“Excuse me?” He flushes, and it’s so cute I almost laugh.
“The other component of the transformation. You said it was more complicated than drinking a vampire’s blood.”
“It is more complicated, and no, Daisy, it’s not sexual.”
“Good. Because I was picturing you having sex with all those other people.”
“Picturing me…having sex?” His mouth tips up at the corner.
My cheeks turn hot. “I wasn’t—I mean—if you had to do that with everyone you changed, it would bother me more than the fangs, the two stomachs, and the other stuff.” My voice trails off, and I focus very hard on the plump cushion of the sofa arm, tracing the creases of its puckered edge.
“It would bother me, too. But thankfully that’s not part of the deal.”
Silence invades again, but my racing thoughts don’t decelerate. Is it weird that deep down, I’m not actually mad at him? That despite all of this, I still want to find a way to fit into his life? Even now, I can feel myself making space in my soul for the morally gray zone he inhabits, realigning my ethical boundaries to include what he must do to survive.
Is that even okay?
“I don’t want to talk or think about this anymore today,” I tell him. “I want to make it a tomorrow problem.”
“That’s fair.” He laces his fingers and studies them. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“So have you. What with the dying and all.”
“True.”
“You can eat like a normal person, right?”
“You’ve seen me eat.”
“Well, getting cracked on the head, being tied up, and watching my boyfriend get shot made me ravenous. I demand dinner, and I think I deserve to have it brought to me. Right here. While I sit comfortably on this couch.”
“Of course.” Jay leaps up. “Anything you want. Just tell me what sounds good, and I’ll—Hold up. Did you just call me your boyfriend?”
“Is that not a term vampires use?” I pluck at the blanket, avoiding his eyes, my heart throbbing.
His fingers curl at his sides, tight and tense, like coiled springs. “That’s absolutely a term vampires use.”
Again with the silence. Is he waiting for me to say something? Why isn’t he saying something? Was I too impulsive? Maybe I assumed too much. He might not even want that kind of relationship with me.
“Daisy,” he says faintly. “Don’t tease me.”
I look up, and up. He’s so fucking tall, and there’s a stormy aura surrounding him, a mounting tide of emotion.
“Come down here,” I say softly, skimming dangerously close to the tone that will make him my puppet. But I don’t go there. That is a morally gray space I’m not comfortable with, at least not until I understand more about what I can do.
Jay isn’t the only one who’s different in a supernaturally unexpected way. Maybe we’re two of a kind, he and I. More of a match than we ever suspected.
I reach for one of his hands and pull him down beside me, until he’s kneeling on the rug while I sit on my throne of couch cushions and blankets.
“We’ve both changed,” I tell him. “My family’s whole situation changed. And you—your change is, like, way out there, superhard to wrap my head around, but people keep changing throughout their whole lives, right? And after each change, their friends have to decide whether or not to stick with them. I have to be honest. I feel like you didn’t stick with me after we moved away.”
“I’ve apologized for that, and I’ll do it again. I’m sorry.” But there’s a shadow over his words.
I frown at him. “You’re not sorry. Or at least, that’s not the only thing you feel about it.”
His brown eyes lock with mine, a stormy swirl of pain. “You left me, Daisy. You were the only person I had, and you left me behind with nothing. You can’t imagine how that felt—to have my second home ripped away, the place where I had meals, the place where I made all my good holiday memories, where I studied and played. You all treated me as part of the family for years and then, when your dad got his new job, you left.” He lunges to his feet, his voice rising, strained with repressed fury. “You abandoned me, and all you can think about is how it affected you. How you didn’t get emails, or calls, or texts. You tore away everything that mattered to me, and you expected me to remind myself of that rejection by staying in touch? Screw that.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Anger trembles in my heart, in my voice. I throw off the blankets and rise to face him, ignoring the lingering pain in my head. “My parents were in charge. I had to move with them. What the hell did you expect me to do?”
“Fight for me! Ask them to get custody of me.”
“You know that would never have worked. No judge would have given you to us.”
“They might have! Your parents had enough evidence of my mom’s neglect. They didn’t even try.”
“Because you told them not to go to Child Protective Services! You didn’t want to end up in foster care, and that’s what would have happened if they’d spoken out. We weren’t related, Jay. Mom and Dad could never have gotten custody of you—and even if they had, is that what you would have wanted? To be my foster brother?”
“Hell no!”
“Then what, Jay, what? What did you want? I was fourteen. What more could I have done?”
“I don’t fucking know!” he bellows. The blaze in his eyes and the force of his shout sends me back a step.
He sucks in a quick breath, his face drawn taut, his eyes so wide with horror that I forget my anger. He sinks onto the edge of the coffee table, and I sit opposite him, on the edge of the sofa.
“Jay. Are you okay? You look like…like you killed someone.”
“I don’t yell like that.” The words leak between his stiff lips. “That’s not me.”
