Page 85 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“Yes.”

I stare at him for another second.

“How does it work?”

“The invitation has to be genuine. It must come from someone who has a right to offer it. Once given, it remains unless it is withdrawn.”

My brain goes backwards through the last few weeks so fast it practically leaves skid marks. The storm. Julian standing on my porch, soaked through, the wind trying to rip the shutter off the house. Let me in, Penny. Before your door does the same thing as the trellis.

“You couldn’t come inside.”

“Not until you invited me.”

“You said, ‘Let me in.’”

“Yes.”

“You were asking me to invite you.”

“I was asking you to let me in.”

“That is the most Julian answer you could possibly have given.”

His mouth moves, and I point at him.

“This. Again. Still working on it.”

“I am beginning to understand the scope of the project.”

I remember stepping aside and telling him to come in without thinking about it at all. And then I remember Tuesday night.

“You can come in now.”

“Yes.”

“Whenever you want.”

“As long as the invitation stands.”

I don’t know why that does something to me, but it absolutely does.

“I’m not taking it back.”

Julian looks at me, and the humor disappears from his face so quietly that it takes mine with it.

“I know,” he says.

And suddenly I understand something else. The engraved card in October. The empty chair. You invited me. The way he said it as if it explained everything.

“You really care about being invited.”

Julian is silent long enough that I think he may give me another exact answer. Then he doesn’t.

“More than I probably should.”

I look at this ridiculous man. This ancient, impossible man who can hear my heart from the driveway and lift furniture one-handed and remember the name of a child who died in 1809. A man who has spent centuries quietly keeping pieces of a town alive while repeatedly removing himself from its memory. And I hold out my arms.

“Come here.”