Enthralled - 2. Chapter 2

Andy had been dead for three hundred years. In that expansive, blood-soaked stretch of time, he had been shot in the chest by a jittery highwayman in the 1700s, stabbed by a jealous aristocrat in Victorian London, drowned in the murky depths of the Thames, and once—memorably, during a particularly chaotic misunderstanding in the roaring twenties—set entirely on fire. He had survived plagues, inquisitions, the collapse of empires, and the agonizing, crushing boredom of eternity. He was a creature of the night, an apex predator draped in mid-century leather and pomaded hair, a monster who lived on a strict diet of fear, seduction, and human blood.

None of those centuries of trauma and triumph, however, could even begin to compare to the sheer, paralyzing existential terror of waking up in a teenager’s twin XL bed with absolutely no memory of why he had decided to stay.

Andy lay perfectly still on his back, staring up at a ceiling plastered with glow-in-the-dark stars that had long since lost their luminescence. The morning sun was aggressively attempting to pry its way through the cheap, thin fabric of the bedroom curtains, casting a warm, nauseatingly cheerful glow across the room. The air in the bedroom was stale. The sharp, chemical bite of bleach that had so thoroughly undone him the night before had faded, replaced by the mundane, heavy scents of morning breath, cheap drugstore deodorant, and the lingering, unmistakable musk of male satisfaction. It was the scent of his own profound, undeniable defeat.

Beside him, a heavy weight shifted. An arm, warm and slightly clammy with sleep, draped itself casually across Andy’s cold, pale chest. A leg tangled with his. The teenager—Lucas, the brother, the dweeb, the architect of Andy’s total psychological collapse—snuffled softly into the pillow, his face smashed against the mattress, drooling slightly.

Andy didn't move. He didn't breathe, mostly because he didn't have to, but also because he was terrified that the slightest motion would shatter whatever fragile illusion was currently holding his reality together.

I should have drained him, Andy thought, the voice in his head sounding entirely too desperate for a lethal creature of darkness. Last night, the moment he pushed me against the door. I should have ripped his throat out. I should have painted this absurdly small room with his blood and vanished into the night.

Instead, he had... submitted. The word tasted like ash in his mind. He, the hunter, had been flipped onto his stomach, manhandled, and thoroughly, enthusiastically claimed by a boy whose primary mode of transportation was likely a skateboard.

It was a spell, Andy told himself. It was the only logical explanation. Yes, a localized pheromone trap. Human biology has evolved since the eighteenth century. They’ve developed rudimentary defensive mechanisms. The bleach was a masking agent for a highly concentrated siren-toxin. I was drugged. Hypnotized. I was the victim of a biological ambush.

It was a fantastic, comforting lie. Andy clung to it with both hands. Because the alternative—that he had simply been so desperately lonely, so starved for genuine, unapologetic touch that he had surrendered three centuries of dominance for a single night of being entirely consumed—was too humiliating to bear.

"You're thinking too loud," a voice mumbled against his shoulder.

Andy flinched. His fangs involuntarily descended, a reflex born of centuries of defensive conditioning, pressing sharply against his lower lip.

Lucas propped himself up on one elbow, his dark hair sticking up in absurd, gravity-defying cowlicks. His eyes were half-open, crusted with sleep, but the smug, insufferable grin that had driven Andy to absolute madness the night before was already firmly in place. He looked down at the vampire, looking him over like a prize he had won at a particularly rigged carnival game.

"I was worried you'd snake away and ghost me," Lucas said, his voice rough and gravelly. He didn't sound worried at all. He sounded like a king surveying his newly conquered territory.

Andy opened his mouth. Closed it. He tried to summon the smooth, baritone purr that had seduced countless victims across the globe. "I am not..." he started, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat, trying to inject some venom into his tone. "I am not something to be won, mortal."

Lucas snorted, completely unimpressed by the gothic posturing. "Could have fooled me. You were pretty compliant a few hours ago."

A flush of phantom heat rushed to Andy's pale cheeks. "I was... disoriented. I was confused."

"Right. Disoriented." Lucas leaned down, pressing a hot, lazy kiss to the center of Andy's chest, right over his dead heart. The jolt of electricity that shot through Andy's core at the casual, possessive contact entirely undermined his argument. "Then why are you still in my bed, Dracula? The sun’s up. Shouldn't you have turned into a bat and flown out the window by now?"

Andy didn't have an answer for that. He just stared up at the boy, his ancient mind scrambling for purchase on the slippery slope of his new reality.

