of golden beams over the rosebushes, picking out the glittering dewdrops on every leaf and thorn and petal. Its warmth on my bare arms is like a familiar touch. No matter what else has changed, the world is still turning, and the sun is still shining. I’m alive to see it, and so is Jay.

He could have died. The moment I thought he was dead is tangled in the back of my mind like bristling black vines. Remembering that sense of raw, wretched panic kicks my heart into a faster rhythm. My soul was shredded in those moments, and even though it healed up again almost instantly, there will always be faint scars, the echo of what it felt like to lose him.

An unreasonable anxiety crawls through my bones, itching along my skin. I need Jay. I need him right now. I need to be touching him, making sure that he’s really here. Existing. Whole.

I race back through the rose garden, past the entrance to the hedge maze, through the pool area, hopping over the big hose and covering my ears against the noise of the pump. I fight my way through the ghostly sheers blowing across the screened porch, and I hurry along the hall, into the room where I left Jay asleep.

He’s standing there, casual and beautiful, checking his phone. I slam into him, wrapping him in my arms as tightly as I can.

He staggers a little, and his free hand lands on my head, a gentle pressure. “Hey there. You okay?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I murmur into his shirt.

“Huh?”

“It doesn’t matter, any of it. The vampire stuff—it’s all just logistics, something we’ll have to work out. You’re alive because you’re a vampire, so I can never be mad about that, ever. I’m grateful, Jay. So, so grateful.” Tears are streaming from my eyes, and I press my face further into his chest, listening to the thrum of his heart. It’s got an odd cadence—the expected double-thump, with an offbeat echo. His second heart is working away somewhere deep inside. It’s strange, and it’s him. I accept it. I accept all of him, because underneath every choice he’s made, questionable or not, he is good. He’s got a head for strategy and a heart full of goodness and eyes full of hope, and I love him.

Of course I can’t actually say any of that. It would sound dumb and sentimental, and I’d probably cry. So I just hold him, grip him like he might slip backward into that blood-tinged pool and sink forever.

He drops his phone on the floor and closes both arms around me, setting his chin on the top of my head.

After I moment, I tip my face up to his, rising a little on my toes. He meets me halfway, his soft smile pressing to my mouth. The kiss is tender, sweet and warm, like melting chocolate.

Being here like this, with my body molded to his, wakens the familiar flush of arousal over my skin. Last night, the vampire concept was too new in my head, and though I was turned on, it was a cautious sensation, less urgent than what I usually feel with Jay. This morning I’ve accepted it all, and every part of me got the memo. It’s like I was temporarily locked down, and now the right password has been entered, so I’m open again.

My hands follow the slope of Jay’s back down to his tapered waist, then to his backside. He’s got the most squeezable, bitable ass, honestly. I wonder what sound he would make if I bit him there. Pretty sure I’d shriek with delight if he bit mine.

Palms against his butt, I pull him tighter against me. He’s hardening against my lower belly, a thick length that sends a thrilling tingle into my pussy.

He huffs an eager breath against my lips and kisses me again—a fervent crush of a kiss, scorching and hungry. My tongue quests over the points of his teeth, slides into his mouth, and twines with his tongue. He moans low in his throat, gripping me tighter.

“Fuck, Daisy,” he says hoarsely, each word a hot breath between my lips.

His hands find the hem of my shirt, nails scraping my skin lightly, fingers sliding up beneath it. He pushes the bra up, out of his way. It’s wireless and stretchy, so it yields to him easily. My breath hitches at the glorious rush of Jay’s warm hands over my bare breasts, and for a second I forget where I am, what he is, everything but the long fingers enjoying my skin, the thumbs stroking over my nipples.

He takes my mouth again, and I abandon my fondling of his ass to weave all my fingers into his hair. I open wide for him, gripped by a reckless need to be closer to him—to nestle inside him, or swallow him into myself.

But then we hear the distant voice of a pool cleaner, raised to shout instructions. At the same moment a door closes somewhere above us.

“One of the staff,” Jay whispers apologetically. “We could go to my room, or…we could wait until we have more time, more space.” He brushes his lips across my cheek. “When I can really savor you.”

“Oh god, yes.” He’s right. We probably shouldn’t get it on right here. But we can satisfy a different kind of hunger. “Breakfast?” I suggest.