Chapter 24 A DATE INTERRUPTED

Chapter 24 A DATE INTERRUPTED
On Saturday, I met him in my nicest blouse and tried not to look like someone who had been rehearsing casual conversation since Thursday with sweaty palms.

"You look nice," Jake said when I got in the car.

"Thank you," I said, blushing heavily.

"You actually eat here?" I asked.

"I come here sometimes," he said. "When I want to feel normal."

I didn’t even know what to say for I was surprised.

The restaurant was warm and golden and smelled of expensive food. I tried to up my energy so I could fit in fast.

The restaurant was called Maison. It was one of the best, luxurious human restaurants in the main town.

Jake had chosen it and it wasn't even performance.

He held the door open for me and I walked through feeling like a princess and a complete fraud at the same time.

The hostess smiled at Jake the way most girls did. They smiled like he was something that had been arranged for their viewing pleasure.

He smiled back effortlessly and asked for our reservation.

I stood beside him and existed quietly.

We were shown to a table near the window. There was warm light, a candle in the centre and the city visible through the glass.

Jake pulled out my chair. I sat.

He sat across from me and opened the menu and I watched two women at the table beside us look at him and then lean toward each other and whisper something that made them both smile.

Something burning moved through my chest. I looked at my menu quickly.

"You should try the pasta," Jake said.

I looked up. "Why does everyone keep giving me pasta, Jake?"

He laughed. "What?"

"Nothing," I said with a giggle. "I will look at the menu myself thank you."

He grinned.

The waiter appeared and looked at Jake with the same expression the hostess had used.

Jake ordered food. Real food.

He smiled and opened his menu again. The waiter listened and Jake ordered pasta with risotto, truffle sauce and a side of something I could not pronounce.

I stared at him over my menu.

He shrugged. "Being a vampire gets heavy sometimes. All that blood and power and expectation." He looked at the menu seriously. "Sometimes I just want pasta."

I laughed. He looked up.

"What?" he said.

"You are ordering food. You're a vampire ordering risotto," I said.

"You eat food," he said simply. "I am not going to sit here drinking blood while you eat alone."

Something warm moved through my chest.

"You did not have to do that," I said.

"I wanted to," he said and looked at his menu.

I blinked.

"I can eat food if I try," he said also. "I just prefer not to usually." He shrugged. "Tonight is different."

I looked at him across the candlelight.

"Tonight is different." Wow.

The women started looking around the time our drinks arrived.

A table of three to our left. Two girls near the window. A woman dining alone who glanced over her shoulder twice in one minute.

Jake did not notice any of them. He was looking at me and telling me about a swim competition he had won at fourteen with a cracked rib that nobody knew about until after the medal ceremony.

Meanwhile I noticed every glance and every slow appreciative look in his direction.

And this time, I felt so proud of myself to be in his span of attention.

I picked up my glass.

"Does that happen everywhere you go?" I asked.

He tilted his head. "Does what happen?"

I nodded toward the table of three.

He glanced over and back at me with the unbothered expression of someone who had stopped registering this particular phenomenon years ago.

"Probably," he said. "I don't really pay attention."

"How convenient," I said.

He leaned forward slightly. "Are you jealous?"

"No," I said immediately.

He smiled.

"You are," he said.

"I am not."

"Lily Danvers is jealous," he said playfully like he was testing the words.

"Jake..." I muttered, blushing.

"I like it," he said.

I looked at him.

He looked back with those warm brown eyes.

My lingering jealousy dissolved immediately.

We held each other’s gaze across the table for a long moment until it became something warmer, enough to make my stomach flutter.

The woman near the window glanced over again. Neither of us noticed this time.

He continued to smile at me.

The conversation stopped being careful and became so personal.

He told me about growing up in a house full of expectations and I told him about growing up in a house full of love but very little else and we looked at each other across the small table in the candlelight like two people genuinely surprised by what they were finding.

At one point he reached across and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear the way he had done at lunch.

This time it landed far more differently. This time I did not think about Alexander at all.



We walked after dinner.

The street outside was cool and quiet. And honestly, I didn’t want to go home.

Jake walked beside me, close enough that our arms brushed occasionally. He made me laugh three times in the first block.

Once about the waiter who had refilled his water glass six times while blushing the entire time.

Once about a pigeon that made the bold decision to dive into a rubbish bin and fly back out like lightning.

And once about something stupid he had done at swim practice, told with such embarrassing self-awareness that I laughed until my eyes watered.

"You are actually so hilarious," I said.

"I know," he said.

I pushed his arm.

He caught my hand and held it loosely.

We kept walking.

The street was also very beautiful. Shops lit gold from inside and the citylights shone on people glamorously.

I was smiling when I stepped off the kerb and the car came from behind fast.

It didn’t horn or give warning.

Its headlights filled my vision and Jake's voice rang from somewhere behind me shouting my name and then the impact hitting me like a wall made of noise and force.

Pain shot through my body but I couldn't shout. Instead, I tasted blood spreading all over my tongue from the back of my throat.

Eyes shutting, I heard Jake screaming my name from somewhere very far away.

The last thing I remembered before everything went dark was a figure behind the wheel with dark glasses, gone before anyone could see a face. And then silence.