"Whatever you're freaking out about, stop," Lucas said, rolling out of bed with a casual grace that completely belied his usual clumsiness. He stood naked in the center of the room, completely unbothered by his lack of clothing or the fact that a supernatural predator was watching him. He stretched, his spine popping in a long, satisfying sequence. "I'm taking a shower. You should get up. We have school."

"We?" Andy repeated, the word sounding foreign. "I do not have to go to high school. I am three hundred years old. I merely enroll to maintain proximity to my prey."

"Yeah, well, your prey is currently dating a linebacker, and you're dating me," Lucas replied, tossing a pair of boxer briefs at Andy's head. It landed perfectly draped over the vampire's eyes. "So get dressed. You're walking me to homeroom."

Before Andy could formulate a response that was appropriately terrifying and suitably dismissive, Lucas had already vanished into the adjoining bathroom, the sound of the shower turning on echoing through the wall. Andy pulled the boxers off his face and stared at them. He was a creature of the night. He was a monster. He was currently being ordered around by a boy who still had a curfew.

Ten minutes later, Andy found himself standing in the doorway of the small, brightly lit bathroom, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest. He had put his leather jacket back on, popping the collar in a desperate bid to reclaim some of his lost dignity. He watched as Lucas stood at the sink, brushing his teeth, a towel wrapped loosely around his waist.

Lucas spit into the sink, rinsed his mouth, and looked up into the mirror. He paused. He looked from his own reflection to the reflection of the brooding, leather-clad vampire leaning against the doorframe behind him.

Lucas turned around, his toothbrush dangling from his fingers. He looked at Andy, then back at the mirror, then back at Andy.

"Wait," Lucas said, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "I thought you guys didn't have reflections. Isn't that, like, Vampire Rule Number One?"

Andy sighed, the sound carrying the weight of centuries of repeating the same exhausted explanations. He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the bathroom, staring at his own pale, flawless visage in the glass.

"Vampires do not cast reflections in silver," Andy explained, his tone flat and heavily bored. "Silver is a pure metal, historically associated with holy purity and the divine. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mirrors were backed with a layer of pure silver. Thus, we cast no reflection. Modern mirrors, such as this cheap, mass-produced monstrosity you bought at a department store, are backed with aluminum. Aluminum is spiritually inert. Therefore, I have a reflection."

Lucas stared at him, processing the information. The disappointment Andy expected to see never arrived. Instead, Lucas's eyes lit up.

"That is awesome," Lucas declared. He pointed the toothbrush at Andy. "What about garlic? If I eat garlic bread, are you going to melt?"

"Garlic is an allium," Andy said, rolling his eyes. "It possesses no mystical properties whatsoever. In the Middle Ages, vampires propagated the myth that garlic was toxic to us so that the peasant class would consume it in massive quantities. It acts as an excellent marinade from the inside out. It makes humans taste significantly better."

Lucas let out a loud, delighted laugh. "You guys are devious as hell. I love it." He rinsed his toothbrush and tossed it into a cup. "Okay, last one. The sun. It's like, eight in the morning and there's light streaming through my window, and you aren't a pile of dust. Explain."

Andy held up his left hand. On his index finger sat a heavy, ornate silver ring set with a large, polished lapis lazuli stone. "Enchanted daylight ring. Forged by a coven of witches in Salem in the late sixteen-hundreds. It shields me from the ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise incinerate my cellular structure."

Lucas stared at the ring for a long moment. He reached out, his warm fingers tracing the cool metal. "So... no silver mirrors, garlic is a seasoning, and the sun is defeated by jewelry."

"Essentially," Andy said, preparing himself for the inevitable realization that he was not a mystical, terrifying creature of the night, but merely a biological anomaly with good accessories.

"Good," Lucas said, a bright, genuine smile breaking across his face. "Much better boyfriends that way. I was really not looking forward to exclusively going on dates at three in the morning."

Andy’s breath caught in his throat. Boyfriends. Lucas had said the word so casually, so absolutely, as if the matter had been settled the moment Andy stepped through the wrong window. There was no negotiation, no questioning if the 300-year-old immortal wanted to be tied down to a high schooler. Lucas had simply decided it, and in his unearned, staggering confidence, he expected reality to bend to his will.

And the terrifying truth was, Andy was bending.

"My sister is going to absolutely kill me for stealing you," Lucas said, grabbing a comb and running it through his messy hair. "But you're mine now. So she'll just have to deal with it."

