Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Maybe? I don’t think I’ll be a good mom. I don’t know how to be.”
“You’ll work it out. You’ll have the advantage of being present, which helps.”
“That is true.”
The sandwich is chicken, cucumber, tomato, mayonnaise. It’s good. Unexpected, much like this conversation.
“So,” he says. “I love you. You know that?”
“Uhm.” I pick at the sandwich, wondering why this feels so awkward. If he’d picked me up and thrown me over the couch and fucked me roughly, I would know what to do. This gruff admission of feelings is different. “I guess?”
“I do. I love you,” he says. “And I want the best for you.”
“You want babies from me.”
“Yes, but I think that’s best for you too. You need a family. Something that stays, something that grows. Something that doesn’t explode.”
“Okay.”
I still don’t know what to say. I just sit there, stare at him, and try to work out why he is being so weird.
“I need the same thing,” he says. “I need something that stays, and grows, and doesn’t explode. And I need you to know I love you, and when I say nothing matters except you, I mean it. So when I say no to something, it’s not because I want to be mean to you. It’s because it’s for the best.”
“You want babies, right, Conroy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not a baby. I’d be the mother of babies. And that means you don’t actually get to say no to me because something is for the best.”
“That is what Tailor said,” Conroy replies gruffly. “I think it would be easier if I could.”
“Uh.” I take a bite of the sandwich. It is tasty, and it buys me time from what feels like an impending argument.
“My favorite color is green,” he says.
“What are you doing?” I am so confused.
“We need to get to know one another,” he says. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Tailor told you to tell me what your favorite color is?”
Conroy frowns. “He was setting me up, wasn’t he.”
“No, I don’t think so. I…”
“He was. I was saying you can’t go back to your home town and he said you don’t know me very well and I have to talk to you, but this is…” He looks at me and exhales roughly. “Stupid.”
“My favorite color is yellow,” I say, throwing him a bone. He is so out of his depth and clearly not in sight of his comfort zone.
“Oh. Good. What. Er. Not sure what favorite colors are for, but glad we know them.”
“Yes.”
“Is the sandwich good?”
We are being awkward as hell and it’s weird and it’s kind of cute, but I also don’t know what’s really going on here.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good. You can’t go home because your town was razed to the ground, burned out completely. Everyone was slaughtered and their bones scattered by wild animals. So you have to stay here. Okay. Good talk.”
“What?” I stop eating. “What?”
“Yes. Tragic. Sorry. Vampires are evil. Very bad things happened. Okay. So. You’re good to stay here now?”
I try to understand what he’s saying. The words are easy, but the ramifications are deep and terrible. I truly thought that the town still remained; even my parents’ house would still be there, with another family living in it. I never thought Alexander would have erased the whole place. It is like my life as I remember it, the brief period of warmth and safety, is gone. Forever.
“That’s how you tell me…”
“I should have gotten Damon to do it, but he still doesn’t like talking, and Tailor refused, he said I was the one who knew and therefore I was the one who should tell you, and…”
Tailor
I’m listening in with Damon. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe we shouldn’t have placed bets on how badly this is probably going to go.
“So Tailor set us up,” Kita says. “Wow. He’s such a piece of shit. And to be honest, I don’t like the way he dresses. Please. Waistcoats? How pretentious.”
Damon is smirking now. I am wearing a waistcoat, of course.
Conroy looks confused. I don’t think he’s noticed anything I’ve worn since we met. He’s a fan of details when those details involve war, or money, but he would happily wear the same forest green sweater and denim pants and combat boots day in and day out from now until the end of time.
Before I can stop myself, I am striding outside. “Waistcoats are not pretentious, they are a stylistic choice, young lady, and given that I am one of the vanishingly small number of mates you have who does not want you whipped within an inch of your life, it might be time to think about speaking about me with a little more respect…”
I trail off as I see a very amused grin spreading over her pretty face.
“You knew I was listening.”
“Of course I did.” The smile disappears as she throws the remnants of the sandwich at me, and my very nice tweed waistcoat is covered in mayonnaise and tomato and chicken, none of which improve the pattern at all. “You set him up.”