Nightfall (Grim Gate 1)

“You know a lot about vampires.”

“I know enough.” He shrugs.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m a vampire?” I push my shoulders back.

He cocks an eyebrow and laughs. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“I know you’re human.” He leans in, eyes zeroing in on mine for a moment before dropping his gaze to my breasts, tipping his head slightly. “You’re drunk,” he starts, eyes going back to mine. “And you’re bleeding. Vampires can bleed, but they don’t have hours-old wounds that scab and then bleed.”

“Dammit, you’re right.” I bring my hand up, rubbing my forehead, careful not to touch my cut again. “You must think I’m a basket case. I’m not usually like this.”

“What are you usually like?”

“Not drunk and rambling. Well, I have a tendency to ramble even when I’m sober. But I’m a tad more put together.”

Ethan laughs. “So, do you live in the area?”

“Not downtown,” I tell him. “But close enough. You?”

“For now.”

“For now?” I slide the muffin in front of me and break off a chunk.

“I’m helping my dad with a job but once things are settled I’ll head back to Chicago.”

“I’ve been there before. We used to live in Michigan and weren’t too terribly far from the city.”

“We meaning…”

“Oh, my parents and brother,” I say. “I moved to Syracuse when I was a kid.” My phone buzzes with a text, reminding me that I never told Laney I left the bar. It’s Harrison, not Laney, though.

“It’s my brother,” I tell Ethan and unlock my phone.

Harrison: Hey, you up?

Harrison: Fuck, sorry Annie. I meant to text that to Anne.

I grimace. It’s not the first time he’s accidentally texted me instead of his on-and-off again booty call, whose name is Anne. Harrison is the only person who calls me Annie, a nickname he gave me when we were little and he had trouble pronouncing his Rs.

Me: Gross. Please change my name in your phone to Annie: MY SISTER

Harrison: That’s a good idea.

Me: Since you’re up, want to come get me? I’m ready to go home but Laney is still having fun.

Harrison: Sure, but you’re buying me takeout on the way to your house.

Me: Fine. I’m at Cody’s Café.

Harrison: I just left Jake’s. I’ll be there in five or less.

Jake has been Harrison’s best friend since elementary school, and he lives only a mile or so away from the bar. “My brother is gonna pick me up,” I tell Ethan, texting Laney now before I forget. I set the phone down and take another bite of the muffin. “Thanks for being nice to me.”

“As opposed to being mean to you?”

I laugh. “You could have kept walking. I would have been fine out there.”

The smirk disappears from his face. “You looked like you might walk right into oncoming traffic.”

A weird sense of anxiety is coming off of him, and he looks out the large window next to our booth.

“I suppose you’re right. So, uh…what do you do?”

“Not much of anything right now,” he admits. “Since I’m helping my dad.”

“Oh, right.” His reply doesn’t make much sense, right? Or am I still too drunk to follow along?

“Before, I taught martial arts.” That explains why he’s in such good shape. “What about you?”

“I’m a vet-tech and part-time riding instructor.”

He nods and points to my forehead. “You mentioned a horse.”

“Yeah. Mystery. That’s my horse.” It takes everything inside of me not to start showing Ethan photos of him. Instead, I grab several sugar packets and add them to the black coffee. “I don’t like the taste of coffee,” I say, compelled to fill awkward silence and usually make it even more awkward. “But I need it to function.”

“This coffee doesn’t smell the greatest, but I need it too. I always question people who don’t drink coffee.”

“Me too. Like what do they do, get eight hours of sleep a night?”

Ethan laughs. “I don’t know what that feels like.”

“I would if I didn’t stay up late most nights. The veterinary clinic opens at seven so I have to be at work by six three days a week. I work twelve-hour shifts,” I explain.

“What do you stay up late doing?”

“Reading or watching TV,” I reply and add creamer to the coffee. It helps a little, but I still grimace from the taste. “Nothing too crazy. I’m kind of boring.”

“You haven’t bored me yet.”

“Fine. I’m interesting in the most unexpecting way you’d expect. And I just said expect twice.”

Ethan chuckles. “That piques my interest even more. What do you mean?”

I wiggle my eyebrows. “You’ll just have to wait and find out.”

Ethan holds my gaze, and there’s something intimate in the way he looks at me. It’s like he can see right through me, and it makes me feel vulnerable. I take a big drink of coffee, using it as a distraction, but then look at him too.

He has a scar along his hairline, similar to where my cut is, but this was from a much graver injury. I run my eyes down him, noticing another straight, long scar on his forearm.