H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (74 page)

I hadn’t been on too many dates in my life.
But I still knew the drill. I parked my truck near the house and
walked up. There was a rosebush out front so I decided to reach
down and pick one off at the stem. It was a bit sad; the petals
were brown, but what’s a guy to do on such short notice?

I walked up to the door and knocked. Cyrus
answered the door. “Damn Josiah, you clean up quite nice.”

“Is Lena here?”

“She said you two were going out, but I
didn’t realize you were going to go to this extreme,” Cyrus
laughed.

“Lena, your date is here!” Cyrus yelled,
like an obnoxious younger brother.

I stepped into the doorway. I looked up the
stairwell and Lena was walking down. She was wearing a long black
dress that was tight in the legs and waist. It was very sexy and
very elegant. She looked incredible. She was actually wearing
lipstick. I don’t think I had ever seen her wear lipstick. She
looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her. My breath was
pretty taken away.

She approached me at the bottom of the
stairs and all I could say was, “Wow!”

“Wow, yourself,” she said, smiling. She had
done her hair up real cute and she just looked incredible.

“You ready to go?” I asked.

“Yes, I am.”

I was still holding the pathetic rose in my
hand. “Oh yeah, I got you this.” I handed the rose to her.

“It’s… beautiful?” she said, trying not to
hurt my feelings.

“You can say it. It’s the saddest looking
flower you have ever seen.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

I grinned and put my arm out for Lena to
hold. She laid the rose on the counter. She took my arm and we
walked outside the front door to my truck. I opened the passenger
side door for Lena and she got in. She smelled wonderful. I walked
around the back and made my way to the door. I opened it and got
in. I looked to my right and Lena had put her seatbelt on. All I
could do was shake my head at how amazing she looked. She had so
much natural beauty. She was definitely not your typical California
girl.

“You look like a million bucks,” I said.

“Josiah Reign,” Lena said, with a hint of
playfulness in her voice. “Are you flirting with me?”

“I might have a little crush. I’ll let you
know how it develops throughout the night.” I started up the truck
and we were off.

We made our way to the freeway and I took
the 15 freeway to the 10. The 10 freeway is a direct shot right
into Los Angeles. I had made reservations at a restaurant near the
theater, which keeps their kitchen open till one in the
morning.

“So what are we seeing?” Lena asked.

“The Sharks vs. the Jets,” I said.

“We’re watching a football game?” Lena
asked, disappointed.

“No dear,” I said. “Have you ever seen West
Side Story?”

“The movie?”

“No, the cooking show on Bravo,” I said,
jokingly. “Of course I’m talking about the movie, or musical for
that matter.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the movie. I saw it in the
ninth grade.”

“So did I,” I said excitedly.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how old the movie was when I
watched it. It was in color and I thought it came out in the
80s.”

“No, it’s much older than that.”

“I know that now. I saw it in my ninth-grade
English class and absolutely fell in love with Natalie Wood, you
know, the actress that plays Maria in the movie. For some reason,
it didn’t dawn on me that I might have a problem professing my
newfound love to her. I went home and thought out exactly how I was
going to tell her how I fell head over heels for her. I get on my
computer and try to find a Natalie Wood website fan page. I was
pretty saddened to find out she had died nearly 30 years earlier by
drowning in a boating accident. I was heartbroken.”

“You poor baby,” Lena said, as honest and
sincere as anyone could, considering how pathetic the true tale
was. “That makes me so sad.”

“Why does it make you sad?” I asked.

“Your first love died thirty years before
you even knew she existed.”

“She was definitely not my first love.”

“Oh, she wasn’t?”

“Nope, Christina Martinez was my first
love,” I said.

“How old were you?”

“Five,” I said, proudly.

“Five?”

“She lived across the street. She used to
play with her Barbies in the front yard while I pretended to play
with my monster trucks across the street.”

“I can’t even remember one thing about being
five years old, let alone liking a boy.”

“I had a crush on at least one girl every
year from kindergarten till my senior year.”

“Josiah, you are the definition of girl
crazy.”

