Brazen by Jordan Castillo Price

Author:Jordan Castillo Price [Price, Jordan Castillo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: m/m
Published: 2009-06-28T10:19:10+00:00

Chapter SixMy half-crushed pack of Marlboros was lying on top of a tangle of red plaid. I tossed Damien's pants at him. He didn't bother to move out of the way and they nailed him in the face. “C'mon. Let's get some air."

If Michael wondered what I wanted to say to Damien, the exhaustion of shooting his wad superceded that curiosity. He was out for the count when Damien crawled out the back of the van. I followed, barefoot, in my jeans and Michael's Bauhaus T-shirt, the first clothes I'd pulled from the pile.

We unfurled ourselves into the parking lot. The fresh black asphalt was just losing its day-warmth, with bright yellow parking lines divvying up the property so that the faithful could accurately corral their sensible sedans before they suffered through a homily.

I counted the number of parking spots between me and the church and estimated the distance, and decided that the steeple was too far away to impale me with its cross if it chose that particular moment to fall. Probably.

Damien fiddled with a buckle on his pants that wouldn't lay flat. “Seriously, I didn't mean to ... I mean, I ate beforehand and everything, so I don't know why..."

"Shut up,” I said calmly. I found an unbroken cigarette, lit it, handed it to him. He took it and stared at it. I found another one, only slightly bent, and lit it for myself.

"It was the heat of the moment,” I said. I took a deep drag, watched the vapor trail stretch against the indigo sky as I exhaled. “And still, you didn't even hit a vein. I'm guessing Michael got a bigger charge out of the bite than you did."

Damien took a drag off the smoke, didn't inhale, and blew it out. He scowled at the filter and somehow paled even further. “I don't actually eat while I'm in bed with someone. I mean, I couldn't. That's how I...” His magic fingers moved to his throat. Maybe I saw some silvery traces of scarring there. Or maybe it was a trick of the moonlight.

I sucked down my cigarette in a few good drags that singed the bottoms of my lungs, and watched the smoldering butt roll away after I dropped it and realized I wasn't about to stamp it out without my boots on. Then I took the cigarette Damien wasn't really smoking, and finished that, too.

"It was just a taste,” he said. “That's all. I got it in my head that he might taste different, you know, ‘cos he's a Renfield."

"It might do you good to purge that word from your vocabulary. It's not exactly flattering."

"But that's what everybody calls them."

And if everybody jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too? I took a moment to gather my thoughts, and decided not to channel my mother, God rest her soul. “Suit yourself,” I said. And I dug through the pack to see how many of the other cigarettes I could salvage.

Damien shoved a cell phone under my nose while I was busy picking through the strands of tobacco.

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