Joe palmed the keyring. It had an odd assortment of keys on it. He wondered if the big iron one actually opened some big iron lock somewhere, or if it was just on there for heft, like a rabbit's foot or a can opener. He'd taken it when he cleaned out Simms' possessions. Evelyn had been unwilling to touch anything, and had told him to burn it all.
"Don't you want a flashlight?" asked Adrian solicitously.
"Don't think we have one," answered Joe. "I can find my way in the dark anyway. I spend enough time here at night. I s'pose you can see in the dark okay?"
"Quite well," said Adrian.
Adrian wondered how Joe and Evelyn got along. She was so cold, it amazed him anyone could love her. And what did she feel for Joe? Was it love, or possession? Adrian couldn't check for bite marks with Joe's collar, and red heads are always so pale.
He followed Joe down the weed-choked path. The boy moved with a certain feline grace; his lankiness didn't translate into awkwardness. Adrian had been so focused on Evelyn that he hadn't really looked at the boy, but he was attractive, in an elfin sort of way. If you could imagine elves over six feet tall.
Joe gave a little chuckle, as if Adrian had said that last bit out loud.
Can you hear me? projected Adrian towards the shaggy red hair.
Joe didn't answer, or turn or even slow his pace.
Thou are an addled knave, a cadswallop, I bite my thumb at you! he mentally hollered.
Nothing. Maybe Elizabethan insults were a bit over this boy's head.
Adrian decided to let his libido talk. I want to fuck you, boy.
Joe's step faltered.
"Careful," he muttered, half-turning and pointing to something on the ground.
Adrian wasn't sure if it was a loose paving block or his thoughts. If he could hear, why didn't he answer? Why didn't he say anything?
"It's awfully... neglected out here," he said aloud.
"Evelyn likes it this way," said Joe over his shoulder. "Sort of gothic and wild."
"Well, wild anyway..." muttered Adrian. It didn't seem to fit with her well-mannered, icy deportment.
A light at the cottage came on as they stepped up on the porch. Adrian saw motion sensors mounted above the steps. The door squealed in protest as Joe opened it.
The air was musty, and the lights, as Joe turned them on, were laced with cobwebs.
"Here's the piano!"
"It was Simms' -- well, he used to play it a lot. That's why Evelyn doesn't want it in the house," explained Joe. He left finger tracks in the dust. "Been a while since anyone was in here."
"How nice," answered Adrian. He had insisted on staying, hadn't he? He could be comfortably lying in a motel bed instead of folded up in a trunk today.
By standing on tiptoe Joe could reach and unlock the small padlock on the attic trap door in the hall ceiling. He pulled down on a handle and a steep stair unfolded to the floor.
"That's convenient," commented Adrian, but really he was watching the way Joe's jeans pulled when he stretched up.
"After you."
Adrian climbed up the ladder. Well, he'd holed up in worse places. There was no floor, except for a sheet of plywood that had been laid over the joists next to the trap door. Everything else was cotton-candy tufts of insulation -- floor and roof.
As Joe stood on the ladder, half way though the hole to unlock the trunk, he gently probed the boy's mind, being careful not to transmit anything himself. All he got was mental noise, a jumble of images and words, like several TVs being channel surfed at once. Joe shook his head like he had a sudden ringing in his ears. He didn't put up any barriers, but maybe he didn't know how.
You're very attractive, said Adrian, and sent a soup of erotic images along with it.
Joe bent his head over his work to avoid eye contact.
"I hope you don't mind sharing -- I mean sleeping with -- I mean sleeping where another vampire used to spend the night -- day," the boy stammered.
"As long as Evelyn isn't going to send you out here during the day to stake me," joked Adrian as Joe climbed up onto the plywood and opened the trunk.
"Prolly not," answered Joe without a hint of laughter. His eyes had left the lock and made it up to Adrian's waist, or thereabouts.
Adrian tried another blast of erotica, and moved a little closer to the boy. Oh, he was definitely receiving the dirty mental pictures.
Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?
"What?" asked Joe.
Adrian raised his eyes to meet Joe's. They were as green as grass in the sunshine. Adrian thought he had forgotten what that looked like.
It was Joe who inclined his head for the kiss, making up the height difference gracefully, but then he was used to kissing a much shorter vampire. Adrian grasped his shirt as Joe's hands gently and firmly slid around his waist.
"Unbutton your shirt," ordered Adrian. There wasn't much time before dawn; wasn't much time before Joe was missed at the house. It was going to have to be short and sweet and Adrian longed to drink this mortal's blood. To taste the same blood Evelyn tasted.
"Wha--? No!" Joe took a step back, nearly off the plywood and into the fiberglass fluff.
"What do you mean, no!?"
"You -- your fangs--" Joe shook his head, and did up the one button he had undone. "I gotta go."
Joe brushed past him and hopped into the trap door, landing neatly on the third rung from the top.
Adrian was too confused to be outraged. A vampire's lover who recoiled from the sight of fangs?
"She'd see the marks," said Joe from the floor below.
'Sblood! thought Adrian, and slammed his mental shutters.
He heard the tumblers click as Joe locked the door on his way out. With a huff of frustration he clambered into the trunk.
Jake was as homophobic as ever; Evelyn was the ice princess; Joe had balked. Maybe he should just resign himself to the fact that he was not going to get laid on this trip. That wasn't what it was all about, anyway.
