H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (102 page)

“Yes, Tommy.”

For the first time in my life, I was about
to utter these words out loud: “Maya, I love you.”

Maya exhaled deeply and said, “I love you,
too, Tommy.”

Maya hugged me tightly, and we slow danced a
little longer, holding, loving and kissing each other. Song after
song, we just held our bodies close. This was an intimacy I had not
yet experienced before tonight. This was a closeness that I didn’t
know could exist. Time was waning and I asked Maya if she like to
go up to my bedroom. She nodded her head, and I led her up the
stairs into my room.

My bedroom was simple considering that I
only spent a few days out of the year here. We reclined on the bed
next to one another and continued kissing. I had never felt this
way before. For the first time in my life, I was sharing passion
with a woman, and sex was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to
consume her. I wanted to inhale her essence and exhale her
being.

“Tommy?” Maya said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“I’m not ready,” she said softly, an
apologetic tone in her voice.

I knew what she meant and it was okay with
me. “It’s okay, Maya. All I want is to be with you.” I meant every
word. We continued to kiss and cuddle and eventually we fell asleep
in each other’s arms. It was the most perfect night I had ever
shared with a woman.

Chapter Six

The next day, we got up early and went to
breakfast in a quaint little cafe along the highway. It catered to
locals, and had an atmosphere that was about as enchanting as a
place could be.

Maya and I talked and shared every detail
about our lives. I told her every bit about me, except the whole
paranormal thing. Tonight, there would be a full moon; I was
anticipating some weird shit happening again. My hearing was
already off the charts when there wasn’t a full moon, but I’d been
ignoring it. Tonight, however, she’d be there to witness for
herself whatever happened to me. Hopefully, I could properly
explain what I knew, and that wasn’t a whole lot. It would be a
very short “just the facts, ma’am” explanation.

We left after breakfast and went back to the
cabin around ten in the morning. We decided to bundle up and go
outside and make a snowman and do some sledding. We rolled
snowballs as big as we could, but they weren’t even close to the
humungous ones you see on TV, when they make a snowman on some
Christmas special. Who knew that making a snowman was a
science.

When we were done, we did a little bit of
sledding on the driveway. That ended up being a sad display, just
as well. We eventually went inside to get cleaned up and put on a
change of clothes. I had gone into the shower first, and I put on a
warm set of clothes and went downstairs and layered a couple of
blankets on the couch.

Maya took her shower and came down about a
half hour later. “So, what’s on the agenda, mountain man?”

I was all cuddled up on the couch and was
feeling really, comfy, cozy. “Well,” I said, “I thought we could go
ice skating later on. There’s a rink in Arrowhead.”

“Ice skating? How fun! I’ve never ice skated
before!”

“Well, you’re in for a treat. It takes a few
times to get the hang of it, but if you can roller-skate…you can
ice skate.”

“That sounds like so much fun!” Maya was
really excited.

“Until then, I thought we could hang out at
the cabin. I have every board game known to man and I’m itching to
beat your butt.”

“As long as we don’t play Scrabble, we’ll be
okay.”

“Noooo… you don’t like Scrabble!” I
literally, stood up.

“Don’t tell me you like it.”

“Like it? I love it! It’s chess with words,
but even better.”

“Oh no, you fit in so much with my family.
I’m surprised Josiah and my dad haven’t brought out the big board
yet and played with you. They have marathon matches that last for
weeks on end.”

“Josiah plays?”

“Josiah is sick at the game.”

“Oh, it’s on, I will take little brother
down. When I’m done with him, I’m going after Pops.”

“Don’t get too cocky, Tommy. They’re both
pretty good.”

“So, let me get this straight, you think
your fifteen-year-old brother can kick my ass in a fight, and beat
me at Scrabble?”

Maya was quiet, and smiled sweetly at
me.

“You do understand I’m an undefeated
professional fighter? And, I’m practically undefeated at
Scrabble.”

“I believe you’re really tough at fighting
and can win against a lot of people at Scrabble. You need to
understand, sweetie. My brother has beaten the best boxers in the
world, and he’s almost as good at Scrabble as good as he is at
fighting.”

