Page 86 of Double Shot

It was going to be explosive. Fucking intense. Hard and fast, and deep and slow, and everything in between until we were trembling and exhausted and dripping in sweat, and our bodies had been joined for so long that neither of us could remember what it felt like to be separated.

It was going to be the best fucking night of my life.

Chapter 30

Moving Day

Brian

“Don’t be nervous,” Klaus told me with a sweet little smile, pausing in the act of removing another cardboard box from his car’s trunk to rise up on his tiptoes and kiss me. “He’s going to love you.”

I managed a weak smile and the slightest noncommittal nod in response as I took the box from him. I mean, obviously I was pants-shittingly nervous, and there was no point denying it. I was about to meet the most important man in Klaus’s life.

His best friend.

It didn’t feel like I was about to be put on trial, exactly. I didn’t expect Nat to turn up and start flinging questions at me about my intentions, or give me an intense pop quiz on what I knew about his best friend, mainly because I was pretty sure Klaus would have explicitly told him he wasn’t allowed to do that. It felt more like… like I was a lab mouse about to be dropped into a maze and observed very, very closely to see what I did and whether I was smart enough and worthy enough to reach the cheese at the centre.

It didn’t help that I was in my human skin, and would be all day. Klaus had told me this was a largely supernatural street, but there were still humans living here, and it was still a public place. It was hot today, and I was already sweating with nerves. I felt uncomfortable and mildly gross, and I knew that by the end of the day, I’d want to peel my own skin off. But it was worth it to help Klaus.

Honestly, I already would’ve done anything for him. Which might’ve sounded romantic, but was probably more on the creepy side of feelings at this stage in our relationship. So I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t want to scare him off.

We’d been on two more dates since the axe-throwing one a couple of weeks ago. I’d suggested a hike last week, and Klaus had enthusiastically agreed, but when he’d gotten into my car in brand new hiking boots, the alarm bells had started ringing in my head. I’d asked him if he wanted to do something else, and he’d insisted he was looking forward to a hike.

He’d lasted half an hour before those new boots of his had rubbed his heels raw and he’d been limping along, valiantly trying to hide it by staying upbeat. As soon as I noticed the pain pinching his brows, I’d made him sit on a log, unlaced and pulled the boots off his feet, and tied them by their laces to the strap of my backpack. I gave him a piggyback ride for the rest of the hike, which had been way more fun anyway. And he’d still sighed in pleasure over the view when we’d reached the top of the peak, saying his blistered feet were worth it. He’d also perked back up considerably when I unpacked our surprise picnic, which had included brie and bacon sandwiches, chocolate eclairs, strawberries and iced coffee.

The date had ended in another feverish, prolonged make-out session in the front of my car that had left me aching in my jeans for the entire drive home.

I hadn’t been performing on the following Sunday, and Klaus hadn’t been working, so I’d driven us to the botanical gardens in the next town. When I suggested it to Klaus, he’d started researching places for us to eat and had found a cute little tapas place that was out of the way and therefore quiet. I didn’t know if he’d specifically been looking for Spanish restaurants because the one I’d taken him to on our first proper date was also a Spanish restaurant, so he knew it was food I liked, but I appreciated it.

I appreciated him. All those little things he did that I knew were for my benefit. Like being extra friendly and taking charge of an interaction with a server or a cashier if I went quiet. Paying attention to the choices I made, the things I avoided, the moments that made me tense up and the ones that let me relax. He seemed to pick up on all of them effortlessly and at a speed I’d never encountered before. My own family had taken years to notice some of what they’d deemed my ‘quirks.’ Like the way I struggled to regulate my body temperature, so as a kid I’d always been complaining about being too hot or too cold. My inability to eat certain foods based on texture. How sensitive I was to overlapping noises, which, living in a house with so many other people, had been an unavoidable daily occurrence.

I’d just been called a picky eater, the spoiled youngest child, an oversensitive baby. I definitely wouldn’t have referred to myself as ‘spoiled’ in any shape or form. I’d probably had more freedom than some of my older siblings, yeah, but only because Mom and Dad had been so drained by the time I’d come along that they simply hadn’t had the energy to parent me properly.

