First came the orange T-shirt, with the picture of a giant turnip sitting on a sofa. The big green letters read because couch potatoes have too much ambition.
Then came the flip-flops, the sunglasses, and the baseball cap.
Christian could have tried for the lift, but that meant walking the halls of the hotel, where Faye could be prowling.
He was too much of a coward. So he decided to jump out the window.
The rush of the night air through his hair and the glitter of city lights too far below made a dozen remembered human survival instincts get together and carol, Oh my God, oh my God, we are going to dieeeee—
Then he landed, on one knee with his hand placed out in front of him, like a runner who was about to sprint.
He was barely on his feet when one of the hotel staff came outside for a cigarette. The guy gave him a critical look, and Christian fiercely resisted the urge to zoom away at vampire speed. Faye would know then, and she would find him. He knew she would find him.
Instead he tilted his head at the guy and tried to think of the least vampiric possible thing to say.
He settled for “’Sup?”
He could practically see the wheels turning in the man’s mind—That looks like and He is staying in—a dozen thoughts, all being steadily turned away by the insistent, prevailing conviction that a vampire would not be caught undead in flip-flops.
“Hey,” he said eventually, his voice creaking with unease.
“Nice night,” Christian dared to offer, and then he walked at a steady, human pace, in his flip-flops, around the corner to freedom.
The house looked just like he remembered it. He would’ve thought it might seem smaller; that was what they said about coming back home and how you never really could. But it was the same size, the crazy paving forming the same pattern as it had when he had wound his way up it every day. All you had to do was follow it home.
It was when he was home, when he knocked on the door and it was thrown wide, that everything went wrong.
Rory answered the door. He was much taller than he had been: he was taller than Christian was, now.
Christian had been expecting a hug—the kind they used to give each other when Rory’s football team won, thumping each other on the back hard and holding on.
Rory moved awkwardly, clumsily, backward. As if he still wasn’t used to his new height, or he was scared.
Christian panicked, and tried out his new not-really-a-vampire mantra. “’Sup?”
“Mum!” Rory shouted, his voice cracking as he did so. “Mum! Christian’s here!”
And maybe Christian wouldn’t keep insisting that was his name to Faye and the band. Not when he had to hear it spoken like this.
They let him in, of course. Home was the place where when you came there, they had to let you in.
That didn’t mean they wanted him there.
“Sorry,” Mum said as soon as she gave Christian the cup of tea. She’d made it in jerky, slapping movements, like a tea-making robot, and she only seemed to think about what she had done once she had to be still.
Christian curled his cold fingers around the hot mug anyway. “That’s okay, Mum. Thanks.”
She hadn’t hugged him either.
“We thought we’d see you at the concert tomorrow,” Mum told him abruptly. “Rory’s really been looking forward to it.”
“Right.”
“Not that it’s not lovely to see you now, Christian!” Mum told him hastily.
He didn’t like the way his mother said his name any more than he liked the way his brother had said it.
“Tell me,” his mother continued, fumbling. “Tell me about the boys in your band. I always like to hear stories about your friend Bradley. He’s a caution!” Her cheeks went pink. “Quite a good-looking boy too.”