"I am not a possession, Lucas," Andy tried one last time, though his voice lacked any real conviction.

Lucas turned, stepping directly into Andy’s personal space. He reached up, ignoring the lethal, predatory stillness of the vampire, and adjusted the collar of Andy's leather jacket. He smoothed his hands down the lapels, his dark eyes locking onto Andy's.

"Andy," Lucas said softly, the cocky swagger dropping away for just a fraction of a second, revealing something far more intense and perceptive beneath. "You climbed a trellis, snuck into my room, let me strip you down, and begged me to wreck you. You haven't left. You're standing in my bathroom explaining mirror manufacturing to me. You are absolutely mine."

Andy couldn't deny it. He couldn't even try. The phantom flutter in his chest returned, stronger this time. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Lucas's shoulder. It was a gesture of total, abject defeat.

"You are a menace," Andy whispered into the boy's neck.

"I'm your menace," Lucas corrected brightly. "Now come on. I have first-period algebra and if I'm late again, Mr. Harrison is going to give me detention."

The walk to school was a surreal, disorienting experience for Andy. He was used to navigating the world in shadows, manipulating the periphery of human society. He was meant to be the lone wolf leaning against a motorcycle, drawing the desperate, hungry stares of the populace.

Instead, he was walking down the sun-drenched sidewalk of a suburban neighborhood, maintaining a brisk pace to keep up with a teenager wearing a graphic tee that prominently featured a twenty-sided die and a terrible pun about critical hits.

As they approached the sprawling, brutalist architecture of the high school, the ecosystem began to shift. High school was a concentrated nexus of hormones, anxiety, and social hierarchy—an environment Andy usually exploited with surgical precision. Today, however, he was not the surgeon; he was the spectacle.

Lucas didn't seem to notice or care about the sudden drop in ambient noise as they walked through the double doors of the main entrance. He strutted down the hallway, a backpack slung over one shoulder, radiating an aura of complete and utter invincibility. It was fascinating. Lucas possessed no physical prowess, no immense wealth, and no social standing. He was, by all metrics of the high school caste system, a bottom-tier dweeb. And yet, he moved with the swagger of an emperor.

It was his superpower, Andy realized. Unearned, absolute confidence.

Andy’s enhanced hearing began to pick up the whispers bouncing off the metal lockers like a barrage of tiny, annoying arrows.

"Is that Andy? The new guy? Why is he walking with Lucas?"

"I thought Amanda called dibs on him. She’s been bragging about it all week."

"Look at them. Are they... together? No way."

"He looks like he wants to murder someone."

That last observation was entirely accurate. Andy’s jaw was clenched so tightly his fangs were beginning to ache. He was hyper-aware of every stare, every point, every whispered conjecture. He wanted to hiss. He wanted to bare his teeth and send the entire student body running screaming into the parking lot.

Instead, he felt a warm hand slide casually into the back pocket of his dark denim jeans.

Andy nearly jumped out of his skin. He whipped his head around to look at Lucas. The teenager hadn't even broken his stride. He was just walking down the hallway, his hand tucked familiarly into Andy's pocket, tethering the ancient vampire to him in front of God, the student body, and the principal.

"What are you doing?" Andy hissed, his voice dropping to a subsonic frequency meant only for Lucas's ears.

"Establishing dominance," Lucas replied cheerfully, giving Andy's pocket a light, possessive squeeze. "Everyone knows Amanda was trying to hook up with you. If I don't stake my claim now, it's going to be a whole thing."

"You are staking a claim," Andy repeated slowly, "on a creature that has slaughtered entire battalions of men."

"Yeah, well, those battalions didn't have my natural charm," Lucas said, coming to a halt outside a classroom door. He pulled his hand out of Andy's pocket and patted the vampire's chest. "Alright, this is me. Algebra. Try not to bite anyone while I'm gone. I'll see you at lunch."

Before Andy could respond, Lucas leaned up, planted a quick, unapologetic kiss on Andy's cheek, and vanished into the classroom.

Andy stood frozen in the hallway for a full thirty seconds, staring at the closed door, surrounded by the gawking stares of a dozen teenagers. He was a lord of the night. He was a master of the dark arts. He had just been kissed on the cheek and told to behave by a boy who was currently failing basic mathematics.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of disorienting, mundane chaos. Andy attended his own classes—history, where he had to endure a teacher completely butchering the geopolitical nuances of the French Revolution (which Andy had personally witnessed), and biology, where he stared blankly at a textbook explaining the circulatory system he no longer possessed.

