by Austin Bates
“Yeah, Belinda,” Jules repeated irritably. “The one he swore his undying love to at the end of Blood Magic?”
“Oh, her,” Rick said dismissively. “Yeah, didn’t work out. She wanted him to stop hunting vampires and settle down.”
“Well maybe he should have thought about that before he swore his love to her,” Jules grumbled.
“It’s not like she gave him any warning,” Rick pointed out. “She fell in love with a hunter, she should have expected him to go back to hunting afterwards.”
“That’s right!” Jules agreed emphatically. “She should have! She shouldn’t have expected him to change himself for her, nobody does that! He is who he is, and if she couldn’t accept that, she never should have moved in with him in the first place!”
“She didn’t….”
“And furthermore, if she wanted something more from him, she could have damn well told him right out of the gate instead of waiting until he was completely invested and then suddenly demanding a change! She didn’t even give him a chance to change, because she didn’t tell him she needed him to change, she just blindsided him with it at the last second!”
“Wow, Jules? You know it’s just a book, right? Like… none of this actually happened. Hell, most of what you just said didn’t even happen in the books. Are you feeling alright?”
“No!” Jules exploded.
He paced the room, trying to get a handle on himself. Rick sat wide-eyed on the couch, watching him like a rabbit in a trap, huddling tight into the corner of his seat.
“It is infuriating when people do that,” Jules snarled. “I don’t do that to you, do I? If I need an eighty-thousand-word novel, I tell you I need an eighty-thousand-word novel! I don’t come at you in the eleventh hour after you’ve already submitted a-hundred-thousand-word novel and tell you to cut it down, do I? No! It’s just rude! You put all that work and effort into something, you should be able to succeed! You can’t succeed if you don’t know the parameters, can you?”
“I, uh… guess not?”
“Exactly, you can’t. It’s impossible. Why would someone just blindside you like that?”
“This isn’t about the book anymore, is it?”
“And waiting until you’re fully aware of someone’s long-term intentions is just plain cruel,” Jules continued, ignoring him.
“A person should at least have the courtesy to say something before some idiot goes and spends thirty-thousand dollars on a useless frikken rock.”
“Yeah, not about the book.”
Jules seethed, pacing the room, his thunderous footfalls shaking the walls.
“Maybe I can get the money back,” he muttered. “That’ll be fun. Hey, mister salesperson, I suck at love, take your rock back. Oh yeah. Good times.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, up into his hair, pulling out the elastic that held his ponytail so he could scrape his nails across his scalp. His hair flew wildly around his face, and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked like a wild man. He felt like one, so he figured it worked. He caught Rick’s expression—a mix of terror and intrigue—and decided he needed to calm the hell down before he ran off his best client.
He took a deep breath and brushed his hair back. The elastic had snapped when he pulled it from his hair, so he did what he could with it, tucking it behind his ears. He settled onto the couch slowly. Rick’s eyes never left him.
“Sorry,” he said as calmly as he could manage.
“It’s, uh… it’s fine,” Rick said timidly. “You wanna tell me what that was all about?”
“Nothing important,” Jules said evenly. “Just a doomed romance.”
“How long were you with her?”
“Him,” Jules corrected. “Almost a year. I was going to propose on our anniversary. He found the ring and broke it off, citing a bunch of shit I didn’t even know I was doing.”
“Oh,” Rick said.
Rick played with his hands. Relationships, especially romantic relationships, were not his area of expertise. He’d had two boyfriends his entire life, and both relationships had ended in less than six months. Rick simply wasn’t good with people, something that really hadn’t bothered him before now. But if they were going to be trapped here together all week, he’d have to rustle up some skills or go crazy. Jules was obviously in some kind of distress, and Rick didn’t have a laptop to disappear into. He’d have to actually deal with it. Somehow.
“Do… do you want to talk about it?” he asked lamely.
Jules shook his head.
“I think I have cookies around here somewhere. I hear eating helps.”
“Not me,” Jules shrugged.
“What would help?” Rick asked nervously.
“Work,” Jules said bitterly.
He checked his phone. No messages, no calls, no charge. It blinked at him wearily as the battery died.
“Which I can’t do, apparently.”
“Oh.”
They sat in silence, the fire dancing and crackling, the liveliest thing in the room.
“Revenge sex?”
“What?”
“I wasn’t… I mean, not necessarily me, but… I just heard it helps,” Rick stammered.
Jules cracked a smile.
“Bet it would,” he said wistfully. “Not a whole lot of options on that front, either.”
“Oh! Alcohol! I have tons of that,” Rick said, changing the subject as quickly as he could.
“Hey, now there’s an idea,” Jules grinned. “It’s not exactly five o’clock, but what the hell. Nothing better to do.”
Rick hurried into the kitchen and flung open a cabinet.
“Pick your poison,” he said.
Jules looked over the wide array of options, finally settling on some honey bourbon. Rick poured two small glasses of it, and they returned to the living room, glasses in hand. Rick brought the bottle; without his book to fall into, he was going to need it.