“Everyone he fought was his age!”

“My brother will fight anyone at any time.
He beats up grown men all the time.”

“So do I! And I get paid for it!”

Maya seemed amused that this bothered me.
But I was getting a little annoyed by all of it. I mean the kid
just turned sixteen for God’s sake. And now she wanted to throw
Scrabble into the mix. Those were fighting words.

One thing for sure, Maya was loyal as hell
to her brother. Even though it perturbed me that my girlfriend
thought her little brother, who was six years younger than me,
could beat me up and hand me my ass in a game of Scrabble, I had to
live with that.

Josiah and I would never truly know about
the fighting aspect, and I’ve seen him in the gym. He was a beast;
his hands were quicker than anyone I had ever seen. It was just
damn humbling to hear it from the girl I cared about. One thing was
for damn sure; I was going to whip his ass at Scrabble. I must have
shown my irritation in my face, because Maya said to me, “Tommy,
you know I think you’re amazing.”

“Just not as amazing as your brother,” I
said, like a spoiled child.

“So competitive! Does it really bother you
that much?”

It didn’t bother me the way she thought. I
looked at Maya and said, “I just want you to know that you’re safe
with me. That no one will ever harm you.”

Maya sat me back down on the couch, “Honey,
look at you. You’re built like a pit bull. You’re muscular, and
strong, and I wouldn’t doubt for one second you could protect me
against anyone in the world. You don’t need to feel like you’re any
less, just because my brother is a freak of nature and can anyone
down in boxing or in Scrabble.”

I nodded, “I guess you’re right. About the
Scrabble part.”

Maya stared at me and took my hand. “There’s
something you need to know about my brother. When Josiah was seven
years old, he kicked the neighborhood bully’s ass. The guy was
fourteen years old and terrorized everyone, big or small, in the
neighborhood. He used to pick on us on the way home from school
every day, and one day, Josiah just had enough, and he fought back.
That guy never knew what hit him. Josiah threw five punches and
every single one of them landed cleanly. The bully was bleeding all
over the sidewalk. He tried to grab Josiah, but my little brother
was like a ball of energy, and the guy couldn’t even keep him down.
If the older boys hadn’t stop Josiah, I’m pretty sure he would have
killed that kid. He did this in front of the whole block. At age
seven. After that, we all knew one thing was for sure. Little
brother could fight. My dad has done everything he can so that
Josiah doesn’t use his abilities the wrong way and become a bully
himself.”

I took in Maya’s story and truth be told,
after learning those details about Josiah, it made me respect the
little shit even more. “You’re lucky, Maya.”

“Why is that?”

“You have the most awesome family ever.”

“I do, don’t I?”

“Not to mention your mom is pretty hot,
too,” I said, for good measure.

“I know! Right!” Maya laughed.

I know I couldn’t piggy-back on my previous
comment about her mom without sounding like a big pervert, so I
reeled it in.

“I’ll let my mom know that
twenty-two-year-old guys are checking her out. Maybe it would make
my dad pay more attention to her.”

“Please don’t tell her I said anything.”

“You’re right. My dad would kick your ass!”
Maya laughed.

“I know he would. Your dad is in great
shape.”

“Okay, Tommy. Are we going to spend all day
talking about how hot my parents are, or are we going play some
Connect Four?”

“Connect Four? Oh! That is my specialty.
You’re going down!” I said, and went over to my game closet. I
pulled out a boatload of board games with Connect Four on the top
of the pile.

“Wow, you do know there is a thing called
video games?” Maya joked at the sight of all the board games I
dropped in front of her.

“I am highly aware of video games, but that
isn’t the biggest turn-on to a girl when you first start dating
her. Board games are interactive and sexy. They are hands-on and
engaging in a way that video games cannot compare to, for a game
for two.”

“Oh, you plan on waiting till were married
to whip out that little detail of your life?”

“Married?” I nearly swallowed my tongue.

