Page 91 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“I telephoned the Rusty Kettle and asked what a person eats on a boat at night.”

“You called Bess.”

“She was extremely helpful.”

“Julian, Bess Kelleher is behind the bar at the Lantern by six, and Harriet Coyne sits at the table nearest it because of the draft.” I unscrew the thermos. Chowder, hot enough to steam in the December air. “By tomorrow this entire town will know you took me out on a boat.”

“Yes.”

“You knew that when you called.”

“I did.”

There it is again. Something handed over without being asked, in a completely level voice, by a man who spent four hundred years making sure his name wasn’t on anything.

The boat rocks gently beneath us. The bell tolls again out on the ledge. I drink the chowder. It’s Bess’s, so it has too much pepper and is exactly right. Julian sits with his back against the wooden rim of the cockpit and his long legs taking up most of the available world, watching me eat.

“Does it bother you?” I ask. “Watching?”

“No.”

“Honestly?”

He considers the question. “Not the food. I remember food the way you remember a room you were in as a child. I remember the feeling but not the details. I couldn’t tell you what pepper tastes like now.” He tips his head towards my cup. “What I like is the noise you make when something is good. You have made it four times.”

“I have not.”

“Five.”

I look at him, and the words are out before my mind catches up with my tongue.

“I want you to feed from me.”

“No,” Julian says.

It is not a considered no. It’s out of him before I have quite finished the sentence, fast and flat, and my whole face goes hot. For one awful second a wave of humiliation rushes over me, and then I actually look at him.

He has gone completely rigid. Both hands are clenched on his knees and he is staring at something over my left shoulder as though the Atlantic has suddenly produced an urgent administrative problem.

This is not a man declining.

“Oh,” I say slowly. “That was fast.”

“Penny.”

“That was very fast.”

“I am aware.”

I set the cup down on the cockpit floor so I don’t end up wearing it. “How long have you been thinking about it?”

He doesn’t answer for five seconds, which for Julian is a long argument.

“Since you asked me what it feels like. Monday night.” His jaw moves. “I have thought about almost nothing else.”

“Monday. And you didn’t say anything?”

“No.”