“From what I’ve heard it’s a little different for everybody.”
“Really? Hmm….”
“Mark has more stories than anyone. Probably because he’s a doctor, and he’s into that kind of thing.”
“What was it like for you?”
I sat down in the chair next to him and said, “I told Antonio that I didn’t really want to know all of the details. I sort of thought that might make it easier, and Antonio agreed that I was probably right.”
Trey looked at me thoughtfully. “Did it?” he asked. “Make it easier, I mean.”
“I think so,” I told him. “I sort of liked that I didn’t have to anticipate every stage of the process. I could just let him do what he needed to do, knowing that I’d get through it and come out on the other side a new version of myself.”
“I like the sound of that,” Trey said. Then he took another bite of pizza and chewed it in silence, mulling over his options. “I think I’m with you there. I don’t need to know all the details. I trust you. That’s enough for me.”
I cringed inside at Trey’s proclamation of trust in me. I was confident that I could change him, or I wouldn’t have planned to do it myself. But I couldn’t shake the unfounded fear in the back of my mind. I reminded myself that I was young, but also exceptionally strong. I could do this. I could change Trey, and we could have the happily ever after we so desperately wanted. I reached over and picked up a slice of pizza, more for something to do than anything. Trey smiled at me as I took a bite, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Something’s bothering you,” I said. “Spill it.”
He looked at me and said, “No fair. The moon disappeared hours ago.”
“I don’t have to read your mind to know you’re worrying about something.”
“It’s nothing,” he insisted, turning his head to look out at the ocean through the giant window. “It’s just that I have to go back to work tomorrow. Not much of a honeymoon, is it?”
I reached over and squeezed his leg. “I’ll take it,” I said. “Two days of having you all to myself. I don’t see any reason to complain. Besides, don’t you love making music videos?”
He turned to face me again, smiling. “Not nearly as much as I love being here with you,” he said.
“We have the rest of forever to enjoy each other,” I reminded him. I wore a smile, hoping he wouldn’t hear the words I wasn’t saying. The simple truth was that everything was about to change. Trey only had three days left as a human, and, technically, he’d be a zombie for two of those days while filming the video for “You Only Live Twice.” His mortality would come and go with the next full moon. For now, I could only hope everything would go as planned.
“I guess we should pick up a few of our things,” Trey suggested, changing my train of thought. “I managed a surprise wedding, but I didn’t get much packing done for either of us.”
“It’s a plan. I’ll go get ready,” I said. “The sooner we do that, the sooner we can get back here and enjoy our day.”
We were in Trey’s BMW an hour later and reached the house not long after that. Trey pulled his luggage out of the giant room he calls a closet and tossed them on the bed.
“Take the big one,” he told me.
“Thank you,” I said as I unzipped it and began putting some of my clothes inside. Thankfully, we’d brought some of my things over a few days ago, which meant we didn’t have to make two stops. Trey packed enough clothes in his suitcase to last a week at the beach house and then put some of my blood stash in a cooler, loading it all in the BMW. I was standing in the kitchen when he came back in from the garage.
“Is that everything?” I asked.
“I think so,” he said, putting his phone in his pocket. “Tara offered to keep Cowboy for as long as we need.”
I nodded and then turned toward the direction of the front door. “Are you expecting someone?” I asked curiously.
Trey raised an eyebrow at me. “No. Is one of the guys here or something? They should know better than that today.”
I shook my head slowly. “It’s definitely not one of the guys.”
Chapter 24
Trey
AURORA AND I WAITED in silence until a knock sounded on the door, and I went to it. I pulled it open only to stare into the face of a man I hadn’t seen in ten years.
“Hello, son,” was all he said.
I gawked for a moment before my mouth could form words. “Dad?” Aurora came to my side, taking my hand and studying the man in the doorway.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
I eyed him warily, not sure what I should be feeling. “Actually, we were just leaving.”
“You can’t spare five minutes for family?” he insisted.
