The Heart's Ashes
Page 80

“Here.” David replaced my cold coffee cup with a warm one.
“Oh, um, thanks.” I half smiled, dropping my gaze immediately.
With a sigh, he sat at the table, his knees facing me. “Why are you going down that path?”
“What path?”
“Thinking about my type of girl.”
“Oh.” I gently blew the edge of the cup, then took a sip. “So you can read my mind today?”
“I just caught some of that stuff about casseroles and emails.” He looked into his own cup. “I’m here, with you, don’t you think that means you’re my type?”
“You flirt with Emily.”
“Flirt?” He almost leaped out of his seat. “Ara, that is not flirting. We’re friends. That’s all.”
I nodded, tinkering with the rim of my cup. “But she’s...so normal and, I mean, she’s blonde and pretty and...”
“Ara, I’m a vampire—” his jaw set stiff as he spoke, “—a reasonably old one, at that. You know I’ve had other girls. You know they’ve been different to you, but if they were better, I’d still be with them. I’d have stuck around when I caught them kissing their ex-fiancé, I’d have fought to be with them, even though their life would be at risk for it.”
“I know.” I shrugged slowly. “But—”
“But it’s human nature—to wonder,” he said with a nod.
“Yes. And, well, I was quietly wondering. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“But I’m glad I did.” He leaned back, tucking his feet under the table. “There is only one thing worse than discussing a past you wish to leave behind, Ara, and that is when people make their own assumptions based on facts others have given them. So, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Really?” A smile lifted my cheeks.
“Discretionally.”
Which means he won’t tell me anything, but will make it seem like he has, until I think carefully about it later. It’s a talent of his. “Is Emily your type?”
David looked up at her door, his long fingers tapping the table. “No.”
“How many girls have you dated?”
He went to laugh, covering his mouth with a soft fist. “Um, really? You want to know that?”
I nodded; David sat taller.
“Um, okay. Well, uh—I don’t know.”
“Ten...fifteen...?”
“Ara, I’m a hundred-and-twenty years old. I’ve had three serious relationships in my life, and the rest have been...”
“Not so serious?” I suggested.
He looked at Emily’s door again, scratching his brow; I looked too.
“What? What’s the deal with Emily?” I said.
“She’s laughing at me.”
“Oh.”
“Look, Ara—” He leaned forward, placing both hands on the table in front of me. “I dated girls for one reason, and it wasn’t love. I hardly had time for my own primal needs, let alone relationships.”
“So, you were a fly guy?”
“Something like that.”
“Were they all vampires?”
He went to answer but trapped his breath between his lips for a second. “Yes.”
“Do you still see any of them, were they from your Set?”
“Some.” He nodded. “The vampire community becomes very small after a few decades, my love. I’m pretty sure everyone’s dated or been in love with everyone at some point. And there’s really no way to avoid seeing them again.”
“I guess that must suck—not really having a great selection.”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“So, have you ever loved someone enough to want them for...forever?”
“Uh, well, not for forever, no. Or I wouldn’t be here. But, I thought I wanted to marry a girl once.”
I looked up quickly. “Who?”
“A girl named Morgaine.”
“Who was she?”
“She was a vampire, of sorts. She—we were just too different.” He shook his head, staring at the table. “But yes, I had girlfriends, and I loved all of them, in ways—not for long though, Ara. I’m not...I wasn’t that kinda guy.”
“So, what happened to her—to Morgaine?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I like long stories.”
He nodded, then motioned toward my cup. “Drink—while it’s hot.”
I took that as David severing this direction of conversation. But I was in no way done with our walk through time. “Did you have to give up the love of a girl when you became a vampire?”
His distant smile seemed to reflect days gone by. “Not love, no.”
I stared at him for a moment, waiting for an elaboration. He grabbed my hand and stood up. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“For a walk in the past.”
“The past?” I moaned, leaving my tasty coffee to go cold on the table.
“Yeah, I wanna teach you a thing or two about history.” His eyes lit up on the corners, a perfect toothy smile slipping across his lips.
We hopped out of the car and wandered the wooden steps of the town museum, featured in an old house donated by one of the founders. It smelled of polished wood and freshly printed paper, while the cool breeze, floating through the open space, carried the scent of engine fuel and aged books. Soft voices of pre-recorded history lectures hummed gently through the thin walls, making it feel as though someone was home, despite how empty and quiet it was in here otherwise.
“I don’t see what you can teach me about history that I haven’t already seen here,” I remarked snidely as we dropped a gold coin in the wooden box by the door and grabbed a pamphlet.
David strolled causally with his hands behind his back, a smug grin on his lips. “We’ll see.”
“Oh, you just love being right, don’t you?”
“It’s just so easy for me.”
“Well, I’m going to make it my mission to prove you wrong now.”
He nodded, unperturbed. “You can try.”
“It’s probably not worth the effort.”
“See, you’re already learning” he said. “You’ve heard of Harry Houdini?”