But his mind was entirely occupied by Lucas.

The obsession was maddening. Andy found himself actively seeking out the boy in the hallways, watching him from afar. He observed Lucas in his natural habitat, and the findings were both baffling and deeply endearing.

During third period, Andy sat in the bleachers of the gymnasium, excused from physical education due to a forged doctor's note detailing a fictitious heart condition. Down on the polished wooden floor, a brutal game of dodgeball was underway. Lucas was out there.

It was a massacre. Lucas had the athletic coordination of a newborn fawn. He didn't dodge; he simply stood in place, accepted his fate, and was repeatedly pelted by heavy red rubber balls hurled by aggressive, hyper-competitive jocks.

A normal teenager would have been humiliated. They would have sulked, retreated to the sidelines, and nursed their bruised ego. Not Lucas. Every time he was hit, he dramatically mimed a violent death, clutching his chest and collapsing to the floor with theatrical flair, much to the annoyance of the gym teacher and the amusement of his fellow nerds. He strutted back to the sidelines, completely unbothered by his failure, his swagger entirely intact.

He is invincible, Andy realized, watching the boy from the shadows of the bleachers. You cannot destroy someone who refuses to be embarrassed.

When the lunch bell finally rang, Andy navigated the chaotic, smelling-salt intensity of the cafeteria to find Lucas. The boy was sitting at a circular table in the far corner, surrounded by a small, tightly-knit group of fellow dweebs. There was a kid with thick glasses furiously shuffling a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards, and a girl in a baggy sweater aggressively typing on a laptop covered in anime stickers.

As Andy approached, the temperature at the table seemed to drop by ten degrees. The card-shuffler froze. The typing ceased. The nerds stared at the leather-clad, brooding vampire approaching their sanctuary with wide, terrified eyes. They knew who Andy was. He was the dangerous new kid. The one who smoked behind the bleachers. The one the head cheerleader had claimed. He was the apex predator of the high school food chain, and he was walking right into their enclosure.

Lucas, however, just looked up from his tray of tater tots and grinned.

"Hey," Lucas said, shifting over on the small plastic bench to make room. He patted the empty space. "Sit down. Guys, this is Andy. We're dating now."

The silence that followed was deafening. The girl in the sweater looked from Lucas to Andy, her jaw practically hitting the table. The card-shuffler looked like he was about to faint.

Andy stood there for a moment, his aristocratic pride warring with the profound, humiliating desire to just sit down next to the boy. He sighed, a long, weary sound, and slid onto the bench next to Lucas.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Andy said, his voice dripping with dry, centuries-old formality.

The nerds offered weak, terrified nods.

Lucas shoved a notebook across the table toward Andy. "Read this. I was working on it during English. I think it's pretty good."

Andy looked down at the open page. It was a poem. It was, without a doubt, the worst piece of literature Andy had laid eyes on since the Dark Ages.

Your eyes are dark, like the midnight sky,

When you look at me, I feel like I could fly.

You're cold to the touch, but hot in my bed,

I don't even care that you're technically dead.

Andy stared at the scribbled words. He read them once. He read them twice. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He was a creature of immense culture. He had patronized Mozart. He had drank wine with Lord Byron. He had inspired gothic masterpieces. And now, he was the muse for a rhyme scheme that would have embarrassed a toddler.

"This is an atrocity," Andy stated flatly.

"You love it," Lucas said, completely unoffended, stealing a tater tot off his friend's tray.

"It lacks meter, the imagery is pedestrian, and the rhyming structure is an insult to the English language," Andy continued, his ancient sensibilities genuinely offended. He looked at Lucas, his dark eyes narrowing. "And your understanding of algebra is abysmal. I watched you stare at a quadratic equation for twenty minutes this morning without making a single mark on the paper."

Lucas blinked, a tater tot halfway to his mouth. "Are you... stalking me?"

"I am observing the creature that has claimed ownership of me," Andy corrected smoothly, leaning slightly closer. "And I have come to a conclusion. I am a lord of the night. I am an immortal being of immense power and prestige. I will not, under any circumstances, be tethered to a Straight-C student who writes doggerel poetry."

Lucas slowly lowered the tater tot. The cocky swagger faltered, just for a second. "Wait. Are you breaking up with me?"

"No," Andy said, the word slipping out before he could even process it. He realized, with a sudden, jarring clarity, that the thought of walking away from this absurd, confident boy felt physically impossible. The unpredictability of it all—the absolute lack of fear Lucas showed him—was a drug far more potent than blood. "I am going to tutor you."