“You were telling me about your book,” Jules said as they sat.
Rick eyed him suspiciously.
“I’m not sure if I should tell you,” he said. “You didn’t seem to take it too well last time.”
Jules waved a dismissive hand.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m drinking, I’m calm, I’m fine. Go ahead.”
“Okay… if you’re sure? Alright. Well anyway, Luther goes to the town and talks to the girl. The vampires are targeting kids, and she’s freaked because her sister disappeared the night before and she thinks it means the vampires are expanding their kill parameters. I mean, of course she’s heartbroken over her missing sister, but the implications are there. So Luther goes and tracks down the sister, who apparently wasn’t taken by vampires… she just wanted to run away with her boyfriend. Who turns out to be a vampire, but we don’t find that out until later. So Luther starts investigating the missing kids. He finds a bunch of bones, children’s bones, but suspects that they are too old and dry to be the ones he’s looking for. He pokes around a bit, and discovers that a plague wiped out a bunch of kids several decades ago.”
“Double red herring, I like it so far. What happens next?”
“Well Austerity is so grateful that she decides to join him on his quest. They start to get physical, but they’re interrupted by a vamp raid on the town.”
“How rude.”
“Right? So anyway, they kill a bunch of them and run a bunch of them off, and he goes chasing the stragglers through the woods. One of them leads him to a broken down house and tries to ambush him, but Austerity saves him at the last second.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“What?”
“Having the girl save his life?”
“Why not?”
“He’s supposed to be the big alpha vampire hunter, right?”
“Right….”
“So having his romantic interest, a girl, saving him kind of undermines that image.”
“No it doesn’t,” Rick said, surpris
ed. “Alpha doesn’t mean perfect or invincible, it just means that he’s an emphatically masculine leader. If he were an alpha female, he’d be an emphatically feminine leader. If he never got himself in trouble, he’d be pretty flat, wouldn’t he?”
“Does he get upset that she saves him?”
“Of course not, that’s beta behavior. He graciously thanks her and compliments her skill with a crossbow.”
Jules rubbed his beard thoughtfully. Rick might have a better grasp of people and humanity than he gave himself credit for.
“Okay, keep going, what happens next?”
“Well she knows the area, and she knows that there’s an abandoned castle in the area. She doesn’t know exactly how to get there, but she can get him close. Once they get to the general vicinity, she receives a message via hawk that her sister is in dire need of her assistance. She runs off, and he goes into the woods alone.”
“It’s a trap?” Jules asked.
“Yeah, for both of them,” Rick said. “Is it too obvious?”
“Not necessarily, if you write it properly,” Jules said.
“Yeah, that’s the hardest part,” Rick said with a grin. “The actual writing. At least it used to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well now, the hardest part is going to be the tour,” Rick said.
His stomach clenched just saying the word, and he crossed his arms over his belly.
“It’s strange to me that you get so stressed out about it,” Jules said. “I mean, all you’re going to have to do is sit in a chair, ask who they want the book signed to, write a little note and sign your name. It’s mostly writing.”
“Right, but it’s also making eye contact and having the right expression and being nice and being patient and what if they flutter or flirt or get tongue-tied? I don’t like fans—of anything. There’s a reason I don’t go to conventions, no matter who is going to be there. I can’t handle the fan energy as an ambient thing, how am I supposed to handle it when it’s pointed at me?”
“Good question,” Jules said. “You have any books on the subject?”
Rick gave him a condescending look.
“Jules. I have books on every subject.”
Chapter Six
“Come on,” Rick said impatiently.
He was halfway up the stairs, and Jules was at the bottom, just staring. Rick held his candle low so Jules could see the steps. That must be the problem.
“Is that your bedroom up there?” Jules asked.
“Yeah, that’s where I keep the books. What’s the matter? Come on.”
Jules started up the stairs and Rick shook his head. What did it matter what room they were going to? He set the candle on the table beside the bed. It didn’t lend much light to the room. They were going to need more if they were going to find anything useful. Jules hesitated at the top of the stairs, eyeing the big bed.
“Stay here,” Rick said. “I’m gonna get more candles.”
“Right,” Jules said briskly.
“Sit on the bed. I don’t want to run into you on my way up.”
Jules hesitated again, and Rick blew out an impatient breath.
“Alright, alright,” Jules said, stepping over to the bed.
He sat gingerly, as if he were afraid the duvet would bite him. Rick rolled his eyes and made his way back down the stairs.
“Gets on my ass for being afraid to talk to people and he’s skittish about a bed,” Rick scoffed.
He rifled through the kitchen drawers, looking for his emergency stash. The candle he held was the cinnamon-scented decorative candle he kept on the mantle for those times when he needed sensory stimulation that he couldn’t otherwise obtain.
He found the stash and carried the whole bag up the stairs. Jules was still sitting on the bed, looking more uncomfortable than ever.
“Phobic?” Rick asked, trying to sound sympathetic.
“No,” Jules snapped defensively.
“Really. Cause you look like I do ninety-percent of the time.”
Jules glanced at him, a startled expression on his face.
