The next day was Saturday and Juliet found herself in the Occult’s Addict office. She wasn’t sure who she was expecting to find there. The room was empty except for Rylan. At first, she was disappointed to see him because of the awkward way she had let him down the night before, but he was friendly and talkative like Seth hadn’t unveiled Rylan’s mystery with so little ceremony. She didn’t mean to, but since Rylan was being so nice, she ended up telling him what happened with Seth the night before.
“So, you think he’s a vampire, even though he said he wasn’t?” Rylan drawled as he flipped a plastic multicolored slinky between his palms. His silky, white hair curled away from his ears and his eyes glimmered crimson.
Juliet thought about what Seth had said about Rylan. Was it true that his eyes were naturally red? She didn’t dare ask him.
“To be honest,” Rylan went on, “I really didn’t envision you to be the type to kiss-and-tell.”
“Well, you’re the one who suggested that I investigate campus vampires, and he seemed to be your prime suspect. I thought you might want to hear how it went.”
“Was it me who suggested that? Are you sure it wasn’t one of the girls? Maybe Fiona or my sister?”
Juliet furrowed her brow, recalling her discussion with the president. “Yeah, I guess it was Fiona. Sorry for boring you. I thought you were interested in that sort of thing.” Juliet stood up from her chair but Rylan put up a hand to stop her from leaving.
“But,” he said nodding. “If he says he’s not a vampire, then he’s probably isn’t. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
She shook her head. “I’m not convinced. After that kiss, there must be something wrong with him.”
“So, you’re planning on dating him in order to uncover his ghastly secret? To think that you didn’t try to date me to uncover the truth about my ghastly secret—how disappointing!”
Juliet sat down again and hooked her toes behind the wheels of the chair to keep herself from spinning. She couldn’t focus on Rylan when he talked to her like that. “Does that mean you’re acknowledging Seth’s theory about you and Taylor?”
“Yes. Well, I was planning on coming clean this Friday night whether Taylor liked it or not. It’s infuriating for the girl I like to be unsure of my intentions because of a joke, so I was going to call it off. It was rather unfortunate that he beat me to the punch, but I brought my photo album to show everyone pictures from when Taylor and I were children in order to clear up any confusion.”
“Really? Do you still have them in the office? Can I see them?”
“No. I’d prefer the farce was over as quickly as possible now. So, there’s no point in going over the little scene I had in mind. It’s too bad that I couldn’t pull the lid off the scandal the way I wanted. It was going to be cool.”
“Is Taylor okay?” Juliet asked. She was a little worried that Taylor’s feelings had been hurt by the way Seth spoke to her at the meeting in the greenhouse.
“She’s fine.”
“I should go see her. Does she live in dorms?”
Rylan didn’t answer her question. “Why do you have to go see her? It’s not like she’s sick, or like she failed a course she was counting on or anything. She’s fine. If you go, you’ll be making a big deal out of nothing. She wouldn’t like to be pitied like that, especially from someone who was making out with Seth in the hall five minutes after he embarrassed her.”
Juliet frowned. “You make it sound really indecent, but guess what? It was nice.”
“Do I have to hear this?” Rylan snarled as he tipped his stool backward so he was leaning against the wall. “Juliet, we’re just starting to be friends. Do you really want to begin our friendship by giving me a play-by-play of your love life?”
She rolled her eyes angrily. “Whatever. I didn’t tell you anything. I mention one PG rated experience and you’re completely blowing it out of proportion. See if I ever tell you anything again,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him and stepping out of the room.
“You’re really dense,” he called after her as she waited for the elevator.
Juliet could tell what game he was playing. He wanted her to come back and apologize, but she wasn’t in the mood. She already felt stupid because in her mind mentioning Seth’s kiss had been more of a search for knowledge than a kiss-and-tell. She hadn’t meant to rub it in Rylan’s face that she’d been kissed by Seth. She wasn’t as dense as Rylan thought. She was ignoring his feelings for her. It was obvious. He liked her. That was why he was coming clean about the fact that he was a guy. He didn’t want to be rejected again like the time he asked her to dinner and she refused because she wasn’t positive he was a man. The thing was, once she knew, she still didn’t care. He didn’t seem like such a bad guy, but she wasn’t interested in spite of his flirtatious comments, and she didn’t feel like anything could change her mind.
