Eternally Blue (Sunset Cliffs Vampire #1) (Paranormal Teen Romance) (9 page)

He looked at his watch and shook his head, but looked truly disappointed when he said “No, I have to pick my brother up from work soon”.

“
He hasn't gotten his car back yet?” Sue frowned, “I’m sure that will be a great relief to you when he does. Well we’ll have you over for dinner another night, just come on over when you’re hungry” she laughed.

He smiled at us both and turned to walk to the door. I followed him to the foyer watching him while he sat on the bottom step and slid his feet into his flip flops. “Thank you for everything” I more whispered than spoke. He didn't respond, which made me wonder if he heard me, until he stood, and half smiled at me sadly while brushing my hair off of my bruise. If it hadn’t been so sensitive at the moment I doubt I would have felt his thumb slide across its surface. What was upsetting him? My heart was hurting from just his expression; my body was reacting to his body language, at the slump in his shoulders, but I still just looked up at him while he looked at my bruise, as if willing it to go away. Which was the same thing I was doing since it was hideous by now I’m sure. I groaned at the thought of going to school like that tomorrow. He smiled and as if I had said it out loud, he said loudly, “I’m sure this is good for a day off school, right Mrs. Lacey?” She answered from the living room. “Hrmm? Oh yes dear, I’m sure it is”.

He grinned and winked at me, then leaned in to whisper “Parents, always listening”.

I stifled a giggle, and with a happier smile, he squeezed something in my hand and said goodnight and I was left in the doorway watching him walk to his car. I looked down to see what he’d placed there and it was my necklace I had been given that had my name on it. I frowned and instinctively touched my neck to where my necklace was obviously now missing from. How did he end up with it? It must have fallen off at the beach. I shrugged it off and got ready for bed, in no mood to eat.

The next morning I was woken up by the smell of breakfast and a pounding headache. Which was good because I was starving but which was bad because it meant my embarrassing near drowning was not a dream. Mmm, at least I didn't have to go to school today. I got up to assess the damage in the mirror and scowled. What was a big red lump yesterday had now become a big bluish lump. I rolled my eyes at my reflection and went in the direction of the food I smelled. I guess Stacey’s dad Rick hadn’t gone to sleep yet from his night shift, or had the day off because someone was cooking and Stacey had already left for school and a glance out the window at the driveway told me Sue had left for work too.

I was walking towards the sound of sizzling bacon, yawning, when I almost choked. Have you ever been surprised mid-yawn? It’s quite startling to your system. Once I recovered from my ruined yawn, I looked angrily at a smiling Noah. Then I looked around the neighboring rooms in alarm for my family. No sign of them. “What are you doing in my kitchen?” I asked indignantly. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“
Well that’s no way to greet a hero” Noah said, still smiling and pulling plates and silverware out of drawers better than I could have hoped to in this kitchen.

I sat down tiredly in one of the chairs and thought back to my image of myself in my mirror upstairs. Shudder; I needed a shower bad. He came over and inspected my head wound and announced, “You’ll live!” before putting two plates down, and taking the seat next to me.

I managed the longest saddest sigh ever while staring dejectedly at the plate of bacon.

“
Are you done” Noah asked pointedly.

I looked at the absurd situation I was, and couldn’t help my laugh. Even when I honestly believed I was going to become a human, and dreamed of meeting a normal, nice guy, without any of my society’s drama, I couldn’t have imagined this moment. I was sitting in a gorgeous kitchen, with light filtering in through the windows, with my illegally hot neighbor sitting across from me, actually caring. I grinned at him, nodding. “Yeah Noah, I’m great, this breakfast is great, thank you.”

“
Don’t thank me yet, you haven’t tasted it.” He took a bite of bacon and mimed choking, his eyes bulging, hands scrabbling at the table.

“
Wow, that’s pretty realistic” I laughed, “I’m not sure if I want to try it now, maybe I should just get some cereal”. I started to stand and he grabbed my hand with one of his and my chair with his other hand, pulling me to him.

“
Don’t you dare,” he growled. I gasped quietly at our closeness, and the playful look went out of his eyes, so close to mine. I felt like he was trying to look into my soul, and we were so close I could feel his breath on my face. Slowly, I licked my lips, the rest of my body was frozen, waiting for him to close the gap and kiss me. He leaned in, his lips whispering against mine faintly, “Is this ok?”

I nodded slightly, slowly in response, and he caught my lips with his, kissing me until I felt dizzy. He pulled my chair even closer to his, and when that wasn’t close enough, he pulled me around the waist until I was halfway on my chair and halfway on his and there was no space between us. I managed to sigh into his mouth as his hand moved from my waist down to the top of my thigh, and he suddenly pulled away. We looked at each other panting for a minute, I was on cloud nine. I had my first kiss as an immortal, and whoever said my senses were dulled now, were mistaken, or had never been kissed like that, because I felt like every nerve ending in my body was charged with static electricity, waiting for him to touch me again so that I could react.

I made myself calm down enough to wonder what he was thinking, why he pulled away. He raked his fingers through his hair, and exhaled loudly at the ceiling before turning to smile sweetly at me, and reached for my hand, covering it with both of his, giving me a hand sandwich, I thought surreally.

“
I really like you” he said softly, looking at me, “but I definitely want to take it slow, and get to know you”. He laughed, “I think we both need to get to know you”.

I winced slightly. I felt so bad about lying to him about me; I just wanted to stay here with him in this life forever, and wondered briefly if I did that, if I made that decision, could I never tell him who I was before? I nodded though since he was waiting for a response, and added my free hand to the hand sandwich, squeezing his, “I’d like that too”.