Lucas stared at him. The nerds across the table stared at him.

"You're going to... tutor me?" Lucas asked, a slow, disbelieving grin spreading across his face.

"Yes," Andy said haughtily, sitting up straighter. "We will begin with mathematics this evening, followed by a rigorous deconstruction of romantic-era poetry. If you are going to be my... consort, you will not embarrass me with your academic laziness."

Lucas let out a loud, ringing laugh, the sound cutting through the cafeteria noise. He leaned over and threw his arm around Andy's broad, tense shoulders, pulling the vampire against his side. "Oh my god, you are such a dork. You're a three-hundred-year-old dork."

"Remove your arm, or I will remove it for you," Andy threatened, but he made absolutely no move to pull away. In fact, he leaned into the touch, letting the boy's warmth seep through his leather jacket.

The rest of the school day was an exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop. Andy knew the rumors were swirling. He could hear them escalating. By seventh period, the entire school was abuzz with the news that Amanda’s mysterious bad boy had been stolen by her socially invisible younger brother.

The confrontation was inevitable. Andy could smell the ozone scent of approaching drama long before the final bell rang.

When it did, Andy and Lucas walked out into the main hallway, heading toward Lucas's locker. The corridor was packed with students eager to escape into the weekend. Lucas was mid-sentence, explaining the intricate lore of his current Dungeons & Dragons campaign to a completely bewildered Andy, when the crowd suddenly parted.

Amanda was marching down the hallway.

She looked like a valkyrie descending on a battlefield. She was in full cheerleader uniform, her blonde ponytail swinging violently with every step, her eyes narrowed into slits of pure, unadulterated fury. The students around them hushed, stepping back to form a wide circle, eagerly anticipating the soapy, dramatic showdown of the century.

Andy instinctively tensed. His muscles coiled, ready to protect, ready to fight, ready to deploy three centuries of intimidation tactics.

Amanda stopped three feet in front of them, planting her hands on her hips. She glared at Andy, then turned her scorching gaze onto her younger brother.

The tension was suffocating. The silence was absolute.

"You little freak," Amanda hissed, her voice vibrating with dramatic betrayal. "You stole him!"

Andy braced himself for a scene. He expected tears. He expected a slap. He expected Lucas to crumble under the weight of the high school hierarchy.

Instead, Lucas rolled his eyes, his posture completely relaxing. The swagger vanished, replaced instantly by the petty, petulant energy of a younger sibling.

"I didn't steal him," Lucas whined loudly, his voice jumping an octave. "You don't own him, Amanda! He came to my room!"

"Because you probably tricked him!" Amanda yelled back, her cool, untouchable facade shattering into a million pieces. "I saw him first! I called dibs! You always take my stuff!"

"He's not stuff! He's a vampire!" Lucas shouted, completely ignoring the fact that they were in a crowded hallway. Thankfully, no one believed him; they just assumed it was a weird metaphor. "And you don't even like him! You just liked his stupid jacket!"

"I like the jacket!" Amanda shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at Andy's chest. "It’s vintage! And Mom said you have to stop antagonizing me!"

"Mom said you have to stop being a drama queen!" Lucas shot back, sticking his chin out. "I'm keeping him! He's going to tutor me in math!"

Andy stood perfectly still, entirely paralyzed. The 300-year-old apex predator, the monster who had terrorized the European countryside, the creature who had plunged nations into despair, was standing in a linoleum hallway watching a cheerleader and a dweeb argue over him like he was a stolen juice box.

It was the most undignified, humiliating, and utterly absurd moment of his long, dark existence.

And yet, as he watched Lucas bravely defending their relationship by invoking their mother's rules, Andy felt a strange, bubbling sensation in his chest. It took him a moment to recognize the feeling.

He was amused. He was entirely, profoundly delighted.

Amanda let out a loud, frustrated scream, stomping her foot on the floor. She realized that Lucas wasn't going to back down, and worse, he was making a scene that was severely damaging her cool aesthetic. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, glaring at Lucas with the fire of a thousand suns.

"You know what? Fine!" Amanda huffed, crossing her arms. "Take him! He's too pale anyway. And he broods too much. I'm over it."

She spun on her heel, her eyes scanning the crowd of onlookers. She immediately locked onto a massive, broad-shouldered boy wearing a varsity letterman jacket. It was Marty, the linebacker she had unceremoniously dumped two weeks ago when Andy had arrived at the school.