“What can I say, I have always been very
fond of the opposite sex. How about you? When and who was your
first boyfriend?”

“Junior high. His name was Garret
Kennedy!”

“Garret Kennedy? Seriously? That guy was
your first boyfriend?”

“You knew him?”

“Of course I knew him, you and I went to the
same junior high and high school. That guy was totally weird.”

“He was my kind of weird.”

“That guy used to draw pentagrams on his
school folders.”

“He was just being creative.”

“Wow, even then you were into the dark
weirdos.”

“Now, I just like the blonde weirdos,” Lena
joked. “How old were you, Josiah, when you had your first grown-up
kiss.”

“You mean tongue?”

“That does qualify as a grown-up kiss.”

“Tilly Ramirez, eighth grade.”

“Wow, you sure like the Latinas.”

“It was the demographic of where we lived.
It was on the eighth-grade graduation trip to Disneyland. We were
riding on ‘It’s a Small World.’”

Lena laughed out loud.

“You’ve seen the goods, lady,” I said,
referring to my package. “Obviously, the ride had no symbolic
reference to what I’m packing.”

“Easy, tiger,” Lena continued laughing.
“Knowing that your first kiss was on a kids’ ride is pretty
hysterical.”

“All we did was make out on the ride and
nothing more.”

“Didn’t the song repeating over and over on
the ride kill the mood?”

“It happened at the end of the ride. She was
nudging me and I turned my head, and there she was, sticking her
tongue down my throat.”

“She stuck her tongue down your throat?
You’re not sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

“No, it was definitely her. She actually
screwed me up in the kissing department for a couple of years.”

“How so?”

“For the longest time, I thought that was
the way people were supposed to kiss. You shove your tongue deep in
someone’s mouth and just slosh it around.”

“How did you figure it out?” Lena asked.

“I had a friend of mine ask an old
girlfriend if I was a good kisser.”

“She said ‘no’?”

“Not only did she say I wasn’t a good
kisser, she proceeded to give a detailed account of how horrible it
was to be kissed by me. She compared it to a mouth assault.”

“Really? That is the funniest thing I’ve
ever heard.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying my traumatic high
school youth.”

“Well, you obviously fixed the problem. I
think you’re a fantastic kisser.”

“Really? Fantastic?”

“Yes. At least in my top three,” Lena winked
at me.

“Top three even. I don’t even want to know
who the other two are.”

“It’s not who you think. To be fair, Tommy
didn’t really have a chance to prove himself, and Atticai never
kissed me like that.”

“Word is.... Tommy is a good kisser,” I
said. “My sister was pretty impressed.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lena assured me. “So, how
did you turn your kissing woes around?” Lena asked, purposely
changing the subject away from Tommy and I knew it.

“Promise not to laugh?”

“Oh, this is going to be good.”

“It’s more than good.”

“Okay, I promise not to laugh,” Lena
swore.

“My sister was a huge Archie comics fan. So,
I would read them as a kid and I began to really like reading the
comics myself.”

“You liked reading Archie comic books?”

“What’s so weird about that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Everything about it is,” Lena
stated, teasingly.

“Anyway, one Christmas my sister got me this
life-size Archie head. It was like a puppet. She got it for me as a
joke because she knew I would sneak around, reading her comic
books. The life-size head was made out of rubber and if you put
your fingers in the back of the head, you could control his
mouth.”

“You didn’t?” Lena laughed.

“I did. I made out with Archie until I damn
well got great at kissing.”

Lena began laughing hysterically.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh.”

“That’s not fair. That is the funniest thing
I ever heard. How long did that go on?”

“I kept that puppet around all through high
school. Whenever I felt my game needed a little pick me up, Archie
would be there.”

“I’m surprised it didn’t make you gay.”

“Not gay. Just tolerant. I figured if I
could practice kissing on a checkered, red-headed guy, then I
needed to be cool about other people’s life choices.”

“You’re so funny! Well, be sure to thank
Archie for me the next time you two have a session.”

“When my family died, I set fire to a lot of
things that stirred up too many memories and unfortunately Archie
was one of them.”