If I thought the kiss he gave me was dizzying earlier, it had nothing on the smile we shared with our hands clasped now. I wanted to cry with both happiness at my luck, and sadness at the fact that I was already lying to him and he was looking at me so earnestly.

We managed to tear ourselves away from each other long enough to eat and he caught me up on our day’s plan which was to go to a bookstore for the rest of the morning, and drink coffee and browse. According to him, if there was a place to find myself, it would be in bookshelves. He reasoned that either I would be attracted to a section that I liked pre –amnesia, or maybe a fictional cover would bring about some past memory. The afternoon was reserved for reading one of our new purchases on the beach, where our friends would be sure to join us after school. All of this was to take place after he released me from dish duty to go take a shower and get ready. I almost fell up the stairs in my hurry, I was so excited. It felt good to do normal things, and let someone else decide what I was going to do for the day. If only someone else would pick out my clothes, I thought standing in front of my now respectably full closet. Who am I kidding, I love picking out clothes, especially now that I can see them in a new light, literally.

I picked out a pair of strategically shredded jeans and pair it with a cream tank top. As an afterthought I added a yellow cardigan because Noah said they keep bookstores on the chilly side. I am noticing a pattern with my choosing yellow colors, I guess because I now love the sun so much, or maybe my tanning skin just looks good offset by yellow? Whatever it is, I don’t care, yellow can make up my whole wardrobe and be my signature color, and at least getting dressed will be easy. I see soft yellow fabrics and I just want to sigh was happiness.

Taking a last look in the mirror, I tuck my hair behind my ears and notice for the first time, my lack of earrings. No born vamps that I know of wear earrings because of course our bodies reject the holes. Some made vamps do of course, if they had their ears pierced before they were changed. I grin at myself and my great idea and bound downstairs.

Noah swiveled on the couch to look at me with wide eyes, “Are there buffalo’s stampeding in here?! Oh, Blue, it’s just you, thank goodness”. He flashes me that dangerous smile.

“
I want to get my ears pierced today”.

“
Are you sure about that?” He looks slightly thrown.

“
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know much about myself but I know I want earrings, and I need to do it before I chicken out”.

“
O.K well, I” He blows air out of his mouth and starts tapping his foot against the ground nervously in thought. “Well, I can’t make any promises since we don’t have any I.D for you, but hopefully they won’t card you, I mean they pierce 13 year olds these days, but let’s try it and see”.

That was how we end up at Claire’s in the mall, conveniently located near the bookstore we would be going to immediately following my piercing, barring any unforeseen ear piercing deaths or hospitalizations. The piercer was pretty pierced herself, though the sign on the piercing station said they only pierce ears. She had exactly 13 piercings that I could see, and two of them were connected together by a bar. It was however, in her ear so I wasn’t sure if that was something Claire’s offered. She seemed rather sluggish and considering it was only 10 A.M, (we got there right as they opened) I wasn’t sure if she should be piercing me in her sleepy state. She confirmed my fear by saying “We don’t usually get people wanting piercings this early” as she swapped my ears with a cold cleaning solution.

I looked wide eyed in terror at Noah, who returned my look. He looked just as scared as I was. I quickly checked his ears for holes and saw none, so maybe he was just hypothetically scared for me, or reasonably scared of our lackluster piercing specialist.

Using a rather wicked looking gun, yes it was actually called a gun what she put up to my ear to poke a hole in it with, she quickly poked, or shot really, a hole in either ear. It was over in a pinch and in seconds I was holding a mirror up to myself admiring my red and tender ears with their tiny gold studs. They weren’t exactly what I was imagining but they were free with ear piercing and even if I was willing to pay for fancier ones, they wouldn’t be too grand because you have to select from a special few for the first 6 weeks to make sure your ears don’t puss and scab all over them and kill you from cheap metals or something like that according to my piercer.

The holes looked relatively straight so I tore my eyes away from my mirror to look at Noah for approval. “Well?”

He looked pretty sick. He was covering his mouth and nose with his hands and he was bent over at the waist and standing apart from the piercing station. I looked in alarm at my piercer and glanced at him and only shrugged while continuing to clean up the tabletop of the piercing station. “Lots of guys, or people in general can’t handle the sight of being pierced, he should be ok in a minute”.

I hopped off my high stool and walked over, putting my hand on his back, and bent over to get eye level with him, letting blood rush to my ears, making them throb. “You ok?” I asked, rubbing his back.

He pulled away from me, and stood. He took his hand away from his face and sniffed the air. His brow furrowed and that is when I got alarmed. Do I stink? Do I not smell like other human’s? Do I not bleed red? I rushed over to the mirror to check my ears for any sign of blood. It looked ok and if my red ears were any indication, if any blood were to be spilled, it would probably be red.

I looked back to him but he seemed to have recovered himself, smiling at me. “Are you pleased with them?”

I grinned; relieved he was ok and nodded. “Oh yes! Thank you so much for bringing me! I love them!”

“
I think you would look great in some diamonds” he said with a teasing look in his eyes, “Maybe when you can get your training ears off I can bring you to a different type of jewelry store in the mall for an upgrade”.

I flushed, embarrassed and looked at my feet, mumbling “you don’t have to do that”.

“
How do these things work? Let me see the backs, does it hurt when I touch your ear?”

I stood very still and whispered that no it didn’t hurt, and let him check out the backs of my earrings. He sucked in his breathe quietly and let go.

“
What?” I asked, alarmed.

“
Nothing, nothing, they just look painful that’s all. Are you ready for some bookstore therapy?”

We grabbed some decadent hot chocolate at the bookstore café, Noah said coffee was later but that right now I needed the sugar to restore my blood sugar after my piercing and proceeded to explain the science behind that reasoning in line and zzzz. I just bored myself to sleep there for a second, sorry.