“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. I promised myself I wouldn’t, that I would never—” He looks as if he’s about to smack the table, but instead he curls his fist against it with studied control. “This is how it starts, with the yelling. The arguments. I want us to be different, you and me. I don’t want us to ever get like them.”
He’s talking about his parents. I slip my fingers over his fist, settle them between his knuckles. “We won’t.”
“We might.” He pulls away. “I thought I was ready for this, for us, but apparently I still need to work on myself. You deserve that. You deserve the best.”
The finality in his tone is terrifying, like he might actually leave this house, this mountain. Whatever happens, he can’t leave. Not when I just got him back, not when he just revealed his whole secret life to me.
“You don’t have to be perfect, Jay,” I whisper.
He stares at me, incredulous. “Oh, Daisy, of course I do. Of course I do. We live in a world where one mistake can destroy someone’s reputation forever. We all have to strive to be perfect.”
“Perfect to whom, though? Because people don’t all have the same standards, you’ll never be perfect to everyone. The lines are all drawn in different places. Even people who agree on one thing will eventually realize they disagree on something else. Perfection is impossible.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past eight years, it’s that nothing’s impossible.” He stands again, pulling out his phone. “And you asked who I’m trying to be perfect for, but I think you know the answer. It’s always been you. You’ve been with me through every moment, every decision I’ve made. Even when I hated you for leaving me behind.”
“I’m sorry.” I breathe the words straight from my soul, even though I know they can’t fix his pain.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I forgave you already. Now tell me what you want for dinner, and I’ll make it happen.”
13
I’m warm, so warm, drifting on a sea of spice and heat, rising gently on a swell and then sinking again. Except this ocean isn’t liquid, it’s firm, covered in soft cotton fabric—
I blink slowly, and there’s a lean muscled arm inches from my nose, a strong hand draped over my shoulder. My own hand is curled around a fistful of Jay’s T-shirt, and my hip is nestled between his legs. Beyond the curve of his arm, I can see the empty containers of the Thai takeout we ate last night.
I must have fallen asleep on his chest. And he didn’t move me.
Cautiously I sit up, trying to wring some order from my mass of blond tangles. It’s no use, so I tug an elastic from my wrist and knot the whole mess on top of my head. My breath probably smells awful. There’s water in a bottle on the table, so I drink a few swallows.
Jay is still out, completely relaxed. I’ve seen him asleep before, but he was just a kid then. He’s so much bigger now. His angles have sharpened, while his chest and arms have filled out. I want to trace the curve of his lashes, the arch of his dark eyebrows, the line of his nose. His brown hair is smushed against the armrest of the couch; he’s going to have the cutest bedhead when he gets up.
A vampire with bedhead. I smother a hysterical snicker as everything I learned yesterday rushes back in.
I spent the night with a vampire.
I spent the night with a man, and my parents will know. When I get home, I’ll have to deal with their questions and comments. I hate feeling like I’m back in high school again. Easy and comfortable as it is at Mom and Dad’s, I need to be out of there by the end of the summer.
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.”