Lena smiled uncomfortably and looked
outside. I sure knew how to kill a fun conversation by bringing up
death. I probably shouldn’t have brought that part of the story up
‘cause Lena didn’t know how to respond. We were having fun and the
reality of life always seemed to remind us of how painful things
had been for both of us.

Lena reached out her left palm and I held it
with my right hand. I gave her a loving wink and we made our way to
the Ahmanson Theater.

The musical was great and I saw why Tommy
liked them so much. It’s just a whole lot of fun.

When it was over, I took Lena to a
restaurant called Shapiro’s. It was a real classy joint down the
street from the theater. It had dim lighting and I’d heard the food
was fantastic. Lena didn’t have the ability to eat like me, but she
was able to eat meat that was rare with virtually no problem.

Our table was near the back and there
weren’t that many people in the restaurant. The table was candlelit
and there was a three-piece band playing easy listening jazz at the
front of the restaurant.

I ordered the Chicken Alfredo, and Lena had
a 12-ounce steak served very rare. One thing that all vampires had
the ability to do, and thank god we did, was drink like sailors.
Lena and I were throwing back our wine pretty good throughout our
meal.

“I think we should do this kind of thing
more often,” I said. I had a nice wine buzz going and for my money,
a wine buzz was the best alcohol buzz to have.

“You look incredibly handsome, Josiah.”

“You think?”

“The lighting makes you look like an angel
in here,” Lena said, in a very seductive and flirtatious
manner.

“A demon maybe, but not an angel.”

“Is that your opinion of us, that we are
inherently evil?” she asked.

“I don’t like to think about it, but there
are times I think I am evil. I have hurt and even killed so many
people in such a short period of time that it’s hard not to feel
that way. It’s hard to think there is much good left in me.”

“Josiah, you’re as good as they come.”

“I’m not sure if I believe that. Killing
does something to a person. Killing takes a piece of you with it
when it happens.”

“You have never killed anyone who wasn’t
attacking you first, right?” Lena asked.

I thought about the werewolf that was on the
lookout at Tommy’s cabin a few months back. That killing had never
sat well with me.

Lena could tell I was in deep thought.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“There was once I attacked and killed a
werewolf before he had a chance to attack me.”

“You must have thought you needed to do it
for your own safety.”

“I did,” I said. “I didn’t try to kill him
either. It just happened. It has always bothered me because I saw
his face right before he died.”

“There you go, Josiah, in our world there
are going to be casualties. It should only bother you if innocent
people get killed.”

“It just all sounds so callous. Life and
death should have a higher significance.”

“And it does with the Tandra. Most humans
are innocent bystanders in this war that has been raged in the
underworld. Carni and Mani know the stakes. Most of us chose this
life; it’s all we ever wanted.”

“I didn’t choose it. I never wanted it. Even
when I knew it existed, the last thing I wanted was to be a part of
it.”

“I know.” Lena reached her hand across the
table and placed it on top of my hand. “But now that it’s here, you
have embraced it. And you know what, Josiah? There is no one better
at it than you. You are the most perfect person to lead this
charge. The Triat knew what they were doing. They chose a great
man.”

Every once in a while, words that are spoken
minister to my heart and that comment by Lena was such a thing.
What she said touched me in a way she’d never know.

“I love you, Lena.”

“I love you, Josiah.”

The waitress walked over and placed our food
in front of us. We continued to talk and eat till we helped close
down the joint at 2:00 in the morning

On the way home, Lena fell asleep on my
shoulder. For the first time in my entire life, I felt the feeling
of union. This was my girl. I was her man. Together, I was pretty
certain we could do anything.

Chapter Fifteen

A few weeks went by and Lena and I were
really building something very special and the closer I got to her,
the more complete I felt. It was during our most intimate moments
that I felt the kind of connection I had always longed for. Making
love to Lena was a life-changing experience regardless of what
anyone thought. When you truly love someone and you share that kind
of intimate detail, it’s the most powerful bond two people can
have. I was becoming a better person just by loving her each
day.