There was also one other thing. It was the most curious feeling, but she felt like Seth was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, whereas Rylan was hers for the asking, whenever she wanted. It was totally arrogant for her to assume that Rylan would always be there if she wanted him.
She couldn’t go back to the club room to talk it out with Rylan when she had already made her choice. She chose Seth. He made her feel alive with delight. Since she felt that way, she could only hurt Rylan and so she couldn’t go back.
She waited for the elevator.
As the elevator chimed and opened, a familiar smiling face met hers.
“Seth!” Juliet beamed. “What are you doing here?”
He casually brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Well, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by your clubroom to see if I could entice you into having lunch with me. Are you busy?”
“No. I’m totally free!”
Just then, the door to the clubroom slammed shut. Naturally, Rylan was upset and if that was how he had to vent his feelings, then so be it.
“Don’t mind him,” Juliet said quickly. “He’s always grouchy. Where should we go?”
Seth grinned. “I’ve got the perfect place.”
He took her to a pub on the top floor of one of the buildings. Once inside and seated, the view of campus was amazing. Juliet sat next to the window and looked down on the quad. It was only half-way through October, but the trees were already bare. The vibrant red and yellow colors were more of a memory than they should have been.
Juliet pointed to a spot on the lawn. “Hey, that was where I saw you take down that guy.”
Seth raised one eyebrow artistically. “You saw that?”
“Yeah. It was the night I was up on the Science Building with my club observing the moon. What did he do anyway?”
“Nothing,” Seth shrugged.
“Not allowed to talk about it?”
“No, I am. I was already interviewed by the paper about it. It’s boring.”
Just then, the server approached their table. “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked Juliet with a professional, practiced smile.
“Um,” Juliet said opening the menu. “I don’t know. What’s good?”
Juliet had asked Seth, but it was the waitress who answered. “We’re a fully licensed bar, so we can make you anything.”
“Water?”
“We don’t make that, but I can bring you a glass,” she said before she turned to Seth. She gave him an odd look before she said, “I know what you want, but I still think it’s weird.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard the lecture before,” Seth said dryly. It sounded like he was a regular there.
“Are you ready to order or do you need a few minutes?”
Juliet was scanning the menu frantically. “The beef dip,” Juliet ordered, looking at Seth for approval.
“I don’t know if it’s good. I’ve never had it,” he explained.
“It’s good,” the waitress confirmed. “But, you might not have much of an appetite after you see what he’s eating.”
“Thanks,” Seth said to her as she disappeared into the kitchen. “She’s got a smart mouth, but that’s part of the fun of coming here.”
“What did you order?” Juliet asked impishly.
“You really are hung-up on the whole vampire thing, aren’t you? What? Won’t you like me if I order a hamburger and fries?”
She scowled. “It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
She turned her head away and looked out the window instead of meeting his eyes. She didn’t feel like being ridiculed for her dreams of vampires, especially not by the real live man whose photo she had pinned to her closet door as her perfect idea of the beautiful undead.
After a minute or so passed, Seth said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just think our relationship will be smoother if I’m free to eat what I like when we’re together rather than trying to maintain a facade. I want to spend all my time with you, so I’d like to be able to eat normally.”
Juliet took a deep breath. “I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary after you ate that pomegranate last night. It was just that the waitress made it sound like your order was unusual.”
“It is,” Seth agreed. “I have a very sensitive palate. It took me forever to get the chef here to make me special orders, but he charges me an arm and a leg, so we each get what we want.”
“So, you’re a picky eater?”
“Fanatical. Don’t ever try to cook anything for me, because I guarantee I won’t like it.”
“What do you like?”
“Almost nothing. I like how my brother prepares food, so I always make a special effort to go home if he’s cooking.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yeah. I live in his building.”
“In his ‘building?’ Don’t you mean his house?”
Seth smirked. “No. He owns an apartment building.”
“Is it close to campus?”
“Pretty close,” he said, looking at the ceiling.
“What about your parents? Do they live with you, too?”
“No.”
“Do you have any other siblings?”
“No.”
At this rate, Juliet was going to have to start talking about herself, which was the last thing she wanted to do. Why wouldn’t he say anything more than one word answers?
By this time, their food arrived. Juliet was surprised when she saw Seth’s meal because it was merely a plate of sliced raw fish, served with a glass what almost looked like red wine, except the color wasn’t as rich.
“Bon appetit,” the waitress said as she set down their food and disappeared.
“Doesn’t sushi usually come with rice and seaweed?” Juliet questioned, looking at his plate contemplatively.
“Usually, except this isn’t sushi,” he said as he cracked apart his chopsticks. “It’s sashimi, a Japanese delicacy. Like I said, it took me a while to get the chef to prepare it the way I like it, but it was well worth the wait. He does a pretty good job.”
Juliet wasn’t revolted by his meal, but she was surprised when he took his glass and poured half its contents onto the fish. It streamed scarlet on the dead, white flesh.
He laughed at her. “Trust me, it’s good. Do you want to try it?”
She nodded, though she was positive it wouldn’t become her favorite. He picked one up and deposited it carefully into her open mouth. The flavor was not what she had expected. She had expected red wine, but instead it was some kind of cordial that completely drowned out the flavor of the fish.
“What is that?” she asked when her mouth was empty.
“Cod.”
“No. What’s in the glass?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” he asked wickedly. “It’s nothing to worry about. It wouldn’t get you drunk no matter how much you drank of it. It’s grenadine.”
“Pomegranate juice?”
“Basically.”
“I didn’t think anyone drank that straight. Isn’t it supposed to be an ingredient for other drinks?”
“Probably.”
Juliet peered at him curiously before she dunked her sandwich in the beef broth.
“What about you?” he asked. “What about your family, your friends, your life?”
She shook her head slowly. “I…” she started, but then she stopped and looked at his face.
He was even more attractive in the sunlight. His eyes had a slight upward slant to them that made them look like they hid millions of secrets. Before she knew it, she was daydreaming about him and his past and his thoughts. There was something about him, something compelling, drawing her in and making her want to throw her own past away. As she sat with him, she wanted to reinvent herself, just so that she could be the type of woman he wanted. Was that what he had envisioned about her? That she would change and become a wreck just because of his love? Maybe she didn’t have to lose hope in herself. Maybe she could invent a new self. She pictured herself driving him wild with desire. Perhaps she could become a woman with long legs, excellent taste in books, and a smile worth dying for. He would want to be with her all the time even just to play with her hair.
Juliet licked her lips and said, “I want to apologize for asking you all those questions about your brother and your life. It was rude of me since I don’t want to reciprocate. There’s nothing in my past life that I want to talk about with you. Can’t we just pretend that I didn’t exist before you started reading my blog?”
Seth’s chop sticks were half-way to his mouth when she had started speaking, but with her words, he put them down and regarded her seriously. “That’s perfectly fine with me if that’s the way you want it.”
Juliet breathed a sigh of relief.
“But I’m surprised,” he said as he took a bite. He finished chewing before he went on, “I thought you’d want to hash over every detail of your life... and mine.”
She smiled secretively, “I don’t want to scare you.”
Seth laughed. “How could you scare me? Besides, it feels unnatural somehow to have such a finicky, polite conversation with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m already tired of this whole ‘lunch’ scenario. I know couples should go on dates to see how compatible they are, but I just want to take you out of here and find out what your lips taste like... over and over again. Can we finish up here and go back to your dorm room?”
Juliet’s heart jumped and skipped and then took a nosedive. What about the poster on her closet door?
“Couldn’t we go somewhere else? Like your place?” she stuttered.
“I can’t wait that long,” he said, his eyes burning with intensity. “In a second, it’s going to be your side of the table.”
“In public?” she gasped.
“Just once,” he said, getting up from his side of the table and coming around to hers. He pulled her chair out and turned it slightly so that she faced him. Then he knelt on the floor in front of her. Juliet’s cheeks burned heady scarlet. People were looking at them. He looked like he was proposing marriage in a campus bar, but Seth wasn’t looking at them. His eyes were only for her as he pulled her closer to him and claimed her lips.
She felt his lips on hers before she entered into the dream-like state she had during their first kiss. Seth wasn’t there. There was no man in her vision at all. She was sitting alone in a chair in a stone room. She could see the sun setting through the windows to the west and the yellow-gold light across the walls. On the stand beside her sat a goblet—a goblet filled with blood. Turning away from it, she knew it wasn’t for her even though she had tasted it many times. It was her blood.
But then, was she the same person? She was and she wasn’t. She had never been a little girl or a teenager. Her adolescent self had been shed like snake skin revealing a woman. She couldn’t see herself, not even her hands, but she felt a difference in her the very essence of herself.
Spring had gone from her, and with it so many treasures of youth. Summer was gone too, only her autumn remained. And autumn was glorious, shaded with deep markings of orange and blue. Her breath felt crisp in her throat. All at once she knew what she wanted to be—autumn.
Suddenly, she came to the realization of where she actually was—in the campus pub. Seth wasn’t kissing her, but to Juliet’s horror, he was lying flat on the floor beside their table.
“What are you doing? Get up!” she hissed at him as quietly as she could, even though everyone was glaring at them.
Seth smirked. He put his hands behind his head and said evenly, “It would have been less embarrassing if you hadn’t thrown me off.”
“What?” she gasped.
“What? Don’t you remember?”
She scratched her temple, to hide her feelings of unrest. “No. Not at all.”
Seth picked himself off the floor. Standing straight up, he said, “Do you want to go now?”
“Yes,” she whispered, half covering her face.
Seth reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He put the necessary bills on the table, put his arm around her and ushered her toward the door. “We won’t come back here for a while.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
Once they were alone inside the elevator, Juliet felt free to talk to him. “I’m sorry. I black out or something when you kiss me. It’s mortifying, but I don’t think I can keep it a secret if...”
“Kiss me again,” he breathed, gently pushing her into the corner. “If you pass out, I’ll take you back to your dorm.”
“No, Seth!” she said, putting her hand between their faces. “I want to talk for a minute.”
“Talk? When there’s pleasure like this to be had?” His lips found the side of her neck.
She pushed him off and met his eyes sternly. “Why do you have this effect on me?”
Seth backed away from her and leaned against the wall. He folded his arms across his chest and looked vexed. “And why, little girl, do you have this effect on me?”
“What effect?”
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. I feel like if I can’t have you in my arms, they’ll break. Don’t turn me down.”
The elevator doors opened and Juliet pushed past him. “I need to think... and I need answers. I’ll see you later.”
He rushed after her and grabbed her elbow. “Don’t go.”
The sound of his voice made Juliet’s bones melt. She was on the verge of giving in when she glanced up and saw his face. She thought she had imagined his sharp teeth. No, she hadn’t. He was almost panting, and his two canines had extended so far they were resting on his bottom lip.
“We can’t talk right now,” she claimed, forcing herself to be assertive. “Your blood lust is too strong for you to handle.”
Seth’s eyes stared back at her in horror and his mouth hung partly open. His fingers relaxed and his arm fell to his side. Juliet stared at him with deliberation. Finally, he tucked his fang-like teeth behind his bottom lip. He turned around and walked away.
As Juliet watched his retreating form, she let out a cleansing breath and told herself she was safe.
Seth turned around and said just four words to her, “I’m not a vampire.” He even managed to say the words like he believed them, but the thing was, Juliet wasn’t sure she could believe.