"Marty!" Amanda barked, marching over to the bewildered giant. She grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and practically dragged him toward the exit. "We're going to get smoothies. Now."

Marty stumbled forward, clearly terrified but entirely willing to obey. As Amanda pulled him down the hallway, the massive jock looked back over his shoulder. He made direct eye contact with Lucas. The fear in Marty’s eyes was replaced by an expression of profound, spiritual gratitude.

Marty gave Lucas a slow, solemn nod, and then distinctly mouthed the words: "THANK YOU."

Lucas grinned, giving the jock a sharp, two-finger salute.

The crowd, realizing the show was over and that the dramatic love triangle had resolved itself into a petty sibling spat, slowly began to disperse. The whispers started back up, but the threat of violence had entirely dissipated.

Lucas turned back to Andy, the petulant younger brother act dropping instantly, replaced by the staggering, unearned swagger that had caused this entire mess. He slammed his locker shut, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and looked up at the vampire.

"Well," Lucas said casually, adjusting his graphic tee. "That went better than expected. She didn't even try to stab me."

Andy stared down at the boy. He thought about the centuries of predictable, boring seductions. He thought about the cold, lonely stretches of time he had spent playing the part of the untouchable monster. He thought about the smell of bleach, the poetry that rhymed 'bed' with 'dead', and the absolute, unshakeable certainty in Lucas's eyes when he claimed ownership.

The cycle was broken. The eternal, boring loop of his existence had been completely derailed by a teenager who was bad at dodgeball and terrible at math.

Andy reached out, his cold hand sliding into the space between Lucas's neck and his collar, his fingers resting gently against the boy's warm pulse point. The thrumming of Lucas's heart was a steady, grounding rhythm that anchored Andy to this bright, chaotic, mundane world.

"You are an absolute disaster," Andy murmured, the words laced with a deep, reluctant affection that he had never felt for another living soul.

"Yeah, but I'm your disaster," Lucas replied, his dark eyes bright and entirely fearless. He leaned into Andy's cold touch, completely comfortable with the monster holding him. "Come on. Let's go home. You have to teach me how to solve for X, and then I'm going to teach you how to properly play Mario Kart."

Andy let his hand drop to Lucas's shoulder, pulling the boy firmly against his side as they began to walk down the hallway toward the exit. The sun was shining outside, but the daylight ring on Andy's finger felt light. For the first time in three hundred years, the prospect of tomorrow didn't feel like a curse. It felt like a promise.

"I will conquer this 'Mario Kart' within the hour," Andy stated confidently, a rare, genuine smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "And then, you are going to rewrite that atrocious poem."

"Not a chance, bloodsucker. It's a masterpiece."

"It is an act of terrorism against the arts, Lucas."

"Whatever you say, boyfriend."

They walked in comfortable silence for a moment, Andy's arm still draped over Lucas's shoulders. The afternoon sun was warm, the neighborhood quiet. It felt almost... normal.

Then Lucas tilted his head up, his dark eyes glittering with mischief.

"Hey, Andy."

"Yes?"

"If I study—like, really study—does that mean I get to boink you again?"

Andy stumbled. Actually stumbled. His supernatural grace abandoned him entirely as his foot caught on a crack in the sidewalk. He righted himself, his pale cheeks flushing a deep, undeniable crimson.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." Lucas's grin was incandescent. "You said you're going to tutor me. That's a lot of effort on my part. I think I deserve a reward system. Positive reinforcement. Pavlovian conditioning."

Andy stared at him. The 300-year-old vampire, the predator, the lord of the night, was being reduced to a blushing mess by a teenager who had just used the phrase "Pavlovian conditioning" in reference to sex.

"You are," Andy said slowly, his voice hoarse, "an absolute menace to my eternal soul."

"So that's a yes?"

Andy closed his eyes. He thought about the bleach. The stars on the ceiling. The terrible poem. The feeling of being seen.

He opened his eyes.

"Yes," he said quietly. "That is a yes."

Lucas pumped his fist in the air like he'd just won the lottery. "YES. I'm going to be so good at math. I'm going to be the best at math. I'm going to—"

"Stop talking," Andy muttered, pulling Lucas closer. "You're ruining the moment."

Lucas grinned up at him, completely unrepentant.

"You love it."

Andy sighed, the sound carrying the weight of three centuries of loneliness, finally, blessedly broken.

"Yes," he admitted. "I do."