None of that had made me feel particularly good about the things that were out of my control. I’d grown up feeling kind of like a burden to my own family—the fussy, sensitive youngest kid who just made things more difficult for an already struggling family. I still carried that guilt, which was why I wasn’t particularly close to my family anymore. I’d just figured it was easier for them if I wasn’t around as much.

But Klaus never treated any of my ‘quirks’ as burdens, as things to get irritated by, as hurdles we had to overcome for our burgeoning relationship to progress. In fact, he told me often how much he loved those things about me; how they made me me. On our last date, he’d told me how much he admired me for knowing myself so well, for knowing my boundaries and sticking to them, for having strong preferences and aversions.

“You’d be surprised by how few people have such a strong sense of self,” he’d told me over dinner. He’d said the words almost casually, through a mouthful of Basque cheesecake, as if he wasn’t completely shifting my own view of myself and the aspects of my personality that had always felt like weaknesses to me, not strengths. “So many people go through life being led one way or another, never really developing their own core identity. I think that’s pretty sad. Imagine not having any passions, any strong opinions at all. What’s the point? None of us are here for very long—well, except vampires—so why wouldn’t you make every effort to make your life exactly how you want it? I think boundaries are great. I haven’t had enough of them in the past. I admire you so much, Brian. You know exactly who you are.”

The words had almost made me cry. My eyes had been burning, and I’d had to look down at our dessert for a few long seconds after he’d finished talking to get a hold of myself. I’d never really felt that way at all—especially not about knowing exactly who I was. I’d always felt the opposite—that I was always hiding behind one mask or another: B. Were, Fenrir, my human skin when I had to go out in public.

But Klaus’s words had made me start to shift how I thought about myself. Maybe I hid parts of who I was in public, but maybe knowing I did that meant I did know myself better than others. Maybe that meant I was more self-aware. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.

Maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with me. Because Klaus never, ever made me feel like there was something wrong with me. He made me feel like all those things about me were actually things to be celebrated, because they made me who I was, and he liked who I was. He liked me. He wanted to know me.

Some days, it took all my effort not to fall to my knees and beg him to love me forever, to thank him endlessly for seeing me that way, to worship him for being so kind and non-judgemental and understanding.

I hoped I managed to be even half as thoughtful as he was. I really fucking tried. I painstakingly memorised everything I could about him—his likes and dislikes, the desserts he tended to pick, the drinks he seemed to gravitate toward, the little passing comments where he mentioned how much he loved nineties romcoms and sandwiches with brie in them and tiny, angry chihuahuas. Klaus was a naturally positive person, which I loved, so there weren’t too many instances of him expressing his dislike for something, but I knew he hated boiled carrots and found hospital drama shows too stressful to watch.

I knew that things like small talk and meeting new people and unexpected deviations in plans didn’t stress him out. They were, for the most part, effortless for him—he just took it in stride or adapted without much thought. I knew he got uncomfortable if someone leered at him in public, but he never showed it. I knew that because he’d told me so, not because I just let it happen. If I ever saw someone ogling him disrespectfully, I stared them down with what Klaus affectionately called my ‘ice bitch’ face until they paled and looked away. It never took very long.

I also knew that really pretty sunsets could make him emotional, that he wanted to travel someday, that he thought red roses were the most romantic flower, that he loved the smell of fresh tomatoes on the vine, that he and Nat affectionately called each other ‘mouse’ and ‘cat’ because they found it funny. I knew what foods he hadn’t tried yet, what tattoos he wanted to get but hadn’t, what horror movies he’d never watched because he knew he’d be too scared.

I tried my best to remember all of it, because I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to make sure I always got it right. That I got him the flowers he wanted, the surprise takeout he’d enjoy, the exact candy bar that was his favourite if I spotted it on my way to see him.

So yeah, I was really, really nervous about meeting Nat. Because if Klaus’s best friend didn’t like me… well, I had no idea what would happen. I didn’t think Klaus would just ditch me. He knew his own mind far too well to be that easily swayed by someone else’s opinion.

But still…