Page 36 of Fangs with Benefits

‘May I join you?’

Molly scootches over on the balcony, giving me room to join her. The space isn’t very large, but sitting we can see through the gaps in the wrought-iron railing to the street below. Across the street, there’s a corner store, a burger restaurant, a dry cleaner, and rows of apartment windows lit up, revealing the people inside.

I sit across from Molly, my legs too long to fit in the small space without our bodies touching. My ankle presses against her shin, my other foot brushing her hip through the quilt.

We sit in the relative quiet for a moment.

Even at night, the city is still so loud. It’s nothing like the evenings I would sit outside the estate, when the hum was of insects and creatures, my wind chime singing with the breeze, not the mechanical noise of the city.

‘Your friend is nice,’ she says. ‘I like him.’

‘Me too,’ I agree. ‘He’s done a lot for me.’

‘Small world that he works with Luke,’ she remarks casually. It reminds me of what Luke said, about how she was close to marrying his brother, only for his brother to mess it up. ‘And my ex fiancé.’

Sitting with her, little blonde curls lit up orange from the string lights inside Devi’s bedroom window, I’ve never been so thankful for the idiocy of Luke’s brother and every other person that’s lost her.

‘That’s right. How long’s it been since you and he were together?’

She looks away and stretches her arms in front of her, her shoulders rising briefly to her ears before deflating in a huff. ‘Three years now.’

‘Dylan’s mentioned him to me,’ I say. Molly raises her eyebrows. ‘Said that he, what was it? Sucks ass?’

Molly’s eyes light up with a surprised laugh.

‘He does! He totally sucks,’ she agrees. It feels good to sit with her like this, the night air cold enough to create white puffs in front of her face when she laughs.

‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Or maybe sorry that he… sucked.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Molly chews on her upper lip for a moment then shrugs. ‘He–Matt is his name, Matty–he said he would probably never be cut out for monogamy and insisted it shouldn’t be such an issue, but I just…’ Molly pulls the blanket up over her shoulders again and exhales. ‘I grew up watching and reading all these great love stories. Every Sunday we would watch a movie as a family, usually a rom-com, and I fell in love with storytelling and with love. I wanted that for me.’

Molly is impossible to look away from; radiant in a way that is as propulsive as it is maddening. Like if I look away from her, she’ll disappear.

‘It’s reasonable to want that for yourself. And not so impossible to find.’

‘Love?’ she asks and I nod. ‘You must not be on the apps.’

I laugh, thinking of the horror stories I’ve heard from Dylan about modern dating. But I’ve been alive for almost four centuries and have seen countless people find love in unexpected places. It’s a persistent force, one that often finds the person instead of the other way around, sometimes more than once in a human lifetime.

Love will find Molly. I have no doubt about this.

‘What about you?’ she asks.

‘Do I want love?’ I clarify and she nods. I close my mouth, thinking it through. I’ve had no shortage of loves in my lifetime–short-lived relationships, longer ones, a few decades in the eighteen hundreds when one of my mother’s vampire blind dates went well.

And then, Ada.

She was human and so very alive. Despite the many loves I’d found, I never loved someone quite like I loved Ada. She was a maid for the hotel where I took up residence in the early twentieth century. She had silken brown hair plaited over her shoulder, and she quietly sang out of key while she cleaned at night after the patrons had retired for the evening. When she discovered that I was a vampire, she was not afraid.

I adored her.

My family urged me not to mix with humans more than necessary–it wasn’t safe, it would only lead to heartbreak, it was irresponsible, but I didn’t listen. Couldn’t, not when she was so guileless and funny.

I still wince to think of her fate–how she trusted that we would be together forever, how her transition didn’t take. Not all people are fit to be vampires. Ada didn’t survive the transition. My family was right, and I couldn’t take their pitying looks, the I told yous spat from my brother.

I’ve rotted at my family estate since.

Until now, I suppose. Gregory would probably haul me back home by force, nailing me into a coffin, if he knew how I’m spending my time, who I’m spending it with.