“I learned from the best,” I said to him. Everything I’d buried for all these years started to bubble up inside of me again. It only made me angry. “And thanks for making this easy.” I moved to shut the door, but he stuck his foot out, blocking it.
“Trey, please.”
I could feel my blood pressure rising. He’d had the same effect on me during our last encounter when I was in junior high. He’d dropped in a week after Christmas to say hi. Before the visit had ended, he’d upset my mom and left without so much as a goodbye, true to form. Over his shoulder, I glimpsed a girl in a blue jumpsuit. It was Cali, one of my neighbors who just so happens to be a huge Catalyst fan. She smiled and waved at me as she walked her dog past the house. I nodded my head to her, trying to smile. Not wanting to cause a scene, I reluctantly opened the door and said, “Five minutes.” Dad stepped inside, and Aurora caught my eye, nodding toward him. “Aurora, this is Jon Decker.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Aurora,” Dad said, offering his hand to her. She put on a kind smile and shook his hand, though I knew she sensed my trepidation.
“This is a nice place you have here,” he said as he wandered over toward the couch in the living room. I followed him, Aurora right behind me.
“What do you want, dad?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“First of all, I wanted to meet my new daughter-in-law,” he said. “A man shouldn’t have to hear about his only son’s wedding on TV.”
“A man shouldn’t have to hear about his son’s anything on TV,” I countered. “Unless that man just abandons his family and disappears.” I ran my hand over my face, suddenly feeling tired. Aurora took me by the hand and led me over to the other sofa where I sat down next to her.
“Look Trey, I know I haven’t been around for you like I should have been –” I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m back in town now, and I thought maybe that could change.”
“I’m going to make some lemonade,” Aurora said, excusing herself to give us some space. She gave me a sympathetic smile as she left the room.
I gazed at my father. He looked just like I remembered, except older. Crow’s feet lined the edges of his eyes now, and his hair was a little thinner. I realized with a strange twist that I’d never look exactly like him, despite the fact that I looked like a younger version of him now. Soon, I’d be frozen as my twenty-two-year-old self. The thought was a little reassuring. He wasn’t the kind of man I wanted to grow up and be like.
“So, that’s it?” I asked. “You want to reconnect?”
“I know you won’t believe this, son, but I’ve kept an eye on you all these years.”
“Is that so?”
“I know every word to every song you sing,” he added. “I’m your biggest fan.” I shook my head, blindsided by his declaration and confused by how it made me feel. “You’ve done just fine without me,” he added, gesturing with a sweep of his hand to the house. “Look at this place. Marble floors, leather furniture, fancy art on the walls.”
“Aurora painted that,” I said, following his gaze to the painting of Pier 60 I’d bought from The Waking Moon the first time I visited it.
“She’s an artist?”
“I’m in the middle of my honeymoon,” I sa
id. “I have a music video to shoot and a new album dropping before I go on tour. Your timing is terrible. Things are crazy right now.” What I didn’t say was ‘Meet your new daughter-in-law. She’s a vampire, which sort of fits right in with my nocturnal band schedule, so we’re actually quite perfect for each other. Oh yeah, I’m going to be a vampire in a few days, too, so, if we ever get chummy and have a family barbeque, I’m going to want my steak bloody.’ I sighed, running my hand through my hair, and settled for, “How’d you find me, anyway?”
“You’re a big shot,” he said. “You’re not that hard to track down.”
“Is that so? Could have fooled me.”
He sighed. “I guess I had that one coming.” We sat in silence for a moment while I willed my blood pressure to drop. “I was sorry to hear about Wes,” he said at last. “It was all over the TV. I know you were close.”
That did it for me. “Don’t pretend you know anything about Wes,” I stated. “If you’d been a decent father at all, you’d have known him. Mom did. The fans did. He was the closest thing I had to a father figure. But you ... you don’t get to talk to me about Wes.”