“Is this what you feel like ninety percent of the time?” he asked, wincing.
“Depends. What do you feel like?”
“Heart racing, mouth dry, sweaty palms, need to smash things.”
Rick quickly moved a crystal ashtray out of Jules’ reach.
“Aside from that last part, yeah. I don’t want to smash things, I usually just want to run away.”
“Guess that’s what they mean by fight or flight.”
“Yeah. Question is, what’s making your fight or flight sensor go off?”
Jules glanced anxiously at the bed he was sitting on.
“No idea. Kind of want to smash the bed.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“No kidding.”
“Did a bed bite you? I mean, that doesn’t make any sense, but you’re looking at it like it’s just dying to.”
“No. Not literally. Not at all, what am I saying? We’re up here for you, not me. Show me to the books.”
Rick gestured all around them. Books lined every wall, interrupted here and there by the bed, stairs, and railing.
“Right,” Jules said gruffly.
Rick looked at him sideways, trying to figure him out. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t feeling like the craziest person in the room. Jules lit a candle and began looking over the shelves farthest away from Rick. Seemed like a good system, so Rick began searching the books closest to him. He figured they’d meet in the middle, thereby ensuring that each book was examined.
Jules noticed that Rick was keeping his distance, and was simultaneously relieved and irritated. Why wouldn’t Rick want to be near him? It made sense for him to keep his distance, he’s the one who just got his heart broken. Rick didn’t have that problem. Not that Jules particularly wanted Rick to come on to him, but he had subconsciously assumed that it was inevitable. They were both attractive, gay men, trapped in a dark house with a cozy fire. It seemed inevitable, but apparently Rick wasn’t interested.
That’s all I need, Jules thought bitterly. More rejection. Not that he was after anything. It wouldn’t be good business to get involved. He blamed the alcohol for his vulnerable mood; without it, he’d be totally fine. Except that he would be twitchy about his inability to work, rather than his inability to keep a boyfriend. He knocked back a shot, killing that line of thought. Focus, he ordered. He looked through each title, looking for anything on anxiety, psychology, or mood management. He tried to find a pattern in the shelving system, but there didn’t seem to be one.
“How are you organizing these books?” he asked.
“By color,” Rick told him.
Jules stopped and turned around.
“What?”
“What?” Rick asked innocently.
“You organize by… color?!”
“Yeah, the color of the spines. See?”
He waved his light around, illuminating the rainbow of books.
“Why?” Jules asked, aghast.
Rick shrugged.
“I like the way it looks,” he said.
“But you can’t find anything!”
Rick shot him a look.
“I very rarely look for anything specific when I read. If I need info, I’ll just look it up online. My books are my own adventures, and I never want to be too prepared when I go on an adventure. Well, a book adventure anyway. Real adventures are entirely beyond me.”
“I don’t know… getting trapped in the woods is kind of an adventure,” Jules said.
“Not really,” Rick laughed. “I have everything I need, I don’t have a quest, and there’s someone here to make sure I don’t kill myself through sheer clumsiness. Now, the tour, that’ll be an adventure. A death defying adventure. But this? This is just extra layers between us and the world.”
“Cold, wet, infuriating layers,” Jules grumbled.
“Yeah. Still, it’s no adventure.”
Jules thought for a while as he scanned the titles. He shouldn’t push it, he really shouldn’t, and if he were any more self-aware he would be able to handle his own inner turmoil without crossing that line. But he wasn’t and he couldn’t, and on top of that he’d had just enough alcohol to compromise his impulse control, so he went for it.
“I know what would make it an adventure,” he said suggestively.
“Let’s not,” Rick said quickly. “I’m really, really not good at real life adventures.”
“Oh.” Stupid, stupid, stupid, Jules scolded himself abusively.
There it was, the rejection. He should have known better. He must reek of angst after what Steven did, not to mention his little outburst in the living room earlier. Rick was absolutely right to shut him down. He returned to his search, angrily pulling out promising-looking books and tossing them on the bed.
“Hey, hey! Be gentle with those!” Rick said anxiously, rushing over to straighten the books.
He handled them gently, cradling them against his chest as if they were children. Jules felt something—jealousy, he determined—and decided that he had completely lost his ever-lovin’ mind.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Rick squinted at him in the low light.
“You have issues,” he said.
“Excuse me?” Jules rounded on him too quickly, and spattered hot wax across the carpeted floor.
“You’re making me nervous. Put the fire down.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Jules grumbled.
“You really aren’t,” Rick said.
He set the books down gently on the bed, and took the candle out of Jules’ hand slowly but firmly. He stuck it to a candle holder on a little table by the railing and turned to Jules, who seemed conflicted about something. Anger and remorse and something Rick couldn’t identify at all were all mixed up in his expression. Rick studied him for a moment, searching his mind for any passage, interaction, or scene in any of the countless books he’d read that would help him navigate a conversation with someone like Jules.
“You’re upset about something,” Rick said finally.
“Yep.”
“What are you upset about?”
“Nothing important,” Jules said, gritting his teeth.