Maya realized what she said and put her hand
over her mouth. “Easy there, Tommy. It was just a joke.”

I looked at Maya and couldn’t believe what I
was thinking. I was thinking if I could be so lucky. “Didn’t
someone challenge me in a game of Connect Four?”

“I sure did, lover boy.”

Maya and I played six games of Connect Four
and we split them 3-3. We went through nearly every game in my
stack and had a blast playing each one. She even taught me how to
play Texas Hold’em poker toward the end. I had seen it on TV, but
had never fully understood the rules.

It being winter and, knowing that it gets
dark around 6:00 at night, I decided we should hit the ice skating
rink around 5:00, figuring it might be less weird for her if some
of my issues happened in public.

We drove down the mountain to Arrowhead.
Arrowhead was the next city below Running Springs. We passed a high
school named Rim of the World before we got to the rink. That had
to be the all-time, most unusual name ever for a high school. It
sounded more like an amusement park or a landmark.

We got to the ice skating rink and it was
pretty packed. What did I expect; it was winter and a Saturday
night. There wasn’t a whole lot to do out here and the locals must
love this joint. We got our skates and went over to the chairs to
lace them up.

“So, you’ve done this before, right?” Maya
asked me. She was having trouble lacing up her skates. So, I leaned
over and helped her get her skates tightened.

“They need to be on tighter than anything
you have ever put on your feet before; you don’t want to twist your
ankle, which is really easy to do,” I said. I got on my skates and
then we were off to the rink.

I hit the ice and showed off a little by
speed skating around the rink a couple of times. The second time
around, I whipped in and went over to Maya.

“Done impressing all the girls in this
place?” Maya asked; she obviously wasn’t too pleased at my display
of my testosterone.

“I wasn’t trying to impress girls, plural,”
I assured her, “I was just hoping to impress you.”

She winked at me. “You sure did, Apolo Ohno!
Could you be a dear and help a newbie get started?”

I took her hand and she hobbled onto the
ice. We went slowly around the ice. I told her to just glide her
feet like roller skating.

Eventually, she got the hang of it and was
doing pretty damn good. We skated around for about an hour and I
knew the full moon was going to be out any moment. Then, it
happened right on cue. The music DJ guy put on a slow song.

“Couples’ skate!” He announced, over the
speaker.

“Wanna skate?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, “Unless you were
hoping to ask one of these teenagers to skate with you?”

“I just want to skate with you,” I assured
her. “Teenage girls have nothing on you.” They really didn’t. Maya
was the prettiest girl in here.

I decided to turn my body around and so I
could face my girlfriend while we skated. I skated backwards slowly
while holding both of Maya’s hands. Maya skated in front of me
tentatively. She started out rough, but after a lap around, she was
getting the hang of it.

“This is nice, Tommy.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

I smiled at her warmly, she smiled back. But
then her mouth just dropped wide open. “Are you okay, Tommy?”

“Why?”

“Your eyes are bright yellow.”

Holy shit! Here it is! It must be dark
outside. “I feel fine,” I said, trying not to freak her out.

“Let’s go sit down,” she said. “You don’t
look good.”

“We don’t need to do that. I feel
great.”

Maya continued to stare at me and her face
said it all. She was completely freaked out. “No, we’re going to go
sit down.”

“All right.” We skated off the ice and sat
in a couple chairs by the snack bar. The snack bar was more lit
than ice rink, and that didn’t make things any better.

I sat across from Maya and she just stared
at me with a puzzled look.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know, you look different. You were
scruffy this morning, but your beard looks like it has already
filled out.”

I just nodded my head and allowed her to try
to come to grips with what she was seeing.

“Your ears,” she said. “They appear to be
pointier.”

That’s new, I thought.

“And your nose seems to be longer than it
was just minutes ago. It’s like someone replaced you with a bad
body double.”

“A bad body double? Thanks.” I tried to make
light of it, but I could tell Maya was about to lose it.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Maya
continued to stare at me. I could tell she was thinking she was
losing her mind and I decided this was the moment to let her in on
the truth.