Aurora returned then with a tray carrying a glass of lemonade for each of us. I took a sip and thanked her as she sat down next to me again.
“So, what brought you back to town, Mr. Decker?” She asked, trying to lighten the conversation.
“Please, call me Jon,” he said, smiling at her. “And the answer to your question is a job. Who knows, if it works out, I might stick around a while.” I rolled my eyes and took another drink to keep from commenting. “How’s your mother?” he asked after a moment.
“Fine.”
“Good. She deserves to be happy.” He finished his glass of lemonade and thanked Aurora. “I should be going,” he said, getting to his feet. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to me. I stood up, reluctantly taking it from him. It was a phone number.
“Call me,” he said. “When things aren’t so crazy for you.”
I thought about pointing out that things are always crazy for me but decided against it.
“It was nice meeting you,” he said to Aurora. She nodded and smiled at him politely. “I can show myself out,” he said as he walked over to the door. He turned to me one more time and said, “Take care, son.”
I nodded and watched my father walk away. Again.
Aurora set her glass down on the coffee table and came to stand before me. “Are you okay?” she asked, lifting her hand to my chest.
I met her gaze and found concern in her green eyes. “I’ll be okay,” I reassured her. “There was a time when that man had the power to ruin my life. It’s not like that now. There’s no way I’m letting him ruin our honeymoon. I know that much.” I smiled, and Aurora leaned against me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me as my heart rate returned to normal.
Only an hour after my estranged father had shown up at my front door, Aurora and I were enjoying the cool ocean water back at the beach house. If the feel of the saltwater on my skin wasn’t enough to wash away my stress, seeing Aurora in that black swim suit would have done it. She looked amazing as she laughed and splashed water at me. Her long dark hair fell in damp waves down her back and her green eyes shone in the sunlight. She caught me staring and smiled, making her way toward me in the waves. I wiped a drop of water from her cheek with my thumb and bent down, brushing my lips against hers. She kissed me back, soft and slow. The sea water lapped against us as we stood together, the sand beneath our feet moving with the tide. Things couldn’t possibly get better than this. In that moment, I wanted for nothing.
“Thank you,” I said when the kiss ended, wrapping my arms around her waist. She tilted her head and looked up at me, her wet skin glistening in the light.
“For what?”
“For being you,” I said. “And forgiving me for this.” I splashed water at her and she squealed in the way girls do. Then she put her hand to my chest and shoved me backward into the water with enough force to submerge me. I spit and laughed as I found my feet again, shaking my wet hair out of my face. “It’s too easy to forget that you’re Wonder Woman,” I teased.
“I’ll just have to keep reminding you,” she said, grinning victoriously.
Chapter 25
Aurora
I MADE TWO CUPS of hot chocolate, something I’m still nostalgic about from my human days, and carried them into the front room of the beach house where Trey was sitting on a blanket on the floor. The flames in the fireplace danced and crackled, casting shadows on the walls.
“Thank you,” Trey said as I sat next to him and handed him a cup. He took a sip and then let out a long, drawn out breath. “That really hits the spot.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“How is it that you’re still so good at the human stuff?” he said with a smile, bumping me lightly on the shoulder.
“I’m not,” I said. “At least, I’m not usually.” Trey just grinned at me. “You bring it out in me,” I admitted. “Something about being with you just makes me feel all domesticated.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, grinning before he took another sip of cocoa.
“Not bad, just weird. For me, anyway.”
“Well, I think it’s cute when you’re all domesticated.” I felt the shift in his mood as clearly as a light being turned off, and I knew his thoughts had gone elsewhere.
“Thinking about your dad?” I asked.
He sighed and his blazing, blue eyes met mine. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe he showed up like that today out of the blue.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “It’s a lot to process.”
“When I was younger,” he said wistfully. “The only thing I wanted was for him to want to spend time with me. I’d see other kids playing ball with their dads or going fishing, and I wanted to have that with him.” Trey stared at the fire for a moment and sipped at his cocoa. “As I got older, I just resented him for not doing any of those things. I tried to give him a chance when he showed back up the one time, but he just wasn’t capable of doing things right by me or my mom. I just don’t know what I want from him now. I haven’t known in a long time.” I rested my head on his shoulder and he kissed my hair.
“It must be hard for you, knowing we’ll never have kids of our own,” I said softly. I felt Trey’s weight shift, and I sat up again to look at him. “You’ve probably had that thought a thousand times, about how you would do things differently with your own kids. I’m sorry that’s not really in the cards for us”
“Hey,” he said, touching my chin. “The most important thing to me is being with you. I’m sure O’Shea, Chase and Jonas will eventually have kids one day, and I’ll get to be the fun uncle.” I gave him a questionable look and he smiled and added, “I’m serious. I’ll be the one who always has great hair and brings the kinds of fun toys that parents hate.”
I smiled, trying to visualize what he was saying. “It’s just that I’ve seen you with Joshua,” I said, referring to Ken and Serena’s infant son. “I know how much you love kids. You’d make a great father.”
Trey put his hot chocolate down on the coffee table and turned to face me. “I love you,” he said softly. “The only thing I’m concerned with is being a great husband.” Then he took my hot chocolate and put it down next to his, leaning into me. I felt his lips brush against mine, and I let myself be carried away in his kiss.
When the kiss ended I moved over to the sofa and gestured for him to sit on the floor between my knees. “Lose the shirt,” I said as he sat down.
He smiled and pulled his Y-shirt over his head. “Whatever you say.” I started rubbing his shoulders, trying to relieve all of the tension he was carrying there. “Right there,” Trey said, sucking air in through his teeth as I encountered a knot above his left shoulder blade.
I worked to relieve the knot, leaning forward to whisper in his ear as I did so. “Close your eyes,” I sai
d softly. I felt the hum of the moon’s power in the back of my mind and harnessed it to send soothing scenes into Trey’s thoughts. I flooded his mind with memories of the two of us enjoying the ocean waves and waking up next to each other in white satin sheets. I felt his muscles stiffen briefly in response to the surprise, but he relaxed again just as quickly, giving me full control as he let himself be swallowed up in the images. Within five minutes, all the tension had gone completely out of him, and I released his mind. He shook his head lightly to clear it and then got to his knees, turning around to face me.
“That was new,” he said, giving me a lazy smile. “I had no idea you could-”
“I’m just full of surprises.” I traced the design of his tattoo lightly with my fingernail. “Besides, I thought you might like that.”
“Like it?” He laughed. “You blew my mind. Literally. Do you have any more tricks up your sleeve?”
“I can think of one more,” I admitted. I’d been trying to figure out how to tell Trey about the emotional link that occurred every time we kissed for a few days now, but after projecting into his mind tonight, I finally had an idea. “I’ll show you, if you think you’re up to it.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, the smile never leaving his face. “Just tell me what to do.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but decided against it. Instead, I projected an image of him kissing me into his thoughts. Trey’s eyes went unfocussed for a brief second while he processed the image. I released his mind, and our eyes met for a heartbeat before he leaned forward, and I felt his lips on mine.
I let my heartbeat quicken to match his own, completely caught up in the adrenaline rush that is kissing Trey. Instead of trying to decipher his feelings, I focused on my own. I reveled in the way all of my senses reacted to him and then tried to project that into his mind. His reaction was undeniable. I felt it in the kiss. Because the connection was now working both ways, I experienced Trey’s wonder at the emotional link. The sense of euphoria was heightened, because it was coming from us both, like our souls were brushing against each other. I could have gone on kissing him like that forever, long after my fangs unsheathed themselves and my eyes began to glow. When we finally pulled apart, he stared at me in awe. His chest was rising and falling against my hand as he tried to catch his breath.
Immortals And Melodies (Blood And Guitars #2) Page 13