Page 21 of Mytho Investigations: Side Stories

Mason rolled over to face him, and Vlash mirrored him. There were only a couple of inches between their faces. “I wouldn’t mind you fucking me if you wanted.”

The moment the words left his lips, he realized it was the wrong thing to say.

The heat in Vlash’s eyes shattered. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“How do you mean?”

Vlash was silent for several heartbeats. “If I fuck you, then my wife is no longer the last person…”

“Oh.” It was kind of messed up because they were having sex, but Mason could understand what Vlash meant.

Vlash cupped Mason's jaw. “That’s not to say I haven’t thought about it, though from what you said the other night, I didn’t think you’d want to so soon.”

“I can’t remember most of what I said the other night.” He wished he hadn’t been so drunk, but without the false bravery of the mead, he wouldn’t have even given it a chance. “How much do you remember?”

Vlash pressed his lips together as if thinking. “Not everything, that’s for sure.”

“Should we try to patch the gaps or something?” he wasn’t sure what he was asking, only that he wanted more.

“Is that your way of asking to get to know me?” Vlash frowned.

“Is it too much if that’s what I want?”

“Is it too little if I say I don’t know?”

Mason shook his head. “I ended my engagement three weeks ago. I’m not ready to date, but I am enjoying this—whatever this is.”

And he didn’t want to push and press in part because he wasn’t ready to date an elf, and it wasn’t because he was mytho. It was that Vlash was literally centuries old from another world. Where did he even start with trying to find things they had in common aside from sex?

Vlash gave a single nod. “I am, too.”

“So how old are you?”

“Two hundred and sixty-six.”

“So ten years isn’t very long to you? How long do you live?”

Pain flickered over Vlash’s face. “It’s a lifetime and also a blink. I blinked, and my little boy is now an adult. But other times, the loss of my wife and daughter sometimes feels like yesterday. It’s as if I was a different person and that life and love happened to someone else and I read about it, and that’s the bit that hurts more.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said. “I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”

“Everything that happened during and after the collapse was painful. And I’m not the same man I was before or even the same man I was five years ago, but I don’t want to remain the man I am today.”

“Why is that?” This felt like a deep conversation. Was this the crying into mead part?

Vlash was silent as he watched Mason. He took several breaths before speaking. “Because he’s cold, aloof, and alone. It was easy to hide behind my job, and I convinced myself that’s who I needed to be to survive so others could survive. I need a distance from my men to remain in command. To other mythos, I procure what they need. I run the general store. To my son, I am a bastard who won’t let him live his life.”

Mason laughed. “I think all adult kids feel that way at some point. I know I did.”

“And who are you, Mason, Jordan’s friend?”

Mason drew in a breath. “I’m a dentist. I have my own practice. I look a lot smarter than I am because I didn’t end my relationship with Bud when he first started waving red flags at me. I didn’t want to be thirty and single. Which probably sounds quite stupid to you.”

Vlash smiled. “Elves are not considered adults until they turn thirty.”

“Well, for humans, thirty years is like a third of the way through our lives if we’re lucky. My father died when he was forty-five. In ten years, I’ll be his age, and that’s a little terrifying.”

“How old were you when he died?”