By the time the sun goes down again, I’ve been smiling for just about eighteen hours. I’m pretty sure I even smiled in my sleep, curled around Florence’s motionless body, my lips grazing the back of her neck.
I mean, the motionless part did throw me a little to start with, but I got past it. My experience of vampire sleeping habits is pretty limited, admittedly, so I half expected her to be as restless a sleeper as Bram is. He flails like he’s being electrocuted. When he’s stayed on the sofa in the flat, I’ve woken up a few times and been genuinely concerned that he’s been possessed.
But Florence is the opposite. She sleeps like she’s dead. Obviously I know she technicallyisdead, but if it hadn’t been for the tiny, satisfied smile on her face, I might have been worried.
I’m doing another mental replay of her sliding her hand down into my boxers that first time when I hear my name, about three seconds before a packet of peanuts hits me square in the face.
‘Hey!’ I whip around, crashing right into the smug smile of one of my favourite people in the world.
‘All right, dickhead?’ Mina chirps, and she lobs another packet at me with a huge, mischievous grin on her face.
I catch the second packet and toss it onto the countertop. ‘I hope you paid for those.’ I’m trying to be threatening, but I can’t even pretend to be cross about it, especially when she slips behind the bar and launches an enthusiastic side hug at me.
Mina Morris– Bram’s cousin and Lucy’s best friend– is a regular character in the Bitten world. She lives and works in Leeds so we don’t see her all the time, but that just makes me appreciate her random appearances all the more.
I pat her head as she squeezes me and I smile as I imagine the face she’s probably making. Mina and I bonded over our mutual abundance of energy when we first met way back when, and to this day, Bram describes us as ‘the puppies’ when we’re together. I make an effort to be as annoyed by it as I can, but I can’t deny that he has a point.
Mina’s a force of nature: five foot nothing with neon-blue hair and a tiny septum ring that sends reflections of the bar’s lights scattering in all directions. She dresses like she’s always ready for Halloween. Today it’s a blue and black striped jumper underneath her black dungarees, the legs rolled up just enough to reveal a pair of well-worn Converse.
‘Nice to see you,’ I say, squeezing back once before unwrapping her arms from my waist. ‘Those dungarees make you look like Chucky.’
They don’t, she actually looks cool as fuck, but this is our currency– a strange mixture of heartfelt life advice and playground insults. It’s a level of affection we’re both comfortable with.
‘Just ask if you want to borrow them,’ she singsongs, and I grin in return. Mina’s over a foot shorter than me. I’d look like I was wearing spooky lederhosen.
She rounds the bar and hops up on a stool facing me. ‘Is he here yet?’ she asks, her lip curling so much it almost bumps her septum ring.
I straighten out my shirt, smoothing the wrinkles she’s just squeezed in. ‘He?’
‘Elias, obviously.’
I bite back a smile. Despite appearances, Mina’s an absolute sweetheart. I think she could probably get on with almost anyone in the world, with one notable, ancient exception.
‘What’s your beef with Elias?’
She frowns at my question. Actually frowns. It looks wrong on her face, going against all the lines worn in by her near-permanent grin.
‘Elias and I…’ she starts, pausing like she’s trying to think of a diplomatic answer. ‘Don’t see eye to eye.’
I bark out a laugh. She’s walked right into this one.
‘Do you see eye to eye with anyone?’ I tease.
She glares at me, left eye twitching. The expression looks severe, but I’ve known Mina long enough to recognise that’s the way she looks when she wants to laugh but is holding it in. I could rib her about it, but I’m in much too good a mood for trolling.
‘WhyisElias coming?’ I ask, hooking the peanuts back on the hanging strip. I’m sure Bram’s told me already, but I don’t retain information well even at the best of times and there’s alotgoing on in my brain at the moment.
Our friend Elias, known to the wider world as Elias Moreno, the lead singer of rock band Dawn Breaks Black, is a busy man. He fronts one of the biggest bands in the world, so most of his time is taken up touring, writing or recording, but his heart lies in Whitby, so he tries to get back as often as he can. It’s usually for big events, though, other than that one absolutely legendary surprise gig he played here at Bitten, so the fact that he might turn up on a random Thursday in June seems odd.
And Mina’s reaction to my question is odd, too. She studies me for a moment before she answers, and when she does, offering some vague suggestion I don’t believe for a minute, she doesn’t look at me. I’m about to grill her on what the hell’s going on when the bar door opens and shuts and I glance over, expecting it to be Elias himself.
But then my heart hammers a beat in my chest, because it isn’t Elias. It’s Florence. And there’s a really good chance she’s got more beautiful in the last twelve hours.
She’s dressed up more than usual, in a figure-hugging crimson dress, her lips painted the same shade of red. It must speak to some primitive instinct deep inside of me because the combination leaves me unable to think about anything other than her, naked, in my bed. Florence is always beautiful, but tonight she looks blisteringly hot– so much so that I’m not sure I can take it. I feel like I might melt into a puddle at her feet.
‘Hey,’ I manage to say as she rounds the bar and plants a soft kiss against my jaw. I’m immediately hit by her scent, that undefinable fragrance that makes me feel like I can’t take a full breath, and it takes me right back to being wrapped in her with the gentle graze of her teeth on my skin. Suddenly my tongue feels several sizes too big for my mouth.
When she pulls back, there’s a knowing smile on her face and I absently wonder